NBA Cheerleader Dances Way to Doctordom
From cheering on Miami Heat to delivering babies
By GREGORY WILSON
Updated 7:15 AM PDT, Fri, Jul 24, 2009
After dancing her way through school, former Miami Heat cheerleader has Fabienne Achille traded in her pom-poms for a stethoscope.
The pretty 28-year-old paid her way through pre-med school at University of Miami by cheering on the likes of Alonzo Mourning, then turned her attention to the grueling medical curriculum at University of South Florida. The ballgame glamor made her undergrad days memorable, but it wasn't exactly easy, she says.
“It was a lot of hard work especially being pre-med," Achille, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, says of her dancing days. "But it was definitely a very very enjoyable memorable time in my life.”
The obstetrician is now finishing her residency, delivering babies at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami -- the facility where she was born.
“It’s a hospital that deals with many many minorities, and of course people from my own culture,” she said.
Recently, Achille got to help one of Haiti's most deserving patients, in a well-publicized case that touched the hearts of millions. It was Achille who, with her mother and twin sister, helped arrange for Marlie Casseus, a 14-year-old girl suffering from a dangerous facial tumor, to come to Jackson from Port-Au-Prince for life-saving surgery.
“It has been a definite source of inspiration," Achille said. "It just shows that besides everything else that can be going on in in your life once you can just help someone else I mean its so rewarding.”
Achille has one more year to do in her residency, then she hopes to perform a medical mission to Haiti, where she can while she reaches out to the uninsured in her community. In the meantime, she is especially interested in helping patients without medical insurance.
“We as health care providers need to try to help educate them a little more about what resources are out there to be able to not discriminate just because they don’t have insurance don’t treat them differently," Achille said.
Eventually, she plans to go into private practice. If time permits, she may also take in more Miami Heat basketball games -- but from the stands, not the floor.
First Published: Jul 24, 2009 6:52 AM PDT
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