In the early 2000s, the future was bright for a young woman named Allie Kade. She had just earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Michigan and was conducting research at the University of Michigan Hospital while applying to and interviewing for entrance into various Ph.D. programs.
Her educational journey to that point was ambitious and impressive. But there was another lingering feeling that Allie couldn’t shake: that her education was somehow still incomplete.
Working alongside physicians at the hospital had brought her to the clear realization that she still wanted to pursue her childhood dream of practicing medicine.
The problem? She hadn’t completed many pre-requisites for medical school and questioned her ability to succeed in them.
Enter Washtenaw Community College.
Fast-forward to today and meet Dr. Allison Kade Fox, a first-year ophthalmology resident at the University of Indiana School of Medicine, who used her time at WCC to refocus her career path and prepare herself for medical school.
“I decided to start slowly, but give it a try,” Fox said. “Finding money for tuition was tough, so initially I came to WCC because it was both affordable and had class times that fit my availability.”
An added benefit of studying at WCC was the small class sizes, says Fox, a Detroit native who bounced around different schools for much of her childhood before graduating from Grosse Pointe North High School.
At the University of Michigan, she had largely avoided the large lecture hall classes that are a staple of the undergraduate experience at many four-year institutions in favor of small group sessions.
“For me, the small class sizes at WCC were comfortable and gave me a level of accountability and ownership that I never really felt in a huge lecture hall,” Fox said. “You really got to know your classmates and instructors. It was definitely the right fit and I’m glad I chose it.”
Coming to WCC with a degree from one of the world’s best universities, Fox admits to being nervous about the quality of education she would receive at a community college. But, she says, “as I went through class by class — very part-time because of my work schedule — I grew to love the school.”
While working up to three jobs at a time, Fox maintained a 4.0 GPA and earned an Associate in Science degree in General Studies in Math and Natural Sciences.
Midway through her six-year stint at WCC, she enrolled in a Quality Management master’s degree program at Eastern Michigan University because she had developed an interest in healthcare quality improvement and patient safety.
She completed that program just before starting on her Doctor of Medicine degree at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine in 2013.
“Going into medical school with almost all of my pre-requisites completed at community college, I’m not going to lie — I felt nervous, and I felt like maybe my education had been inadequate somehow,” Fox said. “Being surrounded by people who had taken all these advanced science courses from all these prestigious places, I thought I might be really far behind and I’d be lucky to keep up. Those worries couldn’t have been further from reality.”
Fox graduated in the top 10% of her class and was nominated to Alpha Omega Alpha, one of the nation’s oldest medical honor societies.
After completing her four-year residency at Indiana University, Fox is considering one or two years of fellowship training before entering practice as an eye physician and surgeon in which she can “apply all the learning I have been accumulating over so many years” for the benefit of her patients and their vision.
“One of the biggest lessons my time at WCC taught me is that your education is what you choose to make it. You own it,” said Fox, who has two young daughters with her husband, Chris Fox.
“What you get out of it is what you put in, and there are absolutely wonderful educators and peers everywhere if you’re open to finding them.”
Tags: Alumni Profile, December 2019, On The Record, Transfer, WCC to MD, ousearch_News_On The Record