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— five things you know and the one thing you don’t. (x)

No costume just me pretending to be good at makeup.

Growing up in Harlem wasn’t the most fun for young Claire or her mother, Soledad Temple. Usually, it was her and mother trying their hardest not to be scammed by anyone that saw the mother daughter duo as a weakness. Claire grew up fast, gaining street smarts that complimented her academic smarts. Something that was luckily recognized early as she was sent to a special science & math magnet in Midtown Manhattan, where Claire was determined to keep to herself and get through it. In school, Claire always found herself asking questions when the other kids simply took what was given to them as the only answer. It was her inquisitive nature that both infuriated and delighted some of her teachers to have her in class. By the time she went off university Claire had glowing recommendation letters from every single one of them. Claire was convinced then she wanted to be a doctor, that she wanted to adorn the white cape that made ordinary people superheroes every day. She didn’t want it for the glory, she wanted it for the gore, for the opportunity to study and help fix it.

Columbia really couldn’t handle a force like Claire as she went through both undergrad and medical school with top marks and scholarships. She entered her residency, publishing papers and more on Trauma Surgery, learning from the men, women & people in her field above her quickly & swiftly. Claire Temple became a phenomena, a little girl from Spanish Harlem who ‘defied the odds’ becoming one of the most innovative in her field. Soon, she found herself sitting in on meetings with people she’d only read about in her medical books, was earning grants from the same people who she’d once looked up to. Claire was on the fast track to becoming a legend in her field, so much so, she’d forgotten about her life before. Here she was, off hearing about government programs she could potentially help fix or participate in when her goal had been to help people – not just research about how to help them. Claire found herself becoming disconnected from everything that made her the doctor she wanted to be, finding herself becoming a shiny bright new pawn that the Upper East Side Rich & Elite could show off and play with. Her Fellowship may have been with some of the best people in New York but it felt hollow. When Claire looked in the mirror, she didn’t see a person she wanted to become and that scared her most of all.

Like Icarus she found herself too close to flying into the sun, sacrificing her humanity along with it. It was a price she wasn’t willing to pay to be the best when the whole reason she went into medicine was to help people, people who had been like her without access, born with survival coded into their blood. Not to join an elite group of physicians who experimented on people and didn’t actually do the one thing she wanted to do: heal. Claire left her fellowship, finding one of the shittiest she could, putting her efforts there. She wasnt being paid the same money she was making when she was Midtown helping people who ate, drank and sweat money but she was answering part of a calling she’d always had when it came to medicine and that was of a healer.

Her job wasn’t over then, she realized because she had come so close to becoming the doctor she never wanted to be she had unlearn the ableism she’d been taught. Soon, this new hospital became her life and to be a better doctor she found herself on off days and off hours, slipping into nurse scrubs and talking to people’s family’s. Even some patients who had been there for a long time. She asked about how their doctor treated them, how the staff treated them and just listened after she’d taken so much time not doing so. If people asked, she’d reveal herself a doctor but if they didn’t she figured she could use age old assumptions & sexism in her favor. Claire found herself transforming into a person she was proud of once again, the girl who’d dream of actually helping people, did. She felt solid in who she was, it was the foundation that kept her stable when people from other worlds, dimensions, with superpowers started popping up more and more in her neighborhood – a few of them becoming patients. The world had changed for Claire and she was happy that at least she had herself to rely on, her foundation, and was ready with any challenge she faced.