Chicago’s Dr. Maya Green, MD, MPH recently won a Minority Clinical Fellowship to help minorities with HIV or AIDS who lack care in their communities.
The fellowship was awarded by the HIV Medicine Association and has grants from Gilead Foundation, Genentech, and Tibotec.
“The first thing I recall was excitement,” Dr. Green said about winning the fellowship. “I was shocked that I received it and I was really thankful.”
Dr. Green grew up in what is formerly known as Chatam, now the Roseland community on Chicago’s South Side. She went to Whitney Young High School, where she attended for three years but was let go due to her behavior and grades.
“After I saw the things in my community that were going on, it did have an effect on me where I didn’t put forth a lot of effort in high school,” she said. “I finished at a Christan high school called Liberty Temple. In addition to that, I had to do night school and summer school and make up for some of the things I lost in those first three years.” Dr. Green went to Julian for summer school and Olive Harvey for night school for that summer.
“I didn’t want to stay where I was. My life’s purpose guided me to help me change my life,” she said. That’s another thing, if anyone is at the point where they aren’t enjoying their life, I want them to know that it is possible to change. It is possible not to live their life the same way.”
By the time she got to college she was focused and she knew why she was there. Although Green didn’t get the best grades, she graduated cum laude from Alabama A&M, in Huntsville, with a bachelor of science in biology. After college she originally became a teacher for fourth and fifth graders for four years.
“I always wanted to be a physician. I was initially nervous about going to medical school because on the inside I didn’t think I could do it,” Dr. Green said. “Something inside of me didn’t think I could do it, so I was nervous about that. I didn’t apply.”
Green described children as “extremely honest.” “So all the time when I was asking them what their dreams were they would ask me the same thing. And they were like ‘well if you say we could do what we want to, how come you’re not doing what you what to?'” she said. “And that is what kind of sparked me to go to medical school and follow the path and I’m thankful for that.”
Green received her medical degree and masters of public health degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
During medical school she worked at the University of Illinois at Chicago as a nursing assistant. She’s also done work at Cook County, Illinois Masonic Medical Center and Great Lakes Naval Base—to name a few.
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