Linda Korley, MD

My parents are immigrants from Ivory Coast. My mother worked for McDonalds for most of my life and my father had a decent paying job at a mental health institute, but our household income was still well below 40K. I always had free lunch and went to public schools that many would keep their children away from. Things got significantly worse when I was 13 and my mother was wrongfully incarcerated and then deported back to Ivory Coast. My younger sister and I were left here in the states while my father and baby brother traveled to Ivory Coast to be with my mother. My sister and I bounced around between states with aunts and uncles and family friends, switching schools and or cities every few months. I got a job at an African Braiding Shop to make my sister and I less of a burden to the people who housed us. We have been evicted more than 5 times. To this day I cannot tell you how I kept a 4.0 GPA through all of this. I was totally lost, trying to be an adult in a situation that should have never happened, but it made me a stronger more adaptable person. After attending 5 different high schools over the course of 3 years, I graduated from Meadowbrook high school at age 16. Supposedly at that time the graduation rate was the lowest in the county. I matriculated to VSU on a full scholarship and since then my mother has returned. My whole family is now back together in Georgia , and my sister is now applying for the 2021 match to become a surgeon! I’m now 28 and just finished anesthesiology residency at Penn. I am now a private practice anesthesiologist working in Delaware and I couldn’t be more grateful.

I have an amazing husband and a beautiful daughter named Penielle. We also have our own church plant that we started from scratch in Philadelphia- Abundant Life World Ministries.

Looking back I can say that God’s grace definitely carried me when I didn’t even know it. Now I know Him better than ever and I know that He has always had a flawless plan for my life. I reach out to the youth whenever I get the chance and share my story of overcoming adversity, and I think it’s so important for us all to do so.

”#withoutthewhitecoat I am a generational curse breaker. I am the daughter of impoverished immigrants. I am a woman on fire for God- committed to spreading the Gospel to the lost. I am a mother to a remarkable little girl. I am a wife to an amazing man of God. I am pouring the concrete for those coming behind me.