Annicia Sappleton
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For Annicia, the relationship between curiosity, care, science, and humanity has been forming for most of her life. As a child in Jamaica, long before she became a medical assistant, she remembers regularly dressing up as a medical professional for career day. Year after year, when other children were experimenting with different dreams and identities, Annicia returned to the same one. “Every year for career day, I would dress up as a doctor,” she recalls.
She remembers mixing colors in school and feeling fascinated by the evidence of systems firing underneath the surface. That initial spark of interest eventually turned into scientific-leaning leadership roles. She joined her school’s science club and stayed for years, rising to become its president. “I was always curious,” she says. “I liked biology, chemistry, physics. I wanted something where I could interact with someone and see how something could change.”
That fascination with the hidden mechanisms that shape outcomes never left her, but the path forward didn’t unfold the way she once imagined. “After high school, I came to the United States,” she recalls, along with her sister and mother. That was a transition that came with both possibility and disorientation.
Trisanyah, Annicia’s younger sister, remembers that same mix of emotions, but was grateful to have Annicia in her corner. “For me, the transition was a mix between being difficult and being fulfilling,” she says. “Being siblings, you can always depend on having that little sibling rivalry. But when we were transitioning from Jamaica to the United States, she stepped up. She was so much of an inspiration for me to keep going, even in the hard times, and she just helped me keep my head up.”
Annicia found work quickly, but the work alone wasn’t enough. “I didn’t feel fulfilled,” she admits. “I didn’t feel that I should just have all this knowledge and not try to do something with it.” She had imagined college—four years, advanced degrees, a direct path toward the future she had pictured since childhood. Instead, financial reality forced her to reconsider. She searched for alternatives, scanning the internet for opportunities, until she found her way to Bidwell Training Center.
When she reached out, she discovered they already had her information on file from an earlier inquiry she barely remembered making. “It felt almost surreal,” she says. “Like it was meant to happen.”
Her first days there tested her confidence. She arrived to find her classmates already ahead, deep into textbooks that felt imposingly thick and heavy. “The books were big, and everyone had already started the first chapter,” she says. “I felt overwhelmed.” She had always been meticulous, someone who prided herself on being prepared. Starting behind unsettled her sense of control. But she did what she had always done when faced with uncertainty: she adapted.
I talked to the teachers after class to see how I could catch up,” she says. “Halfway through, I started to feel good. I actually did.”
What she gained at Bidwell extended beyond medical knowledge. She learned how to present herself, how to communicate professionally, and how to translate her abilities into opportunity. Her resume, once five colorful pages filled with graphics, became something simpler and more powerful. “My old resume was pink with graphs and pretty colors,” she says, laughing. “Now it’s one page, detailed. People actually want to see it.”
Just as important were the less visible lessons—the durable skills. How to navigate a workplace, how to earn trust, how to carry herself with confidence in clinical spaces that once would have intimidated her. “That amount of time being in that environment has definitely provided a template for me here at work,” she says.
She did not make it through alone. She credits a very small circle of support, especially her mother and her younger sister. Her mother provided emotional grounding, while her sister became an active partner in the work itself, helping her study and practice spelling when it proved difficult.
“She was a big flashcard person,” Trisanyah confirms. “But she rarely had enough time between using transportation to get home and then making sure she actually completed her coursework to do those flashcards. So I’d stay up with her and work on them. I would help her study by quizzing her.”
Watching Annicia transform from overwhelmed to confident inspired her sister to follow the same path. Trisanyah is now enrolled in the Institutional Pharmacy Technician
program at Bidwell herself. “I am in my fourth quarter, so I’m right around the corner from taking my PTC—about 27 days. It has been very good. It has forced me to become more adaptable and be more on top of everything.”
And she’s eager to give Annicia credit for helping her get to where she is today. “She reminded me of the reason why we were doing this, and how proud she is of me. It’s not often—especially for persons in my culture—to express pride or love to one another; it’s more so acts of service. But for her to actually say, ‘I’m proud of you, and I am amazed by the person you have become,’ that is a completely different level of motivation. I might be biased, but she is just genuinely the most amazing person that has ever walked the face of the earth.”
Today, Annicia works at the Center for Diabetes and Endocrine Health, where the abstractions of science become immediate and human. She monitors blood sugar readings, prepares patient charts, and helps guide people through the daily management of chronic illness. She greets patients with a calm attentiveness that makes them feel remembered. Sometimes they recognize her voice before they recognize her.
“When the patient asks questions that I can answer,” she says, “that encourages me to look more into things.” Her ambitions remain expansive, but also flexible. “At the ABK ceremony, I said I wanted to become a nurse practitioner and maybe do medical school,” she says. “I have this whole roadmap.” But experience has taught her to balance ambition with patience. “Right now, I’m taking it one step at a time,” she says.
She studies new diabetes technologies. She considers nursing programs. She looks for the next step, whatever form it takes. What she wants most is not a specific title, but a feeling. “Something that makes me say, ‘Wow,’” she says. “Something that pushes me.”
When asked what advice she would give to students just beginning their own journeys, she doesn’t hesitate. “Just keep going,” she says. She knows how easy it is to feel overwhelmed. How easy it is to doubt yourself. “If you happen to find an excuse,” she says, “find resources. There are people there that are willing to help you.” Success, she believes, begins long before the job offer or the diploma. It begins with a decision.
“It has to take some type of intrinsic motivation,” she says. “Just want it more. Just really want it.”
