PSU Magazine Winter 1999

S ometimes "something kind of silly" has consequences that last a life– time. Sharlene Matthieu '98 earned awards her junior and senior years– including the C lyde Johnson Award in Chemistry for O utstanding Junior– but she never really shook the nagging fee ling that she wasn 't as good as others seemed to think she was. Could she really make it through PSU 's Women premed students have handed down this pin for nine years. premed program and into a top medica l school to fulfill the dream she'd nurtured since sixth grade– becoming a doctor? Her attitude changed one day when Judy Lacy '97 approached her after class and sa id, "I've got something kind of silly to give you." They d idn't know each other well, but Matthieu looked up to Lacy, an outstanding premed student and charismatic person. Lacy, a year ahead, had already been accepted at OHSU. Matthieu apprehensively faced the application prospect the next year. Matthieu took the little red and green box Lacy handed her and looked PHOTOS BY STEVE DIPAOLA It was a vote of confidence when Sharlene Matthieu '98 received the pewter heart pin. She is now a med student at Oregon Health Sciences University. inside at a heart-shaped pin. Heart– shaped not as in va lentine, but as in Webster's "hollow muscular organ of vertebrate animals that by its rhythmi c contraction acts as a fo rce pump main– taining the circulation of the blood." In other words, anatomical. A long with the pin came a worn fi copy of "Getting into Med ical School: The Premedical Student's Guidebook" signed by fi ve fo rmer premed students. Matthieu had just become part of a tradition that began in 1989-the handing down of the pin to a promising woman premed student as a good luck token for ensuring entrance into medica l sc ool. T ike Lacy, Matthieu does not super– _lj stitiously believe the pin helped her get into OHSU, where she started in fa ll of 1998. But it did have a profound effect on her life. 'The most meaningful part was that I thought so much of her," says Matthieu. "And she chose me." That little boost of confidence helped Matthieu weather the med school application jitters. Soon she' ll be passing the pin, and the support that it represents, along to another PSU premed student-keeping alive a tradition of the heart. WINTER 1999 PSU MAGAZINE 13