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GREATER
S P R I N G 2 0 18 | 5
For some young people, finding a passion can be
challenging. With every experience or discovery,
indecision mounts.
Then there are students like Tashana Haye. Her life’s mission
struck her like a bolt of lightning.
In 2016, the third-year UF College of Medicine
student traveled to Jamaica, where her parents
grew up, on a medical mission trip with American-
Caribbean Experience. She visited an infirmary
and saw the poor living conditions of those
suffering from schizophrenia and other mental
and physical disabilities.
“I cried after that visit,” she said. “These were my
people, and I didn’t know they were living this way.
That really opened my eyes. I decided then, I want
to live life on a mission. I want to go back to Jamaica
and help my home country. I can serve as a bridge
between the two cultures.”
Haye is pursuing a career in emergency medicine,
a field she hopes will allow her to travel to Jamaica
a few times each year to work in a clinic while
maintaining a practice in the United States.
“That will give me the time in my schedule and
the primary care skills to serve the Jamaican
community,” she said.
Haye’s dreams remain within her grasp in part
due to the Willie J. Sanders Scholarship she received
from the UF College of Medicine. The fund was
established in 2012 in memory of Willie J. Sanders,
the first black faculty member at the UF College of
Medicine. Sanders began working at the UF Health
Science Center in the 1950s as a lab technician. He
worked his way up, serving as associate professor,
director of the UF Health Science Center’s Office of
Minority Affairs and the executive director of the
Anatomical Board of the State of Florida before
retiring in 1989. Sanders passed away in 2010.
Haye calls Sanders a source of inspiration for
students of color.
“Back then, if you were a minority, you probably
felt like you didn’t have a place to go. He created a
place of solace for them,” she said. “Willie Sanders is
an example of a minority overcoming roadblocks to
achieve excellence. I wish he was still alive so I could
meet him.”
Haye attributes her own commitment to
excellence to an appreciation for education
culled from her parents, who moved to the U.S.
from Jamaica.
“My parents didn’t have the same opportunities
I had. My dad would always say, ‘If only I had an
education.’ So, I never took my education for
granted,” she said. “That appreciation continues
today. Even though I get stressed out and burdened
by all the information I need to learn, I still feel lucky.”
Before Haye was a full-time student, she was a
young Hollywood actress, a career twist she said
informs her studies today. At age 12, she landed
a role in the romantic comedy “License to Wed,”
starring Robin Williams, John Krasinski and Mandy
Moore. She also appeared on the family sitcom
“Malcolm in the Middle” and lent her voice to
commercials for the website Fandango.
“I learned to be calm and patient, something I can
use in my clinical experiences,” she said. “No matter
what your patient said, or how shocked you feel by
what you see, you have to keep a cool, collected and
reassuring presence.”
Haye’s journey serves as an example of the power
of perseverance and of pursuing your passions.
“I would encourage everyone to have ‘big, hairy,
audacious goals,’” she said. “They seem impossible,
but step by step, by laying out a plan, you can
achieve them.”
2018 5
PHOTO BY MINDY C. MILLER