I thought this was so amazing I wanted to include it on our blog.
Dawn Zuidgeest-Craft, MD, a nurse practitioner and pediatric educator, graduated with her medical degree at 72 years old, The Washington Post reported.
Dr. Zuidgeest-Craft had planned to attend medical school at age 40, but delayed her dream to raise her four children. In 2020, her husband survived a brain hemorrhage and Dr. Zuidgeest-Craft decided to use her retirement funds to pursue her dream of attending medical school.
She enrolled in St. James School of Medicine in Anguilla in the Caribbean — a school that doesn’t require the Medical College Admission Test. She then took clinical rotations in Chicago, West Virginia and Texas. At the end of May, she’ll graduate as the school’s oldest-ever graduate.
In June, Dr. Zuidgeest-Craft will begin her family medicine residency at Muskegon, Mich.-based Trinity Health Medical Center.
She told the Post that she hopes to work as a physician for as long as she can. And her next goal? To modernize the medical school curriculum.