Inside Dad’s Journey from Mechanic to Doctor at 51 (Exclusive) [Video]

Dr. Carl Allamby, 53, is an emergency medicine doctor at the Cleveland Clinic, which is especially inspiring once you learn that he only became an doctor when he was 51.

For 25 years, Allamby worked as an automotive technician and a small business owner, a career he tells PEOPLE began out of “desperation,” but led to a lot of success.

Still, even after building two additional locations and creating other related business, including a towing service and a used car company, Allamby realized he was searching for a more fulfilling career.

“I had always wanted to go into medicine as a child, it’s just that where I grew up, there were a lot of things that were missing for people who want to become doctors,” he tells PEOPLE. “There just wasn’t a lot of money around, we grew up in a really poor neighborhood.”

Initially heading to college to get …