Plastic Surgeon Stephanie Marie Blas-Lizarazo

Eight years ago, I was a plastic surgeon – then again, anyone could say that after watching an entire season of Dr. 90210.

My mother was my main patient, with the tummy tuck being her favorite procedure. Instead of a scalpel, my most faithful tool was a purple Crayola marker. The process of performing a tummy tuck is an exact science: you must remove the exact amount of excess skin, tighten the abdominal muscles to the exact degree, and suture the incision with exact tightness. The precision and tedium required of a surgeon only satisfied me, feeding my perfectionist tendencies. Just as I thought that I was going to be the next Dr. Robert Rey, everything changed.

The summer prior to sixth grade, I had the privilege of attending the Miami PREP Summer Program at Florida International University (FIU), which is a STEM-focused program for students in elementary and middle school. My favorite course was Introduction to Engineering (IE). In IE, the teacher, Ms. Sara Zapata, hosted a plethora of guest speakers – all engineers. My favorite speaker was Ms. Ranu Jung, Ph.D.: the chair of FIU’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. She defined biomedical engineering as “the marriage of mathematics and medicine,” even showing the IE class...