Graduate Spotlight: Dreams Come True for Aspiring M.D. Student

Samantha Marazita possesses a personality fueled with honesty, vivacity, and a passion for helping others. In fact, her zeal for life is so powerful that it’s hard to imagine the hurdles she had to clear enroute to a promising path to be a doctor. Obstacles aside, this M.D. graduate now finds herself headed to clinicals in internal medicine at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio — the No. 2 hospital in the world.

Samantha’s journey was a bumpy one. She was raised in a mobile home park in Reno, Nevada, about 500 miles outside Las Vegas. Her parents, who didn’t finish high school, worked casino and service industry jobs to provide for Samantha and her older brother Anthony.

Samantha’s father incidentally gave her the first taste of the medicine. When he would complain of illnesses that he believed he had, Samantha would get on the family’s computer to do some research on his symptoms. She would bring her findings the next day to the dinner table. Her father continued to feed her medical curiosity routinely, she says.

Growing up, Samantha wasn’t much of a fan of academics, maintaining that she – as well as her parents – were more “street smart than book smart.” But that would all change when she went to high school. Initially though, she said, she struggled, and her grades reflected it.

“My first two years of high school, I was a terrible student,” she said. “It was C’s, D’s, and F’s. I told my teachers that I was just going to drop out.”

But then she met Dr. Sharon See, her sophomore English teacher. Samantha didn’t have a printer like the other students in the class so she would hand write her essays. Dr. See would sit down with her and go over them as she graded them.

“Having read many of my essays, she told me things could be different for me, that I could break the cycle and do whatever I want,” Samantha said. “She said that I could do well and go to college someday. Nobody ever said anything like that to me, and somehow it just stuck.”

Suddenly, Samantha says, she started turning her bad grades into A’s and did so well in school that she earned an in-state scholarship to go to college.

“Being in school was an escape for me once I opened myself up to learning,” she said.

Her quest for medical knowledge continued, and she would often offer unsolicited medical advice to people she knew.

Samantha studied film initially, having grown up often glued to the tube and her love for movies. She subsidized her income in the hospitality industry wearing such hats as a casino worker or concierge. For a moment, Samantha thought that hospitality might be the career for her, but something was missing, she said.

She was inspired by her husband, who she met after he had moved from the country of Georgia to Las Vegas get a graduate degree in medical physics. He told me to “Make my hobby my passion,” she said.

When the couple moved to Denver, Samantha headed back to school, getting degrees in chemistry and biology. Samantha then set her sights on Florida, because she loved the state and it had “plenty of medical schools.” She had heard about NSU and its reputation, she said, so she applied to the College of Osteopathic Medicine. Her application was denied, but she didn’t give up. She applied for the College of Allopathic Medicine and was accepted into its Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) program.

“I was so excited about being a part of the charter class of graduates of NSU,” she said.

With her latest degree and impending clinical experience, Samantha says she hopes to bring a positive impact to patients the field of internal medicine.

“Being in the hospital is one of the worst times in your life,” she said. “I just want to be a friendly face in the hospital for people and listen to their stories. I want to be the kind of hospitalist that spends time with patients and helps put the puzzle together for them.”

Posted 05/23/22