When Maddie Selby began building her medical school application, her mother, Lisa, assumed her own shot at becoming a physician had long since passed. A year later, the two are classmates at Ross University School of Medicine (RUSM) in Barbados — studying side by side, both named to the Dean's List, and sharing first place in a campus research competition.
Getting there meant selling the family's newly finished dream home in El Paso, Texas, giving away most of what they owned and moving to a house in Barbados lovingly described as a “purple shoebox.” "An outsider could see that we sacrificed a lot to come here, but honestly, it's been the best adventure," Lisa said. "We've all become very close."
The question that changed everything: “Why aren’t you a physician?”
Lisa spent 13 years as a nurse before becoming a nurse practitioner, ultimately specializing in endocrinology and earning a specialty certificate from Duke University built for NPs practicing under an endocrinologist. She loved the work and admired her mentor — the two remain in touch and are now collaborating on a research project run through Ross. But she assumed medicine's top rung wasn't for her. "I just always thought I had missed the bus," she said.
That changed when a Ross physician-in-training rotating through her clinic pressed her on it directly. "Why aren't you a physician? Why haven't you gone all the way yet?" Lisa recalled him asking. She quietly closed her office door before her next patient and called her husband, Ryan. His answer was immediate: "Let's do it."
She called Ross that night, spoke with the onboarding team, and submitted her application. She never applied anywhere else. Word of her acceptance came while the family was traveling — Lisa was in a hotel in Switzerland when the call arrived.
From a Venice delivery room to a decision
Maddie's own turning point came earlier, an ocean away. Raised by a hardworking mother and a father in the military, she liked biology and medicine but wasn't yet certain. Then, two summers ago, she spent three weeks shadowing physicians in Venice, Italy — her first time inside an operating room, for a cesarean section.
"It was so barbaric and beautiful at the same time," Maddie said, describing the moment the baby arrived and the mother whispered to her newborn, "Ciao, baby, ciao." "I just thought, ‘this is medicine: the good and the crazy.’”
Once Lisa was accepted, Maddie's choice was simple. "Why am I going to apply anywhere else?" she said. Just like her mother, Ross was the only school she applied to.
Selling the dream home in El Paso and moving the family to Barbados
The entire Selby family pulled up their roots to chase Lisa and Maddie’s dreams to the Caribbean. The family had lived in their custom-built El Paso home, with a backyard and pool they'd just finished, for only about six months before selling it, along with most of their clothing and belongings. Lisa, Ryan and their youngest son, Sebastian, arrived in Barbados roughly six months before classes began; Lisa kept practicing as a nurse practitioner online for her El Paso clinic while the family learned the island. They later settled in at Coverley with their dogs, Maddie and her boyfriend, Zach — and, eventually, a pet tortoise Sebastian brought home from school.
Life narrowed and, in Lisa's telling, opened up at once. Sebastian traded an iPad for a farm school where classmates run barefoot past cows and pigs; the family snorkels shipwrecks, hikes, and belongs to a local beach club. "The quality of life has been tremendously improved," Lisa said.
What medical school takes
For Lisa and Maddie, though, the island is mostly a backdrop to their education. Their commitment to their studies led them to take on leadership roles within the Student Government Association, with Maddie serving as public relations chair and Lisa as secretary. And their dogged study habits have paid off: Lisa and Maddie both made the Dean's List and took first place in a research competition with hopes of publishing the work before leaving Barbados. They are also peer mentors and play intramural pickleball.
Lisa, who once carried a 4.0 while working full time as a nurse and attending two universities, said medical school still humbled her. "It takes my 100%, and then beyond what I thought was my 100%," she said. "It takes everything."
Finding community at Ross University School of Medicine
What surprised Maddie most wasn't the workload but the people. "Everyone has the same goal, and everyone has a drive for something greater than themselves," she said, adding that she'd struggled to find like-minded friends before Ross.
For Lisa, coming from a New Mexico town of 800 to a class size in the hundreds, the surprise was how personal a large program could feel. She credited staff and faculty by name — new student liaison Raquel Jones and Jessalyn Mayer among them — with helping the family believe in themselves. "I thought it might just be up to us to succeed here, but I really found that, at Ross, you make your experience what you want it to be," Lisa said. "The vast majority of the faculty have helped us believe in ourselves and helped this feel like a more intimate experience. They know us by our first names."
What the Selbys would tell a student on the fence about Ross
Most prospective students who reach out to her, Maddie said, worry about the island rather than the medicine. Her answer is the same each time. "The time's going to pass anyway," she said. "If you can be scared for five minutes, you can be happy for five years. When else will you be able to study your passion on an island?"
Lisa would tell students not to let fear dictate their choices. “It can feel so intimidating, but at the end of the day, it’s been truly magical and these people have changed our lives,” she said. “They’re helping us become physicians but also helping us become better people.”
The family doesn't yet know where they will complete their clinical training, though they're hopeful it lands them happy, somewhere in the U.S., maybe Utah. For now, mother and daughter are learning, mentoring, and growing — together.
