{"id":126355,"date":"2026-01-21T13:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T13:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/126355\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T13:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T13:09:08","slug":"um-miller-school-of-medicine-professor-writes-memoir-about-misdiagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/126355\/","title":{"rendered":"UM Miller School of Medicine professor writes memoir about misdiagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Dr. Shalom Saada Saar poses for a headshot for his memoir. Photo Courtesy of Dr. Shalom Saada Saar.<\/p>\n

Dr. Shalom Saada Saar \u2014 an assistant professor at the University of Miami\u2019s Miller School of Medicine \u2014 got misdiagnosed as mentally disabled when he was young. He felt like he never belonged in any room he walked into, and the psychologists that followed him were a constant reminder of that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was timid, I was shy. I wouldn\u2019t respond to the questions,\u201d Saar said. \u201cBecause of their misdiagnosis, they said that this kid didn\u2019t belong in normal school so they pulled me out and they put me in an institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saar graduated from Harvard two decades later. Last year, he published his memoir, \u201cOut of The Cuckoo\u2019s Nest\u201d<\/a> to show others how he pushed past the labels people put on him.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of The Cuckoo\u2019s Nest\u201d talks about how his childhood was taken from him. It follows his battles against his insecurities and how he managed to overcome them.<\/p>\n

Saar shares how he managed to prove to everyone and to himself that they were wrong about who he was.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[The memoir] talks about how challenging life can be at times, how difficult it can be for us, and how to overpower obstacles through resilience and positive thinking,\u201d Saar said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Being misdiagnosed followed him for a lot of time in his life, yet it was a great motivator because he had something to prove. It took him a long time to finally feel secure in terms of who he was and helped make him a better teacher.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best gift you can give to people, to students, is the gift of time,\u201d Saar said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

His memoir is not only a message for people who want to overcome their labels, but also a message for professors and peers to accept students as they are.<\/p>\n

Saar wants to tell students that it is okay to be\u00a0 scared and uncertain at this point in their life. Taking time to reflect and understand who you are brings the change you want to see in your life.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake your time to reflect. Reflection creates awakening, awakening creates learning, and learning creates change,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Saar\u2019s leadership experience in different companies and institutions like Harvard, MIT and Johnson & Johnson helped him understand that people need room to grow to become the best version of themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I create a culture of fear, the students will be forced to learn because of fear,\u201d Saar said. \u201cBut if I create a culture of openness and the desire to learn, then I\u2019m really acting as a leader.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. Shalom Saada Saar poses for a headshot for his memoir. Photo Courtesy of Dr. Shalom Saada Saar.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":{"0":"post-126355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hialeah","8":"tag-hialeah","9":"tag-hialeah-headlines","10":"tag-hialeah-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}