Inspired by devastation, TCOM student defies odds to make it into medical school

By: Steven Bartolotta ◆ August 20, 2026

The chain around the neck of Austin Grubbs is very unassuming until closer inspection reveals it's something very close to him.

“It’s my father’s thumbprint.”

Grubbs, a first-year medical student at UNT Health Fort Worth’s Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, carries with him the memory of his father, who passed away from cancer when Grubbs was only 15. As traumatic as that was, Grubbs lost another father figure, his grandfather, two and a half years later because of cancer. The scourge of this disease and his grandmother's words in a time of tribulation inspired him to go into medicine.

The road to TCOM for Grubbs isn’t your ordinary or traditional way to medical school by any stretch. It’s an 11-year journey filled with heartbreak, doubt, cancer, suicide, resentment, arrests and finally tears of joy.

“I hope they would say they were proud,” said Grubbs, fighting back tears.

Austin Grubbs hates cancer…here’s why.

The System Failed

David Grubbs was in the prime of his life. He was a teacher at Williams Middle School in Rockwall who had taught math and coached baseball, football and soccer for nearly 20 years in the area. He was well respected, married with two sons, Austin, the oldest, and his younger brother Dalton. When he started showing signs of illness one day, it was initially thought to be the flu. Then Mononucleosis. Then he was urinating blood, and then the real problem was found, six months after his initial symptoms — Stage 4 kidney cancer.

“They found it in his chest, but it was everywhere,” said Grubbs, who was 14 at the time. “It really frustrated me, because if they caught it early enough, they could have removed his kidney, but it spread too far. I felt like he was failed because he wasn’t taken seriously by the health care system.”

The community rallied around Grubbs and his father. They held fundraisers; sold t-shirts; kids at the school shaved their heads in solidarity, but Austin’s parents were very transparent with him about the prognosis.

“They sat me down in our living room and told me that it’s pretty advanced,” Grubbs said. “It all happened so fast that it was hard to take in.”

As the treatments started, David’s condition deteriorated fast. The cancer was aggressive and spreading rapidly to the point where he could no longer walk, and his weight had plummeted. In a moment he will never forget, a 14-year-old Grubbs hoisted his weakened father on his shoulders to carry him out to their car that would take him to a rehabilitation facility.

“That’s when I knew he wasn’t going to make it,” Grubbs said. “It was brutal to see, just awful, but I wanted to be strong for my younger brother and my mom. I tried not to let it affect me, at least not on the outside.”

As much as they tried, the cancer was consuming David’s body. The entire family had gathered at the hospice facility for what was coming. Austin held his Dad’s hand as his breathing became labored and as he started to lose consciousness, his son had one final message for his Dad.

“I told Dad not to worry; I was going to take care of Mom and Dalton,” he said.

His father passed away on Oct. 11, 2015. As much as he tried to be strong, on the ride home, all of his emotions spilled out at once.

“I remember staying strong the whole day, but we had to drive through the State Fair, which was going on at the time, to get home,” Grubbs said. “I remember seeing all of these people at the fair having fun, and I just broke down the entire ride home.”

Grubbs had resentment because the normal life that every child craves was gone.

You have to do this

Grubbs was determined to keep his promise to his father. He was mowing lawns on the weekend whenever he had free time to help his mother with the bills. When he turned 16, he got a job at Sonic and was there every weekend from 6 a.m. – 3 p.m. and during the day after school. The family dynamic had changed; his mother was grieving, his younger brother was trying to understand everything, and Austin was trying to keep them together.

“My senior year in high school, we had down exactly what we could afford at the store, and I pretty much lived off those $1 TV dinners or free food from Sonic,” Grubbs said.

The family did have support from Austin’s grandparents who lived nearby. After his father’s death, Austin grew very close to his grandfather and he became a new father figure for him.

“He was my guy,” Grubbs said. “He was a Harley-riding, pony-tail-wearing guy. I looked up to him after my father died. I asked him questions and he taught me life lessons of being a man. I remember one time I talked back to my mom about something, and he came over and straightened me right up. He gave me that tough love that I needed and lessons like that a young teenage boy needs to hear.”

His grandfather had a medical background of his own. He was a respiratory therapist. They lived near the family, and the pair grew close, but cancer wasn’t done with Austin Grubbs family. In March of 2018, his grandfather got the news that he had Stage 3 lung cancer.

“When we found out about grandpa, I thought here we go again,” Grubbs said.

It was a week later when Grubbs was taking part in the time-honored tradition, senior skip day, and was making lunch at a friend's house when he got a call from his Mom. Austin thought he was caught skipping class; instead, it was a call that changed his life.

“Where are you?” his mother asked. “Boompaw is dead.”

“He took his own life,” Grubbs said. “It was really jarring. He was really my father figure after my Dad died. It was very traumatizing. I remember going to the hospital, and I got to place my hand on his arm; that was my last goodbye to him.”

At the hospital, Grubbs was angry, but it was there that his grandmother grabbed him by the arm and said he had to become a doctor to fight this disease.

“Something like a switch turned on at that moment when she told me that,” Grubbs said.

Like his father, Grubbs felt the health care system had let his grandfather down as well. A few months before his cancer diagnosis, he had switched medications for depression multiple times.

“His mental state was already in shambles, and when he was given the diagnosis, it was given to him in a very callous way,” said Grubbs.

For Grubbs, he packaged his anger from another heartbreaking loss and focused his energy on getting into medicine…osteopathic medicine.

The Last Interview

The lineage of the Grubbs family and their career paths is summed up by one profession: teachers.

“I come from a family of teachers,” he said.

Mom, dad, grandma, all teachers, but he was never raised with the expectation of going into medicine, only to make sure he was getting good grades.

After high school, Grubbs went to the University of North Texas and majored in biology. His grades were fine, but his life choices were not. He was working multiple jobs, one of them being a delivery driver for food. One evening in 2019, he was delivering food for a friend, and they were pulled over. His friend had the marijuana, but Grubbs was the driver, and he was arrested as well. He was placed on probation, but a few years later, he was arrested again.

“I stole food from Walmart, got caught and was arrested,” he said.

Grubbs is honest; he was doing it for his younger brother, who was living with him at the time and was his caretaker. He was still looking out for his brother as he promised, but he paid the price.

“I was too prideful to ask anyone for help, and in retrospect, I should have asked for help,” he said. “I had to take accountability and learn from these mistakes to grow and learn what true integrity means. That made me a better medical school candidate because of that.”

Medical school, with two prior arrests, would anyone give him a shot? He graduated from UNT in 2022, but was still on probation, so applying to medical school would have to wait. He moved to Dallas and began to study for the MCAT. He applied to medical schools all across the state in 2024, but heard nothing. Nobody, not one call, not one interview. Grubbs was rejected completely. So he had to ask himself, was medicine really his calling?

“I had doubts after that first year and didn’t get any bites,” Grubbs said. “My fiancée inspired me to try again, and told me that I’ve worked so hard and fought through death, through jail, to give up.”

He applied again for the 2025 cycle. Once again, it was crickets. Grubbs was becoming nearly obsessive about checking his email to see about any possible interviews.

“It became a nervous tick to check my email,” he said. “I was checking it probably five times an hour. I had gotten a couple of flat-out denials: we aren’t accepting your emails.”

It was the middle of December; by now, most, if not all, of the interview invites had been sent out. Grubbs was coming to grips with his fate and even began to apply to other programs at UNT Health while also starting to research what it takes to become a medical salesman.

However, there was one last invitation that was coming out from TCOM. Call it a Christmas miracle, but Grubbs got the email on December 17 inviting him to interview for the class of 2030 on Jan. 9, the last day of interviews for the cycle.

“The news of an interview lit that fire right back up,” he said.

After the interview, he waited. He was working in Dallas at the time, and the night before the match results came out, he worked until 3 a.m. because he was so nervous. He was up at 8 a.m. to see the results. He matched at TCOM; Austin Grubbs was going to medical school.

“I cried,” he said. “I had to read it like five times because I couldn’t believe it. I’m so thankful for my fiancé and friends, who kept me going. People like me don’t get this opportunity. I thought after that second arrest, nobody was going to want me. I messed up; I was just trying to feed my brother, but I thought I was just a delinquent who wouldn’t be given a chance. I am so thankful that I’ve been given a chance to be here. It still doesn’t feel real.”

A DO before knowing osteopathic medicine

The last 11 years of emotions came spilling out for Grubbs and his family when the news came that he was going to medical school. Tears of happiness, tears of sadness and tears of motivation.
Grubbs is very clear: he hates cancer, and that’s why he’s going into medicine; it's personal.

“As tragic as it is, my story isn’t uncommon,” he said. “There are millions of people who have dealt with cancer personally or a loved one who has had it. It has become a calling and a vocation. I have a deep level of empathy, and I know what the patients are going through.”

As he reflected on his path to medical school and what his father and grandfather went through, he believes osteopathic medicine could have made a difference for them and wants to make sure that it's there for others.

“Even before I knew what a DO was, that’s what I wanted to practice,” he said. “I was attracted to osteopathic medicine, all of the philosophies; that’s what they needed. Someone who looks at their whole mind, body, and spirit. In hindsight, their deaths are what brought me to osteopathic medicine.”
He recently received his first stethoscope in July, which will complement his grandfather’s stethoscope he received after his death.

His entire family will be there to celebrate with him at the White Coat Ceremony on Aug. 27, even as he carries his father and grandfathers' legacies with him during medical school.

“They keep me going every day,” Grubbs said. “I’ve come a long way, and their deaths gave me a vocation. In a way, it’s beautiful that I’ve been given a way to immortalize them. To be in a position to help a family or patient into remission so they don’t have to go through what I did, or to hold their hand and guide them through the last stages of life, that’s all because of what my dad and grandfather went through. It’s personal, and in a way, I don’t think their death is in vain; it just gives me a way to remember them forever.”