Never, Ever Bored...A Child Psychologist Finds Her Niche
by Alina Gonzalez '08
Coming from a family full of Big Green alums, it was never a question where
Sarah Stearns, Class of 1990, wanted to attend college. Her father, Stuart
Stearns, Jr.,’54 (better known as Stew), and mother, Christina Dickey, Smith
’58 (Tina), met on a tennis court while they were both freshmen: he at
Dartmouth, she at Hanover High School. In addition to Sarah’s father, several
uncles, siblings and grandparents—including John Sloan Dickey, former Dartmouth
College President and founder of the philanthropic William Jewett Tucker
Foundation—all count the college as their alma mater. Consequently, with so
many Dartmouth relatives residing in Hanover, Sarah’s yearly trips to the Upper
Valley began when she was a child. “I always wanted to go here, applied early,
and got in,” she says.
Though Sarah knew her way around campus as a fifth grader, her four years as
a Dartmouth undergrad instilled a deep, mature appreciation for the Ivy
institution.
“I loved it from the start, especially my freshman Dartmouth Outing Club
(DOC) trip. And I found my freshman seminar fascinating,” she says.
Taught by Professor Norman Miller, the seminar covered the African
environment and sparked a passion in Sarah for environmental studies. Her
junior winter she traveled to Kenya on the Dartmouth Foreign Studies Program,
an experience that she describes as life altering. In fact, Sarah found the
continent so extraordinary that she ended up staying another full term to work
on a safari with a biologist who was studying lions.
Likewise, Sarah had such a terrific time on her first DOC trip that she
signed on to lead hiking for beginners. She remained an active student,
frequently skiing, hiking, and playing volleyball; all passions which she
continues to pursue twenty years later.
She graduated in 1990 with a concentration in psychology, and though she
would later study to become a child psychologist, Sarah says her choice was
never definitive. “I enjoyed Psych 100, but I could have majored in a
number of other subjects.” Echoing a sentiment that many college students feel
upon graduation, Sarah says she was unsure about her post-graduation path.
“Since I hadn’t done a thesis because of the time I spent abroad, I didn’t
think I’d be able to get into graduate school without the research experience
that comes with it,” she says. Sarah also struggled with the venue question:
where did she want to work and begin to set down roots.
“I found some internships in the field of international aid and development
but those only paid ten or twelve thousand for a stipend and I couldn’t afford
to live in Boston or D.C which is where they were.”
After spending a pressure-free summer as a camp counselor, Sarah moved
Boston to live with her aunt and search for the right job. She eventually found
work at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center where, with a group of Harvard
doctors, she studied medication and its effects. A milestone period in recent
American history, Sarah remembers listening to National Public Radio on her
very first day of work, the same morning that the first Iraq War, Operation
Desert Storm, began.
Eighteen months of valuable research experience later, she applied and was
accepted into a fellowship at Oxford. “I wanted that overseas experience
again,” she says.
In England, Sarah played for the Oxford volleyball team, one of the
highlights of her stay. “During my time at Oxford, I got to travel all around
with their volley ball team. I also played when I was in Kenya, which enabled
me to travel in Africa as well. It was incredible,” she says. “Sports have
always been a good way of connecting.” For one year, Sarah was officially a
“visiting studying fellow” with Oxford’s refugee studies program.
“It was a way of linking my evolving psychological interest in trauma and my
interest in African studies because refugees are displaced and it is quite a
traumatic experience for them,” she says.
While studying at Oxford, Sarah simultaneously applied to grad schools and
ultimately transitioned from one UK to another when she left the United Kingdom
after being accepted into the University of Kentucky’s clinical psychology
program.
“Having done what I did and gotten to where I am, I’m glad I did graduate
school but it came with a set of challenges. It was more of a means to an end,”
she says.
Upon completion of her studies, Sarah was awarded an internship at Chicago
Memorial Hospital where she specialized in pediatric psychology. She left after
one year and returned to Kentucky for a year-long, post-doctoral fellowship in
pediatric psychology in Louisville. She then accepted a job at La Rabida
Children’s Hospital, which took her back to the Windy City. At La Rabida, Sarah
worked in pain management with underprivileged kids who had chronic illnesses
like diabetes; she also counseled child burn victims.
“I lived for six years in the south side of Chicago, working with urban
African American kids. I’d been so privileged…and I really wanted to give
back,” she says.
Unfortunately, Sarah’s father fell ill at the same time that her aunt was
diagnosed with cancer, so she began flying back and forth to the east coast.
The constant traveling and her desire to be close to her sick family prompted
Sarah to search for new work in Boston. She applied for positions at both the
Children’s Hospital in Boston and the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth
Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC). By the time she heard from Dartmouth, she was
already a finalist for the position in Boston. She laughs when she remembers
what she said to Craig Donnelley, Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at
Dartmouth, when he called. “I asked him, ‘if you are waiting on a marriage
proposal, do you say yes when you are asked out on a date by a new person?”
Donnelly’s answer was a resounding yes, and Sarah took the job.
A child psychologist at DHMC, Sarah provides outpatient therapy to patients
as young as three that have behavioral problems to patients as old as 18 that
are dealing with traumatic experiences such as divorces. Sarah’s match at DHMC
is one of those ideal situations where a job that calls for a candidate with
compassion, fortitude, and insight is filled by a person who exudes those
qualities—and more—to the core.
“I love what I do…and I am never, ever bored.” A day in Sarah’s life is
always different. “I typically have an 8:00 a.m. patient, and I’m usually at
work by about 7:59,” she says with a smile. “I usually grab a stack of charts,
check my schedule for who is coming in, and see anywhere between four to seven
patients in a day. Recently, I saw a youngster whose parents are in a custody
dispute, a married couple and a toddler who has aggressive/disruptive behavior,
a teenager with chronic headaches who can’t go to school or have a normal
social life, and a child who has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in elementary
school,” she says.
Sarah also directs a parent-training group for the parents of kids who have
anxiety, anger, or other social problems and disruptive disorders. In the past
she has been the mental health coordinator for a children’s diabetes retreat,
which puts on fun events and therapeutic activities for the children to take
part in.
“I went into child psychology because a lot of times what happens to kids is
better to deal with when it happens, not when they’re an adult,” she says. “The
work I’ve done with kids who’ve been burned involves the personal part of me as
a clinician trying to be a detective and trying to distract them from the pain.
They’ve got this huge problem, and my small part is to make them forget about
the pain for awhile.”
For Sarah, her rewarding work is also a reminder to appreciate the small
moments in life. “You see these kids that are strong and resilient and have had
a horrible loss and still manage to pull through,” she says. “It puts so much
in perspective: all the minor aches and pains that we have, even the losses
that we go through. There is no rhyme or reason to it and terrible things
happen to everyone. It’s how you cope with suffering and handle it and pick up
the pieces. I am grateful to be able to be a part of the healing process,” she
says.
When asked what she would tell undergrads about life in the real world,
Sarah advises not expecting everything to make sense, or to fall into place at
one time. “I think there is a lot of pressure to know what you’re going to be
doing forever in your senior spring. Everyone is going to be asking you, and I
think it’s fine to come up with something temporary. You don’t need to know the
future now,” she says.
“The whole purpose of a liberal arts education is to teach you how to think
critically and to introduce you to many different subject areas. The first job
you take is not likely going to be your last one. It will be a mere
stepping-stone. You cannot predict how it will link.”
“For example,” she says, “The chairman of my department at Dartmouth, Alan
Green, was my boss at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center eighteen years
ago. Who knew that two decades later, I’d be working for the same guy. When I
reflect on the past, I can see everything and how it all makes sense. But at
the time I had no idea. It is like building a house, and each job or experience
you have is a different room in that house and they will all come together at
some point for completion,” she says. “It took me until January to get
that first job, so I say: resist the temptation to have some pat answer for
everyone; maybe just come up with something to do for the summer.”
Sarah’s post-grad summer job was with Putney Student Travel in Putney,
Vermont where, again, in a retrospective analysis, she worked with kids.
Fittingly, the previous summer Sarah worked for Wediko Children’s Services, a
camp for emotionally disturbed kids; another “incredibly informative
experience” in terms of entering the field of child psychology.
These days, Sarah says she’s never felt happier and more fulfilled with her
life. Her career is complemented by time spent with her three cats and outdoor
activities including tennis, skiing, hiking, canoeing, kayaking and gardening
in New Hampshire’s lush soil.
So Sarah Stearns, the enchanted legacy who walked the Big Green as a child
and traversed the globe as a knowledge and service-seeking young adult has
returned to Hanover once again, bringing with her an abiding dedication to
helping others and a long roster of talent. She is proof positive that some
life cycles are simply meant to be.
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