“I feel fulfilled taking care of people” — Former model, Ana Claudia Michels found happiness as a doctor and mother

A model from the south of Brazil, who started her career very early and is internationally recognized. We could be talking about Gisele, but no, since she graduated as a doctor in 2019. Ana Claudia Michels, in addition to being a top model and doctor, is still a mother and an example of hard work to make dreams come true.

we from awesome.club We revisited the trajectory of Ana Claudia Michels, who rocked as a model, changed careers and continues to shine as a doctor and mother.

Ana Claudia was born in the city of Joinville, in Santa Catarina, and it was her father’s encouragement that she decided to take a model course. She was soon discovered by an agency in Florianópolis, the state capital. Opportunities began to appear, and she modeled for several brands, including posing for the cover of Vogue magazine. Stylist Donatela Versace has even declared that Ana was her favorite model. Her beauty has been compared to that of British model Twiggy.

So many eyes focused on the model’s success made her face a delicate situation, at the Fashion Rio 2009 fashion event. While parading in a bikini, the press focused and criticized Ana Claudia’s cellulite, causing controversy. But the Santa Catarina woman took it seriously and raised a flag against the excessive demand for perfection and also for the ethics of the press.

“People have to understand that we’re models, but we’re not perfect,” she said in an interview. “I find it unethical to print a close-up of a body with cellulite on websites. It’s very off topic.” Ana Claudia also claimed not to be bothered by the criticism and that she was fine with her body. “Of course I have cellulite. Me and almost all the women,” she admits.

But Ana Claudia did not stop there. In 2012, she turned her life around and fulfilled a dream she had since childhood, that of becoming a doctor. “Since I was young, I always wanted to study medicine. I started working and had to postpone it, it ended up taking 16 years”. When she turned 30, she thought the “now or never” had arrived, and went to a pre-university course. She managed to pass a college in São Paulo.

To better dedicate herself to her dream, Ana Claudia chose to put her modeling career in the background, doing only more important work. About her modeling career, she says that “It was a universe that fascinated me and that transformed me as a woman. It gave the skinny girl born in Joinville the self-esteem that was lacking, but my dream was different”. As for her new profession, she comments with fascination: “Everything in Medicine instigates me, it is another way of looking at human beings”.

Ana’s new routine was difficult and she didn’t romanticize it, but she accepted reality: “I can’t reconcile much”. Also because, right in the middle of her career change, still in college, she was the mother of two children, Iolanda and Santiago. Motherhood and a new profession arrived almost together and demanded drastic changes. For the first time in her life, she had a regular schedule for everything. “I still haven’t been able to adapt, I feel a lot of guilt. It ends up being very tiring.”

Ana Claudia accepts the difficulty but also confesses that she has a lot of help: “My husband, my relatives and my friends are very supportive and I believe. It’s one day at a time.” It was difficult for her to leave her children to go to work, but necessary. Ana went through several internships and even managed to be approved for a residency in a large private hospital in São Paulo, with 25 candidates competing for each vacancy.

The medical residency is a postgraduate course for doctors, paid and carried out in teaching hospitals. In residency, doctors do a specialization under the supervision of more experienced and highly qualified doctors, both professionally and ethically. That’s why it was so important for Ana Cláudia to be able to enter this residence.

Ana Cláudia talked about her medical residency, especially about the time she worked in the emergency room. “The month of emergency was what I feared the most in the residency and it was, to say the least, intense”. However, she claims that the experience was transformative and the marks left are positive. In addition to her residency, she continued working on shifts at SUS posts: “It is a wonderful health system, and I feel fulfilled taking care of the most vulnerable people”.

With so much hard work and the new title of Doctor, Ana still hasn’t completely given up her model title: “I’m still going to work as a model, but being in the market for so long makes me more flexible and I can shoot on the weekend, for example”. We can see that she is not afraid of hard work, even though it is difficult to balance work with her family.

But all this effort has a reason. In addition to the professional fulfillment that was her dream, Ana Claudia wants her children to see her efforts. “I want to be an example for them, among other things, of determination. I want them to also have the courage to be whatever they want.” With a struggling mother like Ana, Iô and Santi will also grow up full of determination to pursue their dreams.

And it’s not just for her children that Ana Claudia sets an example, but for all those who fight for their dreams. Do you know someone who, in order to fulfill a dream, started college late?