A Colombian man, once entering the country as an illegal immigrant, graduated with honors from Harvard University’s medical program and is now a renowned cardiovascular surgeon.
Harold Fernandez traveled by boat from the Bahamas to Miami to join his family there when he was 11 years old, and afterwards went on to become a star student at Princeton University, which he entered with false documents.
News website Terra reported that the surgeon always dreamed of being a doctor, “I think it was a series of small steps. Ever since I was little I wanted to be a doctor,” Fernandez said. “People didn’t want to believe it, because there are all sorts of challenges, but I kept it [his immigration status] a secret”.
Fernandez started out delivering newspapers and worked his way up. In high school, he recieved a scholarship to study physics and chemistry at a technical college.
Upon graduation from high-school, Fernandez was recognized for his outstanding academic achievements and found himself accepted at Yale, Brown, Cornell, and Princeton. Fernandez was doing very well at Princeton when, in the second semester, the university asked to see his documents, but a professor intervened on his behalf.
Fernandez is now a well-known surgeon practising in New York.