School: Lewis Katz School of Medicine
Degree: MD, medicine, 2021
Hometown: West Suffield, Connecticut
Since adolescence, Stephanie Javier Fagbemi, MED ’21, knew she wanted to both help people and change the world. She did both at Temple, leading philanthropic programs to support Philadelphians during the pandemic and spearheading student diversity efforts. Now, the world is her oyster as she finishes her psychiatric residency in Boston and eyes what’s next.
Click the audio to hear what she has to say.
Photo by Kelly Davidson
In April 2020, Javier Fagbemi’s world was flipped upside down. In her third year of medical school, Javier Fagbemi’s life until that point had been a series of successes: top honors in high school, a biology degree from the University of Pennsylvania and then the pursuit of an MD in medicine.
Then COVID-19 struck, shuttering in-person classes and clinical rotations and sending Javier Fagbemi and her classmates into a remote world. The tragedy became personal when her beloved uncle passed unexpectedly from the virus in April, unable to contact family members due to his isolation in the hospital. “It was so sad, and everyone was so scared,” Javier Fagbemi recalled.
But her reflexive instinct to help others kicked in.
Not wanting anyone else to feel the pain of being isolated from loved ones, she helped to organize Philly Connects, an initiative that solicited donations of old iPads and other devices so families and patients could virtually connect during quarantine. In this way, she was directly helping families avoid the same sense of helplessness and shock hers had experienced.
“I had a classmate who was working at [Temple University Hospital] who told me she had a patient who wanted to talk to her family, but she couldn’t,” Javier Fagbemi said. “I hand-delivered an iPhone to her in the ICU.”
But her interests in helping others went beyond the role of good doctor. A daughter of Nigerian and Filipino immigrants, Javier Fagbemi is also conscientious about racial justice. In her predominantly white high school, she served in a student club promoting diversity. After putting together a presentation on racial and gender pay disparities, Javier Fagbemi suddenly found herself playing the role of rabble-rouser.
“A lot of people were pretty upset that I had done that and presented it to my entire school,” Javier Fagbemi said.
No matter. Javier Fagbemi wrote about her experiences and received the prestigious Princeton Prize in Race Relations, one more feather in her cap as she headed to the Ivy League.
“I’ve had this theme in my life of valuing diversity and underserved populations. We were able to talk about those issues in such depth in a way that I hadn’t been able to in my other interviews. And I realized that Temple really valued that.”
–Stephanie Javier Fagbemi
Resident physician
With a bachelor’s in biology from UPenn, Javier Fagbemi had her pick of med schools. But after sitting down with Melanie Cosby, director of diversity and inclusion at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine, she was sold on Temple.
“I’ve had this theme in my life of valuing diversity and underserved populations. We were able to talk about those issues in such depth in a way that I hadn’t been able to in my other interviews. And I realized that Temple really valued that,” Javier Fagbemi said.
She would also play a role in strengthening those institutional values. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Javier Fagbemi and her fellow Katz classmates were inspired to do more work with the Diversity Council at Katz to address racial inequities. The group successfully changed the criteria of admission into the Temple chapter of Alpha Omega Alpha, a national medical honor society, to include achievements beyond grades. They also integrated local community members into the interview process for medical school applicants.
Now her sights are set on a professional career in psychiatry and policy, through which she hopes to focus on helping marginalized populations, especially Black women.
“I think Temple was amazing because it really brought out the best in me,” Javier Fagbemi said.
Thinking outside of the box, our alum are transforming their industries and our world and demonstrating the power of women in STEM.
Learn more about earning an MD through the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple.
