Tom Burdick grew up on a ranch in a town of about 1,500 people in northeastern Utah. After high school, Tom worked to put himself through college and then medical school, and now he works as an interventional radiologist at Dartmouth Health.
In this installment of our occasional series, What class are you?, Tom talks to producer Erica Heilman about the challenges of breaking into higher education, and raising children in a different class from the one he grew up in.
This interview was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We鈥檝e also provided a transcript, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Erica Heilman: Were there ever moments in your trajectory toward 鈥榙octorhood鈥� where you noticed blind spots that people had about class?
Tom Burdick: I think that one of the things that I notice a lot, and I still see it to this day, is people underestimate the role of mentorship. If you don't really come from that privilege, from a background of academics, it's almost impossible to understand all the steps you need to go through to get yourself into a medical school, be involved in research maybe as an undergrad, and how important these things are and how to get those doors open.
Where if you come from a from a group of people that already understand that, from a different class, these things are really obvious. Though having coming from kind of a disadvantaged background, in some ways, gave me a lot of stories that I could tell when I was interviewing 鈥� and I think that hearing that and having that background, in some ways, really opened up a lot of doors for me. Some of that is an odd kind of a privilege that I had as being a young, white, clean-cut, straight-A student from a rural background. I think that in a lot of ways, especially in academics, people really want 鈥榯hat kid鈥� to succeed, and it's pretty easy to open doors to that kid.
Erica Heilman: And do you believe that still?
Tom Burdick: I think it's getting harder and harder. When I look around the world. I do think that class is much more likely to be fixed. But having said that, one of the things that I worry about a lot is my own children sliding back into that level that I started at and not being able to get out. And part of that is I worry about, you know, them having the drive to succeed that I had, because they've had, in many ways, a much easier life growing up because of what I've been able to provide for them.
My wife grew up really pretty comfortably, and so I don't think she ever really thought that that sort of failure was an option. But I did. I knew it was there, and I still, to this day, feel like, you know, it's always there 鈥� the possibility that it all might come crashing down and you're back on the ranch, you know, sitting on a tractor.
Erica Heilman: You don't romanticize farming or tough living. And I think that that is something that upper class people do, romanticizing, not poverty, so much as really grinding challenge.
Tom Burdick: Yeah, it's an incredible amount of work, hard work, working with your hands. And, you know, I think always kind of feeling like you're on that margin. If one of our tractors was to break down and not be repairable, that might be the end. God forbid you have a big medical expense or something like that, or a lawsuit, or anything like that. Any of those things could just really completely wipe you out.
Erica Heilman: So did you live with a low-grade worry all the time?
Tom Burdick: Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, just a bad water year might be something that was, you know, could just kind of wipe you out.
Erica Heilman: So since you've straddled both sides of this, are there things that you know that your kids will never know?
Tom Burdick: Well, unless life takes them in a terrible turn of events, you know, I don't think that they'll know poverty the way that I knew it, you know, and know what that constant fear of it all falling apart, what it's like to live under that threat. I don't think.
Erica Heilman: You don't want that for your kids, but it seems as though there's also either fear of them not鈥� I mean, you don't want it but, but what?
Tom Burdick: I really don't want them to think that growing up privileged is a thing to be proud of, or a thing that was a big positive thing in their life. Which is kind of ridiculous, because it probably allowed them鈥� it allowed my son to go to a college that is has such a ridiculous high tuition that, I mean, it just shouldn't exist in our society. But it's there, and because of that privilege, he was able to go do that. But I want them to also know that it is something they can get on their own. I want them to have that drive to be able to change their circumstances, no matter what circumstances they end up. I that that is important.
Erica Heilman: What does it look like for them to surpass you?
Tom Burdick: Well, here's something that I was thinking about this, about what class means, and kind of what it might allow you to do. And I鈥檒l put it in a healthcare framework, but say you grow up working class, maybe you go to a doctor only when you really have to, and that's kind of how you interact. And then maybe, if you're in a middle class, you have a good primary care doctor and you see them and you get your regular checkups. And maybe, if you're upper middle class, maybe you are the doctor and you're able to help other people. And I think in the next class up, you're able to change systems of medicine to influence and change the lives of thousands of people by making that sort of change in the world.
I still look at myself and think, "Well, if I just do a good job for the patient in front of me, maybe that's enough." But maybe my kids can be the ones that bring a bigger, more important societal change. Maybe that's what success would look for them to launch, given that we've kind of been able to provide them a platform now that they can continue to do good things.
Erica Heilman: That's a lot of responsibility.
Tom Burdick: Well, someone's got to do it.
