A Female What?!

Did they really let a female into the operation room?

Alexa Irene Canady

Sit back and imagine. Your little daughter (let us call her Patricia) needs to have a basic spinal operations in order to fix her birth defect. Simple. You sign the waivers, you kiss her good luck, and wait in the lobby until it is done. All of a sudden, a black, female person makes their way to you in a white coat. They greet you with a radiating smile, congratulating Janice on the successful operation. You still have your mouth dangling in awe. Will you think anything of it? Will you ask for the actual neurosurgeon? Will you think you’re being punked? Well, if you said yes, Alexa Irene Canady just demolished your stereotypes. And saved Patricia’s life.

Alexa Irene Canady is the first American female and first ever African American pediatric neurosurgeon.

The typical epic hero’s journey begins in this plain, boring, and ordinary world. We all start with the same first breath into this world. We all have this same starting point. However, what differentiates the ordinary people of the ordinary world from an epic hero is the hero’s call for adventure. Their call for their help. Thankfully, someone responded.

This is where we will introduce the our hero who will conquer unfair stereotypes towards her race and gender, making a crack in the historical and restricting glass ceiling for African Americans and women. Alexa Irene Canady was born in Lansing, Michigan, during the year 1950. Her childhood consisted of tons of obstacles that had the strong potential to deviate her from studies in school. For example, it could have made her extremely uncomfortable for her brother and herself to be the only two African American students in their school. However, defying the odds, Alexa exited school awarded with a title as a National Achievement Scholar in 1967.

Canady’s parents tombstone

This great start in her studies comes from her strong foundation. Her father was successfully practicing dentistry in their hometown, and her mother had been actively involved in civic affairs for a numerous amount of years. With such a fortunate set of parents who were well educated, Alexa Irene Canady, our epic hero, had the background to becoming anything she desired.

Love between patient and doctor.

From here on, Canady had a winning streak of academic and social successes that differentiated her from her peers. After enrolling into University of Michigan’s class of 1971, it was during her junior year where she attended a summer internship and fell in love with her future career. This plays as the hero’s call for adventure. She loved medicine, something she knew would help people on a daily basis. Because she found interest in the field and could have seen herself being successful, she went on this journey.

Alexa Irene Canady

Another part of our hero’s journey includes a refusal to call. This means something tried to stop them from doing what they wanted to do. For some people, this is the devil. For others, this is simply a tragedy in their life that delays their plans. For Canady, her confidence is what almost made her drop out of college during her undergraduate year. At this particular time, Canady was a mathematics major. However, she heard about a scholarship she could receive in the field of medicine, so that was what sparked a drive for education in Canady and she later pursued her degree in zoology.

“The greatest challenge I faced in becoming a neurosurgeon was believing it was possible.”

Alexa Irene Canady

Every Trojan Hero faces challenges along their journey where they have a high chance of giving up. Canady’s challenges obviously never succeeded in stopping her untouchable record of achievements since she achieved her goal to become the first female and black neurosurgeon. However, that does not mean the obstacles did not hurt her or distract her from her goals. Canady was able to get ahold of an internship at Yale’s New Hane Hospital in 1975. It was at this internship when Canady was referred to as “the new equal-opportunity package.” A person can only imagine her response to this white male who thought he knew everything about her just by her skin. Since Canady was fortunate enough to grow up during the time where feminism was emphasized more than ever and allowed new highly ranked jobs to be held by women, Canady was seen as more of a pathetic symbol of the changing times instead of a black woman who worked her way up from a small town in Michigan to Yale. This did not stop our hero. Her stellar grades and recognition spoke louder than their harsh words.

What was your biggest obstacle?

Convincing the neurosurgery chairman that I was not a risk to drop out or be fired, a disaster in a program where there are only one or two residents per year. I was the first African American woman [in the department]. Along with that, my other greatest obstacle was convincing myself that someone would give me a chance to work as a neurosurgeon.

She returned to the University of Michigan in order to complete her residency in neurology, only needing five years to complete it, the average neurosurgeon requiring seven.

In the end, Alexa Irene Canady became a resounding neurosurgeon, well known across the nation. Our Trojan Hero has contributed back to her ordinary world by performing the toughest operations on children. In fact, because Canady was a pediatric neurosurgeon, she willingly received less money compared to other neurosurgeons for adults. However, she knew it was a very demanding but important branch of neuroscience. Today, she still advocates for research in African American health since the field has limited information. After reading about the epic journey of Alexa Irene Canady, what odds will you defy and conquer today?

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Commit to Serve

2017 UGA Freshman College — Service Learning

Tatiana Marie Lim-Tom

Written by

unapologetically breaking stereotypes on a daily basis

Commit to Serve

2017 UGA Freshman College — Service Learning

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