Izoduwa Ighodaro moved to the United States from Nigeria with her family when she was just five years old.
Her parents were seeking a better life and hoped to find it in Memphis.
“I suppose its attributed to a desire to experience the American dream and to have greater economic mobility. Nigeria is livable but politically corrupt,” said Ighodaro.
From the beginning, money was tight. With three younger siblings, Ighodaro’s family was economically disadvantaged and lived in a low-income neighborhood. She says the Memphis school her family was zoned for wasn’t the best and resulted in a complex educational journey.
“When we first came to America, we grew up in a very low-income neighborhood. Because of that, the school there reflected that, so I wasn’t getting the best education. I struggled more in my deficiencies like math. In those things I didn’t prosper because I didn’t have the resources to help them prosper,” said Ighodaro.
Those challenges convinced Ighodaro’s mother to apply for the Memphis-Shelby County Schools Optional Program. It allowed Ighodaro to attend a school outside her zoned school and enroll in Germantown Middle School.
“I think that’s really when my love for learning and my capability to do better really started to flourish. And even coming to Germantown, it’s obviously not the whole entire best in Memphis, but I really do think the opportunities are so much more.”
Ighodaro’s love for learning continued to expand when she utilized the district’s Optional Program to enroll in Germantown High School and take part in its International Baccalaureate (IB) Program. While there, she founded several clubs that focus on cultural awareness and giving back to the community.
The Germantown senior has a very personal reason to support both.
Ighodaro’s mother had to start over as a practicing physician when the family moved to the United States. Making matters more challenging, she says her mother’s abilities were often belittled and ignored because of her ethnicity.
“I’ve seen just in medical space her competency is often ignored and her words are belittled because she’s Nigerian.”
That experience, along with her own experiences being brushed aside for her ethnicity, led Ighodaro to create her own path working to close the cultural literacy gap in medicine. She’ll be attending Vanderbilt University in the fall and plans to double major in Molecular Biology and Spanish, seeking to become a culturally literate medical doctor.
Using her own experiences, Ighodaro says she wants to communicate with a diverse number of patients and give people more opportunities to directly connect and relate with their doctor through language.
“Cultural literacy and medicine is something that is a smaller part of the more socially or anthropologically-related side of medicine that isn’t really talked about a lot, especially in America,” said Ighodaro. “And living in the U.S. and learning the experiences of those in the Hispanic community, Spanish is one of the largest growing languages in the United States, second to English only, and yet still so any of them still aren’t able to communicate effectively with their doctors. I think I can be part of that change.”
Ighodaro’s story and mission recently helped earn her the honor of being the first Choice Champions College Scholarship Grand Prize winner.
The organization Tennesseans for Student Success created the scholarship to celebrate six students attending a school of choice (public charter, magnet, or optional) who are seeking higher education opportunities. Five Tennessee students won the $1,000 prize and Ighodaro received the $5,000 grand prize. The Tennessee Firefly receives funding from Tennesseans for Student Success.
Ighodaro’s passion for science, medicine, and desire to make a change set her apart. The Germantown senior’s Choice Champions Scholarship essay included an excerpt from the Nobel Prize acceptance speech that she hopes to one day make a reality, along with her goal to be a doctor that shows empathy to patients.
She sees herself in an embroidered white coat, making a difference.
“I have always dreamed of the idea of doing the impossible. Though, I recognize the difficulty of my words. On a smaller scale, I, above all, simply aim to be a doctor that shows all patients empathy,” wrote Ighodaro in her essay. “No matter how miniscule, my passion lies in making a mark in my world.”
