White coat to graduation: Dr. Brittany Means Lee reflects on journey
On Aug. 4, 2017, Brittany Means Lee (or Brittany Lorraine Means as she was known then) was called up to the stage in the Brody School of Medicine’s Auditorium to put on her white coat for the first time. The white coat ceremony is both symbolic and a milestone moment when medical students receive the white coat they will wear in clinical spaces during their time at ECU.
“I was just so happy. I really just didn’t think about the white coat itself because I was so happy about the days before that, and even being there,” Lee said shortly after the ceremony.
A videographer with ECU News Services interviewed Lee after she received that white coat in 2017 and replayed portions of the video for her as she prepared to graduate as a physician with the Class of 2021.
“All of the things that I talked about (in 2017) are just as true today. Knowing that I had the faith then, I had the support then — I still have that same support now,” she said.
It would take Lee eight years to get to the Brody School of Medicine. She graduated from UNC Charlotte in 2009 and started working for the American Red Cross. Later she took the Summer Program for Future Doctors at ECU. She then applied for medical school, but didn’t get in. Lee took her Medical School Admission Test (MCAT) again. She didn’t like her score, so she took some time off to study. Lee then took the Medical Education Development (MED) Program at UNC Chapel Hill and took her MCATs again. Afterwards, she applied to Brody, and this time, she got in.
View this video on YouTube for closed-captioning.
“When I was offered the acceptance letter to come here, I was overjoyed. I was really just so happy they believed in me and they gave me the opportunity,” Lee said in 2017.
“I think for certain what I gathered from all of the struggle — the good times — is that God always saw me through and He’s always going to see me through,” Lee said after watching her initial interview.
Brittany Means Lee receives her white coat at the beginning of classes at ECU’s Brody School of Medicine on Aug. 4, 2017. (Photo by Rhett Butler | Video by Rich Klindworth)
A lot can change during medical school. On Oct. 3, 2020, Lee married her husband, Demarko Lee. She also changed medical paths. During her first year, Lee was adamant she was going to be a pediatrician. Now as Dr. Lee, she’s going to be a family medicine physician in her residency program at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.
“I definitely credit Brody for my transition to family medicine,” Lee said. “Very early on I learned that family medicine physicians can see children, they can deliver babies and they see a little bit of everything. And I think I got attracted to that.”
After her journey to and through med school, Lee now begins her career as a physician. She feels a responsibility to help increase the number of medical doctors from underrepresented communities.
“Really just to encourage people who perhaps say … ‘Where I come from doesn’t say that I can do this,’ or ‘I don’t know anybody that’s a physician, I can’t be a physician,’” Lee said. “If I can do it, you can do it. And if I’m here, there’s nothing that can prevent you from being here.”
Lee’s next milestone will be the start of her three-year residency program on June 14. After that, she might like to practice outpatient medicine. But with her mentors being in outpatient and inpatient medicine, as well as in academia — her calling may evolve, like her life has the past 12 years.
“(If you) put your mind to, your heart to and whatever you think God has called you to do – definitely, you can succeed,” Lee said. “Just the fact that I’m here, like I made it, like it really happened — just affirmation.”