A new career at 50

Bayside resident Jodee Meddy gives new meaning to the concept of “continuing education.” Not satisfied with a 25-year career in long-term healthcare management, the 50-year-old Registered Nurse and mother of four just graduated from medical school. Meddy completed the four-year course of study at the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Pennsylvania, while working part-time.
“I had a successful career in long-term adult care several facilities, mostly in Brooklyn,” she said, speculating, “Maybe it was some kind of mid-life crisis.”
Meddy, who grew up in Rockland County, was studying for her Masters degree in nursing and taking pre-med courses at the University of Miami when she met Stewart, another pre-med student. They were married in 1980.
“He went to med school while I worked full-time during the day and continued studying for my Master’s at night,” she recalled. Although they split five year later, “We remained on good terms,” Meddy said.
She returned to New York, to live in Queens with her son Jordan, and began her nursing career. Soon, she found herself working in long-term care, spending 10 years at the Haym Salomon nursing home in Brooklyn.
“That’s where I developed a passion for working with the elderly and younger people with chronic needs,” she said.
As she was rising to upper levels of management, Meddy met and married (in 1987) her current husband, Sam. “He had a son, Brandon, who was five at the time. Jody [Jordan] was three-and-a-half. We all got along great,” she recalled.
As the years and her career progressed, Meddy said she ‘needed a new challenge.’ “I was at the top of my game,” she recalled. We were living in Jamaica Estates, and now had four boys (with the births of Clayton and Austin) when I decided I wanted to go back to school … maybe for another Master’s.”
Instead, Meddy recalled, “I got this thing in my head to go to medical school.” Admitting that the period was “stressful” to the family, she praised Sam. “Don’t forget to mention him - for sticking by me through all this craziness.”
She had to take a few pre-med courses at Adelphi University in Nassau County - so the family relocated from Jamaica Estates to Great Neck. When she was accepted to medical school, they relocated to Pennsylvania. “It was not a simple situation for the kids,” she said.
While caring for her family and maintaining a 3.70 grade point average, she was president of the Student National Medical Association, the Student Osteopathic Medical Association and the International Medical Society.
At the school, one of about 25 around the country, which grant Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degrees, Meddy, determined that she wanted to practice emergency medicine. “It’s extremely competitive,” she said.
During the second two years of her schooling, Meddy managed to perform her clinical clerkships at local hospitals, like North Shore University Hospital, Peninsula and St. John’s Episcopal Hospitals. “That’s when we moved to Bayside,” she said.
At graduation, Meddy was in the top 15 percent of her class and inducted into Psi Sigma Alpha, the National Osteopathic Medical School Honor Society. Currently, she is an active member of The American Academy of Emergency Medicine where she serves on the Education Committee and the American College of Emergency Physicians where she serves on the Critical Care committee.
At her graduation and “hooding ceremony” on Sunday June 1, Meddy’s proudest moment came, not at the moment she received her diploma, but when she got a card from her oldest, Jordan, now 25.
“He’s just finishing his Master’s in Broadcast Journalism,” she gushed, every bit the proud mother. “He put in the card, ‘Thanks for showing me that anything is possible.’ ”