Medical student hangs up her gloves for scrubs

A force to be reckoned with inside the ring and the classroom, Paige Farley credits her mental toughness to a full-contact combat sport. “Mixed martial arts prepared me for medical school by instilling a level of discipline that’s required to succeed,” she said.

Farley, a rising second-year medical student at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine, faced many hardships during her childhood. In search of an outlet, she gave MMA a try. It became one of the most crucial decisions of her life. “I found the control I had so desperately sought,” she said. “I gained self-esteem and confidence, which gave me the ability to focus on helping others instead of myself.”

Rising second-year medical student Paige Farley demonstrates

self-defense moves with Mobile Police Officer Mike Barnett. 

Now - a decade later - she is a medical student, a self-defense teacher and a coach. Farley also launched her own nonprofit organization in Birmingham, Alabama, teaching self-defense skills to women from rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, homeless shelters and the community.

Mixed martial arts pushed her to limits she had never experienced. “You never really know what’s inside of you until you have to confront it,” Farley said. “I figured out that I’m capable of pushing through just about anything and facing my own fears.”

In 2017, Farley began medical school at the USA College of Medicine, a dream she wanted to pursue since the age of 13. Soon after, she realized she had to choose between continuing to compete and completing medical school.

Ultimately, medical school won. “I think the idea of having a skill that was absolutely necessary appealed to me. I always had a knack for understanding scientific principles,” she said. “MMA requires weight cutting, which is not conducive with taking exams. The possibility of having black eyes and being in the gym two to four hours a day ended up not being manageable with the workload of medical school.”

Her decision was based on which career would be the best use of her time and talents.

Farley said MMA taught her the importance of consistency and a strong work ethic: “You have to be able to push through when things get hard and be able to set your life up in a way that makes success more likely.”

Six years of research in emergency medicine and trauma surgery before to medical school led Farley to focus on the path to becoming a trauma surgeon. “I fell in love with the lifestyle of trauma, the mission statement and the personality types that gravitate towards that specialty,” she said. “I can’t think of a more rewarding way to spend my life.”

Farley said MMA will forever be a part of who she is: “I want to use my experiences to empower others,” she said. “I would like to leave this world and my field better than I found it.”