Annual Pub 2022 - Flipbook - Page 14
Hard Work Beats Talent
by Paul Harasim
Ask Donnis Davis – he’ll graduate in May from the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV – how he got to this
time and place and he serves up one of the guiding principles of his life: “There is this saying, ‘Hard work beats
talent when talent refuses to work hard.’ However, I thoroughly believe that statement is incorrect. I believe hard
work always beats talent, you just have to work harder than
talent.”
His mother is a nurse practitioner, lieutenant colonel and
昀氀ight commander of the Nellis Air Force Base Internal Medicine Clinic. “I had a perfect example of someone working
hard right in front of me – my mother,” he says. “Watching her while growing up, I was able to witness her spend
hours either at her job or in the books studying to make a
better life for her family. I have carried these principles of
hard work throughout all my endeavors in life.”
The day after his 21st birthday, Davis, the former vice president of the National Student Medical Association, began to
experience medicine as a patient. He needed lung surgery.
“When I received this news, I found myself in complete
shock. Why was this happening to me?...What happened
next changed everything for me. My doctor’s devotion to
my case and his concern for my personal and emotional well-being meant the world to me. That encounter not
only changed my perspective on the 昀椀eld of medicine, but
it also shaped the course of my life to come.”
It was during his emergency medicine rotation at the Kirk
Kerkorian School of Medicine that Davis 昀椀rmly decided
to make a career of the specialty. “A 20-year-old entered
the emergency department with a recurrent pneumothorax, the same problem I had that required surgery. He was
scared, vulnerable and in disbelief. At that moment I realized I had the opportunity to repay the debt I owed from
昀椀ve years prior. I was given the opportunity to be as comforting and thorough as the physician that had treated me.
Being an emergency medicine physician, you are the 昀椀rst
point of contact for people that may very well be experiencing the worst day of their life. I have a great deal of respect
for those who work in that environment, and without any
doubt, it is what I want to do with my life.”
Davis is now set to do his graduate medical education residency training in emergency medicine at the Keck School
of Medicine of USC.
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KIRK KERKORIAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UNLV
SUMMER 2022
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