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Sheryl Recinos MD Profile picture
@MdSheryl
Jun 8 • 19 tweets • 6 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
When I was a young mom, I was enrolled in an honors psychology class at my community college. The professor said he would fail any student with too many absences (I think 2?).

So when I had a babysitting emergency, I showed up to class with an infant and hoped for the best.
I was 19, didn’t have a lot of options. My first professor (English) had been so supportive when he heard my baby coo. I ended up taking 3 classes with him before I transferred to UCLA a few years later.

But my psych professor-
He was known for being mean. He’d belittled a girl in the front row a few classes earlier.

Halfway through the lecture, my baby made a noise. He stopped everything, noticed me, and said “IS THAT A BABY?”
Me, scared but not willing to fail my class, said “you told us we can’t be absent. So I’m here.”

Everyone was looking at me. I was suddenly the teen mom in class. A lot of my peers knew each other from high school. I didn’t know any of them.
We stared at each other for a long, tense moment. A battle of wills. “I did,” he said. He slowly resumed teaching.

The girl in the front, the one he’d belittled, was staring at me.
A week later, she sat down next to me in Bio class. “You’re the one who brought a baby to psych class?” she asked.

I nodded. Not sure where this was going.

And then she smiled. “That was awesome.”
We became best friends. She is one of my 3 best friends, one of the people who has known me the longest and stood by me through thick and thin.

She posts the cutest pics of us whenever we hang out. Grateful for Jerri. ❤️

#BestFriendDay Image
My longest time best friend is Michelle, a girl I met at a homeless teen shelter when I was 16. She didn’t judge me too much and we ran into each other from time to time.

We became best friends when I was 18. I was homeless, pregnant, and she ran into me at a summer bbq.
We hadn’t seen each other for awhile. She’d turned 18 first and gone to a different shelter.

But there’s a connection forged over such significant pain and struggle.

She asked me where I was staying. I confessed I’d been sleeping at the 24h McDonalds.
She immediately let me move in with her, even though it disrupted her own housing and made it much more temporary than it had been.

I stayed with her until a few weeks before my kid was born. And have always appreciated how kind she was. She gave me a chance to survive.
My kids tell me Michelle is their favorite Auntie. Because you know I’ve made a whole ginormous chosen family over the years.

Here’s Michelle, attending a concert with me that my youngest really wanted to go to:) Image
Actually as I’m writing this I realize I gave you the wrong number if bffs. I have four. Wow, life is awesome.

When I took my first attending job, the program coordinator Kayla and I bonded over our Star Wars keychains. She quickly became my work kid sister/work wife.
She chatted with me as I wrote my memoir and still lets me pitch all my stories to her. She is so sweet and shares my love of Broadway so I’ve gotten to go to a bunch of shows with her and her girls. ❤️ Here we are at Lion King. ImageImageImage
And Trish is my med school bestie. She was actually in a different semester and we met when I worked on orientation for her class (I worked every chance I got in med school).

We message daily and she has come all the way to CA to visit me several times :) Here she is at LAX. Image
I think the best thing about best friends is when they meet each other and love each other. I have had the chance to introduce several of them to each other over the years.

Recently, Trish, Jerri, and Kayla joined me for the @MFPLA gala. (Michelle had to work). ImageImageImage
I think that’s the coolest thing about best friends. They each hold a special place in my heart and I love when they rally around the one thing that is nearest and dearest to my heart - they all know how passionate I am about ending youth homelessness and they show up for me.
Thank you for reading about my best friends. Happy #BestFriendsDay :)
*of
Oh also it’s still June so please buy a book so I can give lots of money to @MFPLA :)

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More from @MdSheryl

Sheryl Recinos MD Profile picture
May 28
When I was 17, I graduated from high school. Even though I was homeless, I found an independent studies high school that gave me work I could complete “at home” and I did that work mostly at my public library.
I remember sitting for hours in my little cubicle at the library on Ivar in Hollywood.

My teacher assigned some pretty important books for me to read for 12th grade English.
That was how I discovered Maya Angelou. I was asked to read I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

And that book has remained my favorite for my entire life.
Read 5 tweets
Sheryl Recinos MD Profile picture
May 26
I remember sitting at the nurse’s station in January of 2018, writing a note. One of the nurses asked me a personal question and I told her, “You know, I think I finally realized that my life was just meant to be hard.”

She laughed and said, “Come on, you’re a doc. You probably-
Had great parents, grew up rich, had an easy life.”

I was still processing the grief of saying a final goodbye to my mom that week. Hospice. So I just politely disagreed and walked away.
But then I sat down and ruminated on my thoughts. I’d always said I would write my story after my mom passed. I hadn’t wanted to hurt her. Her mental illness wasn’t her fault. She’d truly loved me, but she hadn’t been able to give me what I needed.
Read 19 tweets
Sheryl Recinos MD Profile picture
May 21
When I was a 3rd year medical student, we just couldn’t scrape together enough $ for our kids, rent, and med school costs. I applied everywhere for a job.

Everyone said I was overqualified. One female manager told me that & I said, “But my kids still need to eat.”
She hired me. Best boss ever. And I will always treasure the time I spent working at a mall in NJ selling sparkly clothes to little kids. She kept telling me if med school didn’t work out, I could stay.

We’re still friends. ❤️
When I think about the hustle so many nontraditional and/or underserved students endure, it reminds me that we need to make education more affordable, make rent more affordable, and widen our safety nets. Getting in isn’t enough. We need to make sure all students are thriving.
Read 7 tweets
Sheryl Recinos MD Profile picture
Apr 27
RIP Jerry Springer. Still annoyed that you exploited me and a bunch of other homeless teens but Rest In Peace. Image
I only agreed to go on the show because he said he’d pay us $200. He was mean on the show and kept getting the audience to yell at us, then brought out some fake psychologist.

And gave us $100 in ones. Steve guarded the door while he ran out of the building.
By the time we’d counted the money, he was gone.

I’d been pregnant at the time and really thought I had to take this “opportunity” for the baby.
Read 6 tweets
Sheryl Recinos MD Profile picture
Jan 26
I’ll never forget the moment I *knew* I wanted to be a doctor.

I was barely 19, sitting in the hospital bed, recovering from an emergency c-section, holding my newborn and listening to the hospital background noise as I rocked her to sleep.
I’d never had a “good” doctor. I remember having a pediatrician see me once when I was 5, when I fell off the monkey bars and broke my arm. He’d recommended surgery, but I’d left with a cast. I don’t remember any of the other visits.
I knew I hated the hospital when I was 11. I spent almost 2.5 months locked on the inpatient psych unit because my dad weaponized medical care and used it as a means of control. The doctors let him, so I’d held a grudge.
Read 16 tweets
Sheryl Recinos MD Profile picture
Sep 14, 2022
Good morning! I would love to reintroduce myself, since I have so many new followers.

I’m a mom of 3 adult kids, wife of a cool guy from Guatemala, fluent Spanish speaker, family medicine hospitalist physician (doing travel work/locums), author, and former homeless youth.
Before I went to med school, I taught high school bio and chem for 8 years. I had given up on my dream because I didn’t feel like I deserved to have what I wanted more than anything. I had a lot of self blame for my teen years that I carried with me.
A fellow teacher pulled me aside and set me straight. She told me I owed it to myself to chase the dream. She was right. I was miserable as a teacher. I had tried so hard to make myself fit into a career I’d never wanted, just to have a stable paycheck and a home.
Read 61 tweets

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