Photograph by Katrina Hajagos.
BY: ELLIE BROEREN, SUMMER 2020 COLLABORATOR AT POWER IN PLACE
“It’s important to be honest with yourself and the people around you about what you need to do to feel like you’re maximizing your potential and to really work hard to figure that out.”
-Dr. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward
In this historical moment, with racial injustice flourishing and COVID-19 rates spiking, focuses have shifted from the individual to the community. How can we help the majority of people in a community? Sometimes, focusing on your individual strengths is the best way to help others.
One of the most profound moments of my high school career was an off-hand comment by my 10th grade English teacher. While talking about how unhappy her husband was with his job at a plastics factory, she told us that we would never be happy in a job where we are not helping people. I have just finished my sophomore year of college and that comment still resonates in my head today. It solidified something I had known for a while—I am going to be a doctor and use my skills to help other people.
So when I was tasked with analyzing the interview of Oregon State Senator Dr. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, I was ecstatic. I could not wait to hear about her journey as both a physician and politician. Towards the end of the interview, Dr. Steiner Hayward was asked what she has learned from the lives of her mother and mother’s mother. Her response struck a familiar chord within me. She stated: “When I think about the meaning of life, I think it’s about figuring out what gifts you’ve been given, . . . and how you use that to make the world a better place”.
Dr. Steiner Hayward has clearly found her gifts and is putting them to great use. She says she knew she was going to be a doctor as early as 4 years old. As a medical student and practicing physician, she was always involved in organized medicine, which works to help patients. And as she progressed in her career, she realized that if she was going to make Oregon the healthiest state in the nation, she also needed to advocate for education, transportation, and the many other factors that contribute to the health and wellbeing of a community. From establishing Oregon’s Coordinated Care Organization systems to more efficiently deliver healthcare to working to raise the legal tobacco purchase age to 21, Dr. Steiner Hayward has worked tirelessly towards this objective as a state legislator.
Hearing this advice, and her story ignited a flame within me that has existed for a while; this flame has been dimmed recently by uninspiring classes, family illness, and a disrupting global pandemic. However, this flame is my gift; my way to give back to the world is to become an OB/GYN and fight to change how women’s health is handled. To take women’s pain seriously and to advocate for more (ethical) research on the female body and especially to fight to lower the absurdly high maternal mortality rate for women of color, specifically Black women. Dr. Steiner Hayward’s interview has inspired me to keep fighting for this dream, even when life gets tough and messy, and I believe it will inspire other women to discover their gifts and make the differences the world has been waiting for.
Ellie Broeren is a rising junior at Middlebury College, majoring in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and minoring in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. She is passionate about women’s health, reproductive justice, and sex-positive education. In the future she plans to be an OB/GYN and will work to improve women's health for all.