CHRISTIAN ARBELAEZ, M.D.
CHRISTIAN ARBELAEZ, M.D.
OVERCOMING EARLY LANGUAGE CHALLENGES
Dr. Christian Arbelaez didn’t allow language barriers as a
youth stop him from becoming a successful doctor as an adult.
When Christian Arbelaez was just 10 years old, he and his family came to the
United States from Colombia with no English skills – and little more than the
clothes on their backs. In addition to the bleak economic picture facing the
family, U.S. schools posed their own special challenges for Arbelaez.
“For my elementary school homework assignments, I would just copy the
questions because I didn’t understand what I was writing,” Arbelaez said. “Early
in high school, my assistant principal told me flat out that I wouldn’t amount
to anything. Some encouragement!”
The principal was wrong. Dr. Arbelaez, 32, now teaches emergency medicine at
the Harvard Medical School and is an attending physician at Brigham and Women’s
Hospital in Boston. His experiences growing up as a minority and an immigrant
led Arbelaez to become a respected national advocate for minority access to
medical care.
“I bring a different perspective to medicine than most of my colleagues who
are white,” he said, “and it is a needed perspective.”
Preparing for the MCAT
His biggest challenge in becoming a doctor was learning English well enough
to not only pass college courses, but do well on the MCAT and U.S. Medical
Licensing Examination (USMLE).
“I always felt like I was playing catch-up because of the language,” he said.
“I was most worried about the MCAT, but I did all my preparation work for it and
basically studied my butt off.”
But not hard enough, according to his prehealth advisor, who told Arbelaez
his MCAT score was too low for medical school admission.
“I felt like I had done well, but I didn’t get the same reaction from her,”
Arbelaez said.
Applying to Medical School
Arbelaez forged ahead and applied to five medical schools in Texas. The
prehealth advisor even supplied a letter of recommendation, despite her doubts.
Arbelaez received just one letter of acceptance, which came from the University
of Texas, Galveston.
Looking back, Arbelaez concedes the advisor may have been correct to view his
scores as borderline, but wishes she had been more encouraging.
The lesson, he says, is to forge ahead if you have a realistic hope of
success.
“Looking back, she may have been right that my score wasn’t the best, but
what if I had taken the MCAT again and scored lower. My confidence would have
been destroyed,” Arbelaez said.
During medical school, Arbelaez married his wife Diane and had the first of
his three children, Christian Alexander, now 8.
Balancing Work and Life
Arbelaez says that balancing his work load with a family was more difficult
when he was in medical school and on frequent surgery rotations during
residency. “Now as a faculty member, I work and I come home for dinner, which is
great because I love my family very much.”
But now that he teaches at Harvard, he enjoys more free time. “I learned
there is light at the end of the tunnel.”