In an ironic twist of fate, De’ja Moon was sitting in the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota the day she received notice that she had been accepted into the Washtenaw Community College Radiography program.
Her husband, Christian, had been diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer and was undergoing a battery of treatments and tests at one of the nation’s elite cancer treatment centers.
“I learned so much about radiography during that time and watching how everyone treated him was definitely one of the reasons why I wanted to go through with the program. I wasn’t sure I should do it, but he pushed me to go for it and told me everything would be fine,” said Moon, who notes that Christian "is doing great."
Despite starting the program at a stressful time in her life, Moon walked across the Commencement stage in May with an honors cord (3.5+ GPA) hung over her gown and a radiography symbol splashed across the top of her cap.
Her second-year clinical location, Beaumont Hospital in Trenton, hired her as a full time Radiological Technologist beginning in July and will provide cross-training for advancement to a Computed Tomography (CT) Technologist — which, she says, “has been my passion.”
For Moon, a Detroit native living in Dearborn Heights, it’s the culmination of a decade-long expedition through the healthcare field.
Once on a pre-med track at the University of Michigan, Moon says she was “exhausted” after completing a bachelor’s degree in Biology and joined the workforce instead of pursuing medical school. She worked as a certified nurse assistant for several years before becoming a tech assistant in the MRI department at St. Joe’s (now Trinity Health) Hospital.
“That’s the job that opened my eyes to the world of radiology,” Moon says. “A majority of the techs that I worked with were WCC graduates and they told me this was pretty much the best program in the state.”
Moon was also familiar with the WCC campus because she had taken summer classes as a guest student while attending U-M, so she applied to the program.
“I loved it here. I made a lot of new friends, was able to network with other people in my field, and our faculty works really great with us,” Moon says. “They set us up for success and you feel like you build a really great connection with the faculty here.”
Tags: Class of 2023, Graduation, Radiography, Student Profile