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Max Christensen

Ms. Emanuel

Profile Essay

2-5-21

From Baby to Doctor

Jackie Peck was born on April 5, 1994. She was born into a one parent household. She

grew up with a brother, Bobby, who was always in and out of trouble his whole life. Unlike her

brother Peck was always focused on school and loved everything to do with it. Peck always

wanted to be a doctor since she was child.

Peck grew up in the westside district of Omaha. Since her father was never around, her

grandparents helped with everything and her grandpa was a prominent father figure. She went to

grade school at west gate, where she met her best friend Kelsey. Her and Kelsey are still best

friends to this day. She then went to westside middle school and westside for highschool. Peck

said “highschool was the best time of my life”. She got great grades and made many friends. She

fell in love with art and high school and still loves it and pursues it to this day. She said “art gave

me the balance I needed in life between art and science”. In highschool she loved science classes

which really helped her pursue a career in medicine. She graduated highschool in 2012 with

great grades and she was off to St. Louis University.

She went to SLU for 1.5 years and then transferred to Creighton. She transferred to

Creighton because when our great grandma died she came back for her funeral and realized how

much she missed her family, friends, and Omaha in general. At Creighton she majored in studio

art and had a minor in biology. She thinks one of the main reasons she got into medical school

was because she had an art major and that set her apart from the rest of the applicants.
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She always wanted to go to UNMC for medical school and she got accepted. She then

joined the airforce so her schooling would be free. She also gets $2,000 a month for necessities

and she got a $25,000 signing bonus. She will have to do 4, 45 day active tours. She picked

UNMC because they have great facilities, new curriculum, and one of the best schools in the

country. Her first year of med school was a very dramatic change from college and highschool.

By her third year it was better because she started working with actual patients. And her fourth

year was very easy compared to the first three years. COVID has affected med school greatly,

when it started all schools had to send their students home and at this time that is when Peck was

supposed to be picking her specialty. Eventually she picked OBGYN as her specialty. She picked

this because she loves learning about women’s health, loves working with women, and also

wanted to do surgeries. Her third year of med school she saw a baby being born and that was one

of the deciding factors.

When UNMC sent all of their students home, Peck and the rest of the third years did not

like that because they had to pick their specialties. But, lucky for them due to the new different

curriculum UNMC put in, they were already done with their third year schooling unlike all of the

other medical schools in the country. During this time when Peck was mostly in her apartment

she really thought about what her next step would be. She already knew that she wanted to be an

OBGYN but still wasn't sure about where to do her residency. When it came down to it her final

choices for residency were Dayton, Ohio and UNLV. She went and visited both of these hospitals

for 30 days each and eventually ended up picking UNLV. She picked UNLV because she loved

the people there, the climate, region, and city.

In conclusion, Peck has always been a great person and student and has always loved the

idea of becoming a doctor and will do everything to achieve her goal. She wants to become a
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doctor that stays up to date with new medicine, is a good listener, and wants to be a teacher and

role model for furniture residents.