North Vegas Times

Jordyn Farewell, a UNLV Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine student, recently looked back at her tenure at the school and how she became interested in medicine.

According to a news release shared by the university, Farewell always stood out from the crowd, especially when her classmates at Faith Lutheran High School were revolted at their assignment to dissecting a pig, while she thought the assignment was "the coolest thing ever.”

“My father let me be myself and we’ve done a lot of things together,” she said in the release. “We skydive, cliff jump, fish, and ride dirt bikes together. We used to do the cliff jumping at Lake Mead, but it’s gotten so shallow we’re afraid to do it there now.”

Upon graduating high school, she attended Baylor University in Waco, Texas, for two years but was advised to give up on her dream of applying for medical school. However, she decided to persevere and become an ‘A’ student.

“Through this, I was able to start designing research projects, formulating and testing hypotheses, and mentoring younger pre-medical students. It’s where I really started to enjoy research, academics, and mentorship,” she said.

There was one professor at Baylor who believed that Farewell could make it in the medical profession and offered her the opportunity to work beside him at the institution, honing her laparoscopic surgery training skills.

“But I knew all I wanted to be was a physician. I couldn’t quit. So I decided to make myself stronger academically," she said. 

"That year getting my master’s at North Texas turned out to be one of the best years of my life so far. I learned so much and made my best friends. It was a great example of how life often turns out as it’s supposed to – even when I think it’s so far from my original plan.”