Sixty-year old student takes challenge seriously Up with the roosters, out with the owls, Medical Assistant student, Desiree Bacchus, works twelve hour night shifts at Downstate Hospital in the ICU as a cardiac telemetry technician (EKG Associate), goes home and takes a brief nap, and then arrives on time at the Brooklyn campus of Allen School to her Medical Assistant training. Working and going to school has never been a problem for this former policewoman from Guyana, a ballistics expert who specialized in handwriting analysis, fingerprinting, and lab technology in the criminal investigation department in Georgetown. While working as a policewoman, Desiree attended night classes at the university in Guyana for four years and became a lawyer. She practiced criminal law from 1982 until 1986, working in the office of the director of public prosecutions. Then came the opportunity to come to the USA. Upon arrival in America, Desiree found that her desire to go back to law school to become a criminologist, so that she could return to Guyana as the country’s first, was not to be an option, due to financial constraints. Desiree, not one to be easily deterred, embarked upon a different path, one that would lead her into the medical field.