When Columbia native Uriah Chapman was 10, he knew doctors and nurses in the neonatal intensive care unit of a Columbia hospital were working feverishly to keep his premature brother alive.

The angst and intrigue of that experience planted the first seed in his mind that he, too, could become a doctor. To do so, however, he overcame his mother’s death, the breakup of his family, financial struggles and failing grades in high school.

A decade and half after those and other ordeals, Chapman will be among the 175 students who will graduate on Saturday from the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) College of Medicine. He’s the only student, however, who’s graduating a year early, the university said.

“My story has been full of moments that I just can’t believe,” Chapman told the Charleston City Paper . Because of the struggles he has faced, Chapman said, “I had given up on the idea of going to medical school. Looking back on it now as a 26-year-old, I can see that everything that happened had a reason behind it.”

Dr. Terrence E. “Terry” Steyer, dean of the College of Medicine, said Chapman worked alongside him in a clinic.

“It was obvious that he was the ideal student for the accelerated medical pathway – hardworking, self-motivated and well prepared to begin his next stage of training.”

Chapman “is an incredible young man when you consider all of the barriers that he had to overcome, said North Charleston Dr. Thaddeus J. Bell, a former associate dean in MUSC’s college of medicine and director of the university’s office of diversity.

MUSC waived Chapman’s tuition, but he needed loans for living expenses. To help with those expenses, he received $10,000 in support last fall from Bell’s Family Scholarship Endowment at the Coastal Community Foundation. The scholarship helps Black students pursuing careers in health at MUSC.

Going it alone

Completing medical school through a three-year accelerated program was difficult, Chapman admitted, because he could not draw on the support of fellow students.

“One of the great things about medical school is you get to know your classmates, and you bond over that shared struggle,” he explained. “But when I went to the accelerated track it was just me so … I didn’t have that close-knit community.”

Chapman experienced similar isolation when he was 16 entering his junior year in the fall of 2015 at Ridgeview High School in Columbia. His mother, Cosha Calloway, died that season from opioid and alcohol addictions. Shortly after her death, Chapman’s stepfather remarried, and left Columbia without him. His three siblings also moved to other states.

Chapman didn’t have a relationship with his biological father, and he did not want to live with his stepfather and his new wife. He remained in Columbia where he jumped from one couch to the next until his best friend’s family allowed him to live with them.

Chapman’s high school assigned him a social worker, “and my stepdad signed over his parental rights, so I became an unaccompanied youth at 16,” he said.

From then until medical school, he navigated between different families and church members. Teachers became his godparents, he said.

Horrible grades

Failing grades marked the report cards during his first two years of high school. “I didn’t think I was going to college,” he revealed. But as he entered his junior year of high school while having trouble at home, an unexpected pathway to college opened after he decided on New Year’s Eve 2015 to attend a church service instead of a party.

By the time he entered the church, his family had been shattered. He had a heavy burden, “but my heart was open, and I found Jesus. Everything changed,” he recalled.

During his last two years in high school he scored As and Bs.

“I don’t have any great explanation as to why that happened, but that was the moment my faith ignited, and things started to gradually fall into place,” he said in a recent interview. “School didn’t become easy, but I became more invested, more devoted, and I began enjoying the process of trying to learn and grow.”

Chapman graduated from the University of South Carolina in May 2021 as an honors student with all As. He pursued a triple major in biology, public health and sociology through USC’s Honors College.

Chapman was one of the students in Dr. Bobby Donaldson’s documentary history course in the Honors College.

“Uriah Chapman is one of those rare young scholars who leaves a lasting impression,” Donaldson said. “What truly sets Uriah apart, however, is his ability to defy expectations and excel against the odds.”

After graduating from USC, Chapman applied for medical school, but he did not score high enough on the entrance exam. He took a year off to study for it while he worked as an emergency medical technician in Lexington County.

“I came to MUSC in July 2022 with the plan that it would take four years,” he said. But after his first semester Chapman said he was doing better than he expected so that opened the door for him to enroll in the accelerated program.

Mother had a plan

Chapman’s mother reminded him continuously that his first name came from the Bible. Uriah means, “God is my light or God is my fire,” he said. Chapman and his siblings then realized the unexpected. After his mother died, he and his siblings saw that their mother had given each of them Biblical names and their initials spelled Jesus. Cosha Calloway named her children Jadon, Exodus, Shekinah, Uriah and Samuel. Jadon was born prematurely, and Samuel died when he was a year and a half.

“I don’t think my mom planned that, but [she] taught us the meaning of our names,” Chapman said. “Faith was woven into who we are individually and collectively. It reminds us that we have not been forgotten about as a family.”

In the coming year, Chapman plans to pursue an internship in internal medicine at MUSC, beginning July 1, and then specialize in cardiology.

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