Tyka Edness was a dancer, a student reporter and a model before she decided to dive into a medical career.
“I guess I just can’t keep still,” the physiotherapist-in-training explained to The Royal Gazette.
The 22-year-old recently won a scholarship from the Bermuda Hospitals Board to help with her studies at the University of the West Indies.
She’s working at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital for the summer.
Shadowing doctors and dealing with the needs of patients has been “raw and real”, Tyka said.
“It’s such a rewarding career and a great feeling, really inexpressible in a way, just to get someone able to walk from the bathroom back to their bed,” she added. “For them, it’s leaps and bounds.”
With gruelling examinations and fierce competition from some of the Caribbean’s top students, Tyka’s experience in Jamaica’s UWI inspired her to bring her learning back home this summer and start her own fitness classes.
“I went to my neighbourhood playground and had a look around, and I thought, ‘I can do something with this’,” she said.
A Spanish Point local, Tyka started teaching fitness classes in the Pembroke Community Club on North Shore. Her final classes for the summer will be held there next Monday and Wednesday.
“I’ve taught 20, 25 people at a time. If I can have an impact that way and help people get fitter, there’s no time to lose.”
A sense of urgency seems to have driven her from an early age.
At 12, determined to become a dancer, Tyka told family members that she had the world to conquer, and set off for Washington DC’s Duke Ellington School of the Performing Arts. She also undertook an intensive dance programme at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.
“Dance, for me, is an art form and a sport as well,” she explained.
The sporting aspect of dance also guided her toward physiotherapy, which is intimately concerned with physical mobility. Tyka was also a keen runner, netball player and track athlete and, in 2009, managed to get her face in JET magazine after her mother submitted a picture of her.
In the meantime, she pursued a degree in journalism.
Asked what made her choose to pursue a different career, Tyka seemed careful to avoid hurting this reporter’s feelings on the relative merits of the trade.
“Journalism is great,” she said, “but it doesn’t make sense living unless you really milk life. I listened to that little voice and I thought, ‘Go for it’. At that time, I didn’t know the first thing about science. I found that out on my first day at UWI.”
Accordingly, last August, Tyka commenced a three-year bachelor’s degree programme in physiotherapy and fell in love with it.
She credits her mother Robin for supporting her in her search.
“She’s the reason,” Tyka said. “I didn’t come from having everything, but if she had to do anything to make sure I had what I needed, she’d do it.”
Dance remains part of her life. On her 23rd birthday next Saturday, Tyka will take to the stage at City Hall as part of the 20th anniversary performance of United Dance Productions.
“I’ll be there with them dancing three modern pieces, really beautiful ones. I haven’t danced in years — I’m excited for it.”
Useful website: www.bermudahospitals.bm.