WHILE 12-hour weekend shifts for nurses are typical, its not common to do it while also attending medical school full-time.

But thats what Mazvita Ethel Simoyi did during her first year at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, commuting every weekend to a hospital in Washington, D.C. to help pay for her education.

Now set to earn her M.D. degree from UVA this month, Simoyi laughed when asked how she endured the relentless schedule of work, schoolwork and commuting.

I honestly do not know how I did it, she said. Necessity makes you rise to the occasion.

Lifelong Dream

Simoyi knew she wanted to be a doctor from the time she was 5 or 6, when her father, Mike Simoyi, a general practitioner in Zimbabwe, brought her to his clinic to observe a tubal ligation.

I stood on a stool in the operating room, looking at him make the incision, she said.

As she got older, she helped direct patients at the clinic where her father worked with her mother Regina, a nurse. The time she spent there deepened her commitment to medicine.

The patients [at my parents clinic] are very, very grateful for the help they receive, she said.

My father is also very involved in public health, and educating people at a time when HIV and AIDS was beginning to get a lot of attention. Thats why I wanted to be a doctor so I could help people and share my knowledge with them.

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Mazvita Ethel Simoyi: Juggling 12hr shifts and med school