From Plain Clothes to a White Coat

Graduation represents an important transition for students. When they cross the stage to receive their diplomas, they’re making the transition from student to graduate, scholar to practitioner.  

Among the many Millersville Marauders celebrating commencement this weekend is biology major Donovan August. He’s had a foot in the professional world for nearly a decade at this point, working first as an emergency medical technician and later as a certified paramedic on board the ambulances at Lancaster Emergency Medical Services.   

Recently, he was accepted to the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Duluth campus, which specializes in training doctors in primary care to serve in rural Minnesota and Native American communities. His unique academic journey is one worth sharing.  

Like many in Lancaster County, August grew up in Martindale as an Old Order Mennonite, a Christian protestant anabaptist faith tradition known for its insular, Pennsylvania Dutch-speaking community that dons plain dress, including head coverings at all times for women, and eschews many of the conveniences of modern-day life. 

For instance, many Mennonite communities only require children to attend school until eighth grade. That was the plan set out for August. He attended a one-room schoolhouse for all grades in Earl Township, where classes were taught in English to help students learn the language, as they grew up speaking Pennsylvania Dutch. August walked to and from school each day with the other 20 or so children from the surrounding Mennonite community.  

From an early age, August was not comfortable with the future that community expected of him. One night, he came across an EMT textbook that his older brother, who worked as a volunteer firefighter, had accidentally left unattended. Though he wasn’t supposed to review the material – it featured a lot of blood and body parts – he flipped through it eagerly. Even as a child, August had a keen interest in science, though he was taught little, if anything, about the subject in school. It was then that he set his sights on becoming an EMT.  

Raised and socialized as a girl in the Mennonite community, August had already ruled out becoming a firefighter as a viable career – and careers were already extremely limited for Mennonite women. It simply wasn’t an option: firefighters had to wear pants, something August was strictly forbidden to do. “I was unable to wear the helmet, too, because it would have covered my prayer covering,” he adds.  

Becoming an EMT would allow him to avoid those issues and ensure he had access to more formal education, something he had to fight with his parents about. “In order to become an EMT, you need a high school diploma or GED,” explains August. “So, I had to convince my parents to let me do high school – something they didn’t understand – and they told me it wasn’t worthwhile since I was just supposed to get married and have babies.”  

In the end, they relented and allowed August to enroll in a high school program, which he did entirely on his own because neither of his parents had received a high school education and were able to assist with the coursework. He completed the requirements in a year.   

August began volunteering with the Fivepointville Ambulance Association, completed his EMT training program through a partnership with Reading Hospital School of Health Sciences and landed a job as an EMT in December of 2015 at LEMSA. Simultaneously, he also attended several summer mission trips with his church to a Lakota reservation in South Dakota through Olive Branch Mennonite Missions, a local sending organization that had a Mennonite school and church in the area. “It was the first time I realized that there was an entire world out there that I was missing out on,” says August. 

Over the course of these trips, August’s perspective on faith and life began to change. “Initially, the ministry was trying to recruit us to be schoolteachers to work in their Mennonite school, so I was trying to figure out if that was what I wanted to do,” says August. “But by the fourth trip in 2016, I went out with a different attitude. I had already made up my mind that I was going to leave the church.” 

Core to his decision was the treatment of women. “The reasons I left the church and my family were due to how women were treated and the lack of career options,” shares August. “I was convinced that I was going to die as a child and teen, not in a suicidal way, but because I literally could not visualize myself as an adult in that community.”  

“So, while I was there on that last trip, I didn’t want to evangelize to the Native American community; what I really wanted was to help them address community-based problems.”  

This community, according to August, faces several specific issues: Poverty and alcoholism are widespread, and because of its remote location, access to emergency and medical services are limited.  

While August and the others from the church were on site, there was a vehicle accident on the reservation caused by drunk driving. Knowing that the closest ambulance was over an hour away and the closest hospital was even farther, August, a few volunteer firefighters and a freshly minted nurse from the group of visiting Pennsylvania Mennonites responded to the scene of the accident to help as best they could with no equipment. “It was then that the gap in rural medicine became very apparent to me,” shares August. “It became clear that while a community effort can help in these situations, more resources will always be needed.” 

Returning home, August’s first act of freedom was to move out of his parents’ home and into an apartment with his older brother. His second act of freedom was cutting his long hair and wearing pants for the first time in his 20 years of life, something he was previously forbidden to do.  

While working outside of his community and in the medical field at LEMSA, he continued to meet more people whose lives looked vastly different from his own. “I was coming out of a Mennonite frame of mind,” he says. “When I met gay and trans people, I still thought and believed it was a mental illness.”  

During the COVID-19 pandemic, August started attending therapy, working to unpack incidents and beliefs instilled in him from childhood and from working in emergency services. “I struggled with my mental health for several years after leaving, mainly due to how I was treated as a child, and what was expected of me as a woman, compounded by trauma as a paramedic,” he explains. “But years of therapy and distance from my relatives has helped.”  

Along the way, August got to know himself better – and continued cutting his hair shorter – he applied to Millersville University to study biology. Things, he says, were finally falling into place for him. “I don’t know when exactly I figured out that I was queer; it just kind of happened,” he says. One day, on a whim, he shaved his entire head with his brother’s razor. “I looked in the mirror and thought, ‘Oh my god, that’s what I’m supposed to look like.’ ” 

While this realization was helping August make sense of his life, it ended his relationship with his brother. “He told me, ‘I don’t want you living with me,’” says August. This left him scrambling to find a place to live and impacted his financial aid package, unexpectedly adding housing and dining to the bill he had to find a way to pay. And, it was the loss of another familial relationship. 

August was informed of the University’s Living Learning Communities and Special Interest Housing, which allow students with common interests or experiences to live together in common groupings. He was able to secure a spot in the LGBTQ+ & Allies housing. And, an aunt he calls “the prior generation’s black sheep of the family” offered to help him make up the difference in cost so he could attend Millersville.   

Millersville, says August, “has been great. I love the biology program here, especially the professors.” He engaged in research as an undergraduate student, eventually joining the Honors College and presenting his research on vaping and lung cancer at Made in Millersville and the National Conference of Undergraduate Research in Pittsburgh. “I worked with Dr. Heather Lehman, associate professor of human anatomy, physiology and nutritional science, the most,” he shares. “We met when I went to talk with her about an internship opportunity and ended up yapping for the better part of an hour. She’s so amazing.”  

“Dr. Brent Horton, associate professor of vertebrate ecological physiology and behavioral ecology, is another professor I’ve loved. He champions and celebrates underrepresented students in science, especially biology. I was invited into the biology mentorship program, so I met him in the spring of my first year. The mentorship program is how I met most of my friends. They do one-on-one mentoring, and it’s a great opportunity to connect with your fellow majors.”

Now, August is graduating with honors in triplicate – University Honors, Departmental Honors and Latin Honors – and heads to Minnesota mid-summer. “As I prepare to continue my studies in medicine, I try to hold on to what a mentor/father figure shared with me: ‘Patients might never remember what you did or said to them, but they will remember how you made them feel.’ I know I can be good at my skills, but I focus on talking to them and being human with them to help alleviate their apprehension in a scary situation.”  

As for his next chapter? “I see Minnesota as a way to start a new life, much like when I left the church, and to share my story and experiences with a new community. I’ve learned that being open about my gender identity, even in rural areas, creates unexpected moments of connection. When patients or young people notice my pronoun badge or pride bracelet, they often confide in me about their own fears around expressing their identity. It reminds me how vital representation and compassion are in medicine.”