When I was becoming a teenager, I experienced something every young woman does when puberty starts: my menstrual cycle. I remember when I was first starting out, I was a little bit confused and scared about what was happening to my body. When I was around 12 years of age, my body started to bleed abnormally high for my age and caused me to become severely anemic. I was quickly brought to the hospital to be assessed to understand what was going on with my body. When I was at the hospital, the doctors realized I had lost more than half of the blood in my body and had to find a way to stop the excessive bleeding. Fortunately, I was provided medication to stop the bleeding, and I had thought the madness with my menstrual cycle was over with; Unfortunately, I was very wrong about that assumption. The medication did stop the bleeding, but it caused a massive blood clot was building up inside my body. I was brought again to the hospital after experiencing extreme abdominal pain and I was being assessed by staff. I specifically remember when the hospital was trying to figure out what was wrong, they brought me to an MRI machine. When I was brought in by the MRI technician, I was astounded at how cool the machine looked and how it worked. I remember the technician taking care of me was very nice and provided me with the comfort I needed while also providing the medical imaging needed in order for doctors to provide a diagnosis. This moment had inspired me. My name is Rhylee Davis and since my medical emergency, I have been making my steps to become a medical imaging technician. I am a homeschooled high school senior that has been dual enrolling at Eastern Florida State College for 2 years. The moment I started dual enrolling in college I made sure that I was taking courses associated with my dream career: becoming a medical imaging professional. I have made efforts to better understand the career by volunteering 80+ hours at Veria Regional Hospital and working alongside healthcare professionals. I have also worked on bettering my leadership and teamwork skills by being on Rockledge Highschool’s Girls’ Varsity Soccer team for 4 years. This upcoming semester will be my last semester of prerequisites before I will be submitting an application to the Radiologic Technologist Program. My dream job as a medical imaging technician would be becoming an MRI technician. Before my hospital stay, I had an interest in working in the healthcare field. When I came across the job of being a MRI technician, I instantly felt connected to the job, it made me feel excited to pursue that career because I feel like it fits me so well. I am excited for my career because I will be able to change lives and give patients the diagnosis they need while also working in my dream career field. I hope to impact not only my patients but my co-workers by showing them positivity, support, and motivation. As a Medical Imaging Technician, I will be a vital part of helping women figure out what is going on with their bodies, just as I was when I was a preteen. As a healthcare worker, my opinion will be seen as trustworthy and important; I will use this to my advantage by advocating for better education for women’s health. As a healthcare professional my voice might be louder than others, and I want to deliver a message that will help women.

If I was selected as the winner of the KC MedBridge Scholarship, I would use the scholarship funds to allow me to get my dream career and save lives. The career I am trying to achieve is to become an MRI technologist to give patients the diagnostic imaging they need for a diagnosis. I would be providing patients with a comfortable environment while also taking medical images of their body to prevent or locate medical issues. I am currently devoting every moment of my life to achieve the goals I need in order to get accepted into Eastern Florida State's radiographic technologist program. I have currently a 4.0 GPA at Eastern Florida State as a senior in high school, and next semester is my last semester of prerequisite classes in order to be accepted into the radiographic technologist program. I have devoted over 80+ hours in volunteer service at Veria Regional Hospital and I have sat in on multiple seminars for the Radiographic technologist program. I plan on continuing my hard work and motivation into the radiographic technologist program and into my career. I would use the scholarship funding to allow me to keep focusing on making sure my 100% effort is on academics and not worrying about financial restrictions.

I was driven towards the healthcare field because I was inspired by the people who helped me through my own scary medical experience. When I was twelve years old, I had to go to the hospital because I had lost most of the blood in my body due to a hormonal deficiency causing excessive menstruation. To help me regain all the blood I had lost, I was prescribed medication to stop the bleeding, and I was sent home. Only a few days later, I was experiencing excruciating pain, and I was brought back to the hospital. Though I was in the hospital again and I was scared and in a lot of pain, I remember the amazing staff at the hospital that was there to comfort me. A moment I specifically remember was when I was taken to a PET scan machine and I was being assessed by the technician running the machine. At that moment I knew what I wanted to make of myself for my future. The way the PET technician had comforted me through such a scary time, while also taking a picture of my body to help diagnose what was wrong with me inspired me. I knew for my future I wanted to work as a medical imaging technician to help people in the same scary situation I was in. Since my medical scare, I have taken the steps necessary to make my dream job come true. I went out of my way to give 80+ hours of my dedicated time to volunteer at Veria Regional Hospital as a HUC assistant. I have also sat in on multiple classes and went to two open houses for the radiographic technologist program at Eastern Florida State to get an inside of the career I am pursuing. I am one semester away from completing the prerequisites for the program, and so far, every prerequisite class I have taken, I have made sure to only receive As. I have currently a 4.0 GPA at Eastern Florida State College, and I plan to take my academic motivation into the program if accepted. Medical imaging technicians are one of the most important healthcare jobs to help diagnose medical issues efficiently. I specifically want to explore the world of MRI, CT, and PET. By being in these medical imaging modalities, I would be actively helping in detecting possibly harmful things in a patient's body and provide doctors with the images they need so they can properly diagnose. I could make a positive impact on my community by getting them a step closer to the diagnosis they need, while also giving them the comfort and support they need while going through their own medical experience.

I decided to pursue the medical field because of medical experiences I had to go through throughout my life. The medical field always intrigued me when I was younger, always telling my parents I was inspired to be a nurse. I had family around me that worked in the medical field aswell, further fueling my determination to have a career in health. I had my first medical experience when I was 8 years old and had gotten in a severe car accident with my family. The car accident resulted in my vehicle flipping multiple times and my mother and younger sister to fly out of the car while it was flipping. My family and I were swiftly taken to the hospital shortly after, and it was a miracle how my mother and little sister survived the car accident. Thankfully, everyone in my family apart from my mother came out of the car accident unscathed. The car accident sadly left my mother’s spine broken, but she ended up making a full recovery a year after the car wreck. That incident in my life had made me more curious about the medical field as a whole and soon had guided me on a path of searching for my future career. My second medical experience was a few years after the car wreck when I had just turned 12. During that period in my life my body was going through changes, and my body ended up not being able to control these changes properly. One of the biggest changes a girl goes through during puberty is when they end up getting their menstrual cycle. A normal menstrual cycle only happens up to 6 to 7 days, but because of my body not being able to control the hormones that induced this cycle, I had ended up going for about a month. This resulted in me losing all of my blood, making my hemoglobin levels drop to a 8 when the average hemoglobin level in a human is 17. This of course caused me to be placed in a children’s hospital for about a week. I had an amazing experience there, and the nurses that had taken care of me were amazing at their jobs. Seeing how the nurses had helped me, and my family made me want to help others that were in the same situation as I was in. My doctors ended up giving me medication to stop the bleeding and that should’ve been the end of my medical issues. Unfortunately, because I had taken medication to stop bleeding for an extended period of time a massive clot had formed in my body. The clot caused immense pain to my body, so my mom ended up taking me to the emergency room to get me checked out. The emergency room had given me an MRI scan and had found that I had the clot, and it needed to be passed. Soon, the next morning after my visit to the emergency room, I had passed the clot and I was in full health. My experience in the MRI machine is what sparked my new interest: becoming a radiographic technologist. Today, I have been dual enrolled in college to take prerequisites for the Radiographic Technologist Program at Eastern Florida State College. I have been so inspired by my past experiences I had volunteered with Veria Hospital with Health First to help patients and nurses on the Med Surg floor. My experiences are what motivates and drives me to help others just like how I was once helped when I was vulnerable.

The core pillar I identify with is hungry. I am extremely motivated and hungry in every aspect of my life, whether it be school, sports, volunteering, or my daily life tasks. Where I have seen myself embody the pillar “hungry” the most is with my academics. Since I was 15 years old, I’ve been dual enrolled with Eastern Florida State as a part-time student. Every single semester, I have made it my goal to pass each semester with nothing but As. I have achieved my goal and exceeded my expectations of what I was capable of. My fall semester of 2024, I had taken three college courses, all while doing high school, and I ended up getting As in every single class. Because of my great amount of success from my fall semester, I achieved getting on Eastern Florida State’s President’s List, and I was nominated for and accepted into two different honor societies: The NSLS and Phi Theta Kappa. After seeing what my hard work rewarded me, I will always stay hungry, and I will always be motivated to succeed no matter how hard things get. The steps I took in order to achieve my hunger are to never back down from a challenge, even if it seems scary or impossible. Another step is that even when it’s hard or difficult, you’ve got to pull through. If you don’t, you might regret giving up and not continuing when things seem hard. My drive and hunger for success have inspired my classmates to try harder in class and attempt to get better grades on papers. I will continue to be motivated and hungry for success, and I will continue to inspire and motivate those around me. Now, I am currently ending my spring semester at Eastern Florida State after taking three college courses. I have reached my goals for this semester by achieving high grades in all of my classes, and I’m excited to continue getting better and better grades in my courses. I know life sometimes likes to throw curveballs, so when an obstacle appears in my path, I will try over and over again until I achieve what I set my mind on. Whether it’s something as small as a grade on an assignment, or being accepted into my dream program, I am not going to back down. My motivation will not cease in school—it will spread into my career, my personal life, my sports, and, hopefully, I can inspire and motivate those around me to be motivated and driven too.