At 18 years of age, Seth Fields was a happy-go-lucky Northside High School student in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The middle child in what he describes as an especially close-knit family, his life was filled with friends, faith, and football, a game he loved and played well.
He did not, however, bring the same enthusiasm to the classroom. “I made Cs and Ds,” Seth says with a grimace. But at the time, that caused him little concern. His dreams were set in stone. He hoped to play college football. After that, who knew? Maybe he’d join his father’s business.
But that was before Mexico.
While he and his family were on vacation in Cabo San Lucas, riding four-wheelers on the edge of nowhere, everything changed. “I don’t know what they call it there, but we’d call it the ‘boonies’ around here. We were so far away from hospitals or anything like that.”
While driving back, Seth’s heart rate soared. “It was like 230 beats a minute.” Seth took inventory. Was he anxious about something? He didn’t think so. Thirty minutes later, his heart rate hadn’t returned to normal.
“I didn’t know if I was going to die. It’s weird. You sit there, and you feel really healthy, and then your heart is not doing what it’s supposed to. I didn’t know if I could have a heart attack.”
His family rushed him to the hospital, where his heart was restarted to correct the arrhythmia. Once back in Fort Smith, his doctor referred him to Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock. “They did a heart recording and weren’t able to see it [the arrhythmia]. I explained, ‘We have it recorded on the Apple Watch,’ and that was the key to the diagnosis.”
His doctor’s conclusion was that Seth had supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), which presents as a fast heartbeat that starts in the upper chambers. The heart beats so fast that its chambers don’t have time to fill with blood before they contract again.
Seth required surgery to correct the problem. A few months later, he was playing football again. He might have gone back to his lackadaisical ways, but the experience changed more than his heart.
“Seeing what the doctors did to help me, it brought to my attention how special being a doctor truly is. You can literally change someone’s life; relieve their anxiety with one surgery.”
Once on the mend, Seth began volunteering at the Good Samaritan Clinic in Fort Smith, in part to see if a life in medicine was for him. Good Samaritan offers medical care to the uninsured and underserved. “To see what they did throughout the day, not only the actual healthcare, but even the paperwork, that was something. To know you’re not going to change their life in one visit, but you can make them feel better, give them some relief, and confidence in their health. To know that someone’s there to take care of them.
“The staff there has such great bedside manner. They take their patients seriously, and they show that they want to help. It’s amazing to see. They’re my role models.”
That settled things. Seth enrolled in UAFS, a little wary because of his low high school GPA. “I wasn’t very confident, but I was interested. The professors were amazing. I asked a lot of questions, probably some dumb ones, but they supported me.
“I didn’t really know how to study, and so I did what I figured smart people do. (Studying for hours in the library, scribbling notes in class, taking mock tests to prepare for the real ones.) In chemistry, there’s not a lot of things you can read and figure out, so you have to put in a lot of time in the lab working out problems. And then making it fun. Telling yourself you can get ice cream if you figure something out.”
Seth’s own struggles helped when he became a peer tutor. “There’s one student who came to me during my last semester. He hadn’t done well in high school, just like me. He was a psychology major taking a required biology course. He was enthusiastic like I was, and by the end of it, he was explaining things to me. He then became a biology tutor himself. It’s easy once you find that spark.”
Seth applied that experimental approach to another challenge at UAFS, where he led a project to find safer alternatives to a commonly used laboratory chemical called dichloromethane (DCM). The chemical had long been valued in organic chemistry labs because it worked well for a wide variety of experiments, but it also posed health and environmental concerns and required careful handling.
Working under the guidance of chemistry professor Dr. Jordan Mader, Seth tested combinations of safer solvents rather than relying on a single replacement. His approach proved successful.
“The outcome is that we will improve the safety of our undergraduate laboratory courses, reduce hazardous waste generation, lower disposal costs, and contribute to the broader adoption of green chemistry practices in chemical education,” Dr. Mader said.
Later, in her letter of recommendation, she noted Seth worked hard and without complaint. Adding, “Seth is one of the rare students who achieved an A in all lectures and labs of the organic sequence.”
After graduation, Seth spent six grueling months studying for the MCAT, the entrance exam for medical school. He took the exam in Fort Smith, the only test taker. As the hours rolled on, storm clouds rolled in, and thunder boomed loud enough to shake the windows. Seth, devoid of all electronic devices that connected him to the wider world, hoped he would survive the day.
When a letter of interest came from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, he was overjoyed. His subsequent interview went well. “I was nervous,” Seth said, “but they were so nice. I told my parents it felt a lot like talking to my grandparents.”
Seth is open and hopeful, genuinely enthusiastic. At only twenty-three years of age, he’s seen the mighty force that guides him. “I think God put a certain sequence of events in my life that got me interested in science… I wasn’t the strongest of faith going into college, and a lot of people say that when you go to college for a science degree, your faith will be shaken. Big Bang Theory and all of that. But when I started studying, I thought, How is there not a God, because how does this happen randomly? There are so many micro machines that are powering us. It’s insane.”
His intention is to become an ear, nose, and throat specialist and surgeon, and he is excited for fall classes at UAMS to begin. He will miss Fort Smith, especially the Good Samaritan Clinic. “I’ve volunteered there for four years. Hopefully,” he says, smiling, “I’ll be able to come back one day and help them out.”
When his heart lost its rhythm, all Seth wanted was to come home and be well. And he did. But as time went by, that was not enough. He wanted to help others in crisis. It would not be easy. He’d have to change his entire approach to life and learning. And so he did, this young man with a heart of gold.
