CONTRIBUTED PHOTO — South Tama County High School Junior Vivian Lench-Cuellar proudly holds the certificate inviting her to the Congress of Future Medical Leaders in Boston, Mass.

South Tama County junior Vivian Lench-Cuellar has a bit of an unconventional career plan for someone her age, but it comes from a very personal place.

She wants to be a mortician, attributing it to the level of care she’s seen at local establishments like Marshalltown’s Mitchell Family Funeral Homes and her own experience being retraumatized when her foster dad’s face was electric blue in the lips after working with another service, causing her to run out of his funeral.

“I’ve had so many sleepless nights because of how traumatizing that picture is. It gets stuck in your brain,” Vivian said.

Her mother Amanda describes her reasoning as “selfless,” and Vivian went into more detail about the decision.

“It’s mainly because in my short 16 experiences of being alive, I have been to so many different funerals and attended them, and I know how hard that affects me when they don’t have the best work like I’ve seen with Marty Mitchell, so I really just want to take up the career path so that I can help others with the trauma that comes with it,” Vivian said. “Because I know how bad my trauma’s been through some of the experiences I’ve seen, so I can only imagine how hard it is for them. So I want to try my best to make the deceased look as good as possible.”

Vivian is one of about 5,000 students across the country who has been nominated to attend the Congress of Future Medical Leaders to receive an Award of Excellence in Boston, Mass. While she and her mom aren’t sure who nominated her, they are grateful for the opportunity and the doors it could open. She also has her eyes set on potentially working with Mitchell in an internship or job shadowing capacity at some point in the future to learn the business.

As an excellent student who’s overcome her fair share of adversity during her short life, Cuellar is over the moon about the nomination (those who attend are required to have a minimum GPA of 3.5).

“I’m completely shocked but completely proud of myself because I’ve done nothing but work my hardest to even remotely come close to this, let alone have the thought of going to college, and I have learning disabilities that cause me to have an IEP (Individualized Education Plan),” she said. “But to be completely honest with you, I’m so proud of myself because I’ve never heard of this program at all or anything about it, so the fact that they reached out to me and want me to represent Iowa, there are no words for it.”

During her time in Boston, Vivian will have the chance to attend lectures from Nobel Prize winners and other doctors, and she would also be paired with a mentor and visit the campus of Harvard University. She’ll even get to sit in on a surgery and ask questions of the process.

As it currently stands, Vivian is considering attending DMACC for mortuary science courses and is seeking guidance from anyone with knowledge of the business who could help her on her journey. And most of all, she hopes she can inspire others to pursue their dreams and shoot for the stars.

“One of the main things my mom has taught me is to never be a follower. Always try to be a leader,” she said.

A GoFundMe page has been established to help Vivian and her family with the tuition, and donations can be made at this link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/tuition-for-future-medical-leaders-conference