“It is not the kids who need to change; it is the system that needs to change.”

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Since she was a little girl creating plays for all of her friends to perform in, Dr. Yamicia Connor has always been the type to go above and beyond. Especially if it makes people’s lives a little bit better.

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She knew she wanted to be a doctor, but at some point in high school she realized that she didn’t actually know what doctors did. After landing a spot in a coveted program that brought students to MIT, a whole new world of possibilities opened up. And a whole new goal.

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She discovered the scientific side of medicine, and a few years later, she became a student in that same program that inspired her.

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Soon, she was asked to begin tutoring other students who could one day follow in her footsteps. True to her nature, this wasn’t quite good enough. There was more need than she could fill, and rather than wait for someone else to do it, she created a program to hire and train a full team of tutors to support the kids. All the while, in her own classes, she was learning everything she could about science and medicine.

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By graduate school, a new challenge had caught her attention: women’s health.

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She learned that some cancers specifically impact women’s bodies, and many of these are very poorly studied. That means that the outcomes for the women who develop these cancers are much worse than they could be.

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If she became a doctor, as she’d planned, she could treat the cancers, but would be limited by the lack of knowledge currently available. And if she became a scientist, she might be able to push our understanding forward, but science is slow, and it could take a very long time to see results.

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Neither option was quite good enough on its own. So naturally, she chose both.

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Today, Dr. Connor still goes above and beyond for the people in her life. Whether she’s planning elaborate parties for her friends, continuing to mentor students, filling in the gaps in our knowledge of how women’s cancers work, or helping patients to heal with the best tools available, one goal still drives her:

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Don’t give up until it’s good enough.