Russell J. Ledet spent four years patrolling the doctors’ parking lot at Baton Rouge General Medical Center, where, as a security guard, he watched people in white coats come and go from the building. He fantasized about what his life could be.

In a moment of bravery one day, Ledet was walking with a doctor and asked: “Hey, do you think I could shadow you?” To Ledet’s surprise, the doctor, a surgical resident, replied:

“Yeah, why not?” Ledet recalled.

Whenever Ledet had free time over the next several months, he was in the operating room and visiting patients with Patrick Greiffenstein.

“It just so happened, God put me in the right place at the right time, and it worked,” said Ledet, 34, of Gretna, La.

Now, seven years after he was a security guard at Baton Rouge General Medical Center, Ledet is assigned to the hospital as a medical student.

He is doing his pediatrics rotation at the Louisiana hospital and is in his third year at Tulane University School of Medicine.

“It’s like the ultimate comeback,” Ledet said.

As he comes and goes from the hospital, he sometimes runs into people he used to work with when he was a guard. Once when he was recently in the emergency room, one of them yelled out: “You did it! You actually did it...read more