Dr. Sachoya McDonald was born and raised on the tropical irie island of Jamaica. At 16 she moved to Kissimmee, Florida where she finished high school. For undergrad, she attended the University of Central Florida and majored in biology, and she also volunteered at Orlando Regional Medical Center (ORMC). Subsequently, she offered a position as a patient and family liaison in the Emergency Department where she worked for almost 2 years. After graduating Magna Cum Laude from UCF, she moved a little further north to Gainesville, Florida to attend medical school at the University of Florida.

At UF, Sachoya volunteered at the Equal Access Clinic, a student run clinic providing healthcare for the underserved and undocumented population where she developed an interest in women’s and pediatric health and the health disparities involved in minority communities. During her final summer break at the end of the first year of medical school, she worked at the Health Care Summer Institute, an academic program sponsored by the College of Medicine Office of Diversity and Health Equity, where she mentored high school student from underrepresented and rural backgrounds who were interested in entering a health related field. She served as the treasurer for the Integrative Health and Medicine Interest Group and took at in the longitudinal elective – Promoting Resilience in Medicine (PRIMe). In her senior year of medical school, she was inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society where she was elected co-president.