Interviewed by Dr. Mara Gordon

You're now a PGY2 in the obstetrics and gynecology program at Kaiser Los Angeles Medical Center. Thanks for making time for the Center for Humanism. You must be busy!

Residency is super stressful. I don’t have tons of free time. The free time you have, you want to spend it with people who unconditionally love you. I specifically chose residency in Los Angeles so I could be closer to family and friends and had a great support network, people who can help you escape from residency and have some separation.

Why are boundaries important during residency?

I think it provides better patient care to have a little bit of separation. It’s not leaving work undone. It’s saying, 'This is the best I can do for my patient at this time, and to be better for them I need to sleep. I need to eat. I need to fill myself up.' In order to take care of other people, you need to take care of yourself.

That is so true! I see that in a lot of my own patients, who are so busy taking care of others that they neglect care for themselves.

What rotation are you on right now?

I'm on an outpatient rotation where we do a lot of family planning: IUDs, birth control, performing medical and procedural abortions. I was working at a Planned Parenthood when the news about the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked. It was intense.

Women should have the right to make whatever decisions they want for themselves and their families. We should provide that safely. We have seen in the past, and in other countries, when abortion isn’t available, or safe, or legal, women die. That’s never an ok thing to just be ok with. My goal as an OB/GYN is to provide women with health care. That includes safe access to abortion care.

You did a lot of work during your time at CMSRU on anti-racism work in health care. How does your commitment to anti-racism intersect with your commitment to reproductive health?

We need to be teaching doctors and medical students how to be anti-racist: how to make sure that your patients receive equal care, and learning to see your biases and to acknowledge them.

This intersects with reproductive justice. Abortion bans and difficulty accessing contraception, it’s going to affect minority, poor women the most. People who have the means to be able to go to a different state to have an abortion, to travel, they tend to be richer and whiter. We've seen it even in morbidity with African-American moms -- we know there are huge disparities in positive health outcomes during pregnancy and childbirth for Black women.

How did your time at CMSRU prepare you to fight for such important public health issues?

I look back at CMSRU as a time I was able to hone my advocacy skills. I was able to learn how to do it within a structure: What steps are you actually taking to make those changes? The cool thing about being at a newer medical school is that students and faculty were looking for change. In the mission of CMSRU is a commitment to diversity, a commitment to humanism, and they were really interested in student input on those topics. When you're looking at creating something lasting, it's important to have all the voices in there.

I've been getting involved in some work recruiting diverse applicants to residency programs at Kaiser and getting more URM [under-represented in medicine] residents to come here, and I think about those skills that I learned at CMSRU.

Where do you see your future career going?

I love delivering babies and I love providing abortion care. I want to do that in a diverse community.

If we’re saying that we’re doctors, we’re supposed to help people, we should be thinking about everything with a humanistic lens.

Interviewed by Dr. April Douglass-Bright

Hello Yari! Let’s get started by telling everyone a little about yourself.

My name is Yaritza Santana and I am a graduate of the CMSRU Class of 2020 as part of the accelerated 3 year primary care track. Before CMSRU, I graduated from Rowan University with a bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences. I’m currently a 3rd year pediatric resident in the primary care track. My goal is to become a general pediatrician.

I like to connect with people by learning a little about their childhood.  Would you feel comfortable sharing a point of interest about your childhood?  

I was born in a small town in the Dominican Republic. I emigrated to the US, specifically to Camden, at age 11, with my mother and little sister. 

What was that experience like, emigrating from a different country at such an impressionable age?

It was exciting and scary! I didn't know English before coming, but I was fortunate to be placed in Vets Middle school, which had an excellent bilingual program. We also lived in East Camden, which had a large Hispanic population. There was a great sense of community there. 

I imagine that shared connection with your community was a sense of comfort and strength for your mom.  After all, it does take a village!  What inspired you to pursue medicine?

According to my mother, I declared I was going to be a doctor around the age of 4-5. I was often sick as a child, and from the ages of 1 to 6 was hospitalized quite frequently. In my hometown, we had one family medicine physician, Dr. Gomez. He was my first introduction to a “doctor” and was my hero growing up. My mother once told me a story of one of my bouts with bronchiolitis: While providing a treatment to me, he noticed that my mother appeared to be in pain and diagnosed her with appendicitis.  

He taught me the importance of being a part of the community in which you practice, and of getting to know your patients. Not just their medical history, but their personalities, their families, and the things that drive them.

It sounds like he was a role model and early example of humanism.  Do you think your CMSRU experiences helped to heighten your interest in humanism in medicine? 

CMSRU’s curriculum served to foster my love for humanism in medicine. From creative discussions about how to obtain resources for an uninsured, undocumented patient in the student clinic, to volunteering at the Cathedral Kitchen. I realized what I loved most about medicine was the opportunity to apply and tailor your knowledge, your care, to the people receiving it.

Going to a medical school where these experiences were valued just as much as time in the anatomy lab was a blessing and a privilege.

Do you currently have a particular clinical focus that is related to the theme of humanism in medicine? 

Yes, I am currently focusing on breastfeeding. My plan is to eventually obtain an International Board of Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) certification.

Humanism in medicine to me means meeting mothers where they are; asking them what their goals are, and being a supportive and understanding provider. A lot of mothers come to their follow-ups endorsing guilt over their child “not wanting” their milk because they had difficulty latching. Working with mothers and sharing their joy after a successful latch is one of the most rewarding experiences for me.  It’s a success that can last generations. 

Access to a compassionate provider with knowledge about breastfeeding and who treats a family with respect can make all the difference.

Interviewed by Dr. John McGeehan

Dr. Atlee Loughran was a member of the inaugural class at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University and graduated in 2016. She is a native of New Jersey and did her undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

I knew her through my prior roles in admissions and student affairs during her four years at our school. I recall how active she was and how well she did in everything, and most of all, that she was always smiling.

She chose surgery as her field out of medical school because she knows she is the kind of person who likes immediate results. She learned, however, that the pace of surgery can sometimes take away from the humanistic aspect that she enjoys. She has always enjoyed the connection she can make with each patient.

Atlee chose to specialize in plastic surgery because it gave her a unique opportunity to truly connect with each patient. Transgender surgery has become her major focus.

“More people now have access than years ago due to insurance changes and the increasing amount of surgeons willing to provide this care. In addition, techniques and outcomes continue to improve," she says. "The need is growing."

Medical students have been reaching out to her recently, hearing that this is one of her passions. “With time, education and increasing acceptance, this specialized surgical field will become a standard everywhere for all transgender nonbinary patients," she adds.

When asked what she would hope to be doing twenty years from now she replied: “I hope that I can start the first LGBTQ+ center, complete with inpatient beds and a surgical suite, for holistic care in the country. I love Camden and think this would be the perfect place to do this. We can have a center where people can come from all over knowing we will have everything to meet the needs of the LGBTQ+ population.”

When asked whether there was any connection between her years as a medical student at CMSRU and her current inner drive she stated: “My years at CMSRU fostered my humanism. The whole school focused on humanism. The support system I had there allowed me to dream big. My ideas were encouraged and fostered and people did not say 'no.' In my community projects, people at the school were always there to help me. We are so lucky.”

When reflecting she also noted how amazing it is to see all that her classmates are doing and she cannot wait to see them in person soon at a reunion.

Atlee also added that she loves cooking with her husband and spending time with her two cats and one dog.

When asked what else she would like to tell others she stated: “The ability to tie people’s identity, mind and body is what we are striving for all the time. I feel privileged to be pursuing a full time career in this field and I am grateful to Cooper Hospital and all my mentors over the years for fostering this perpetual drive in me to push further to achieve my dreams.”

Interviewed by Dr. John McGeehan

Dr. Nick Young graduated from CMSRU in 2017 and did his Internal Medicine training at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he was chief medical resident. He has returned as faculty in the Department of Medicine at Cooper University Hospital with a focus on education.

“I love education," he said. "It is great when your hobby is also your job.”

When thinking of what to do after his chief year, he combined his desire to travel with a long goal of providing service to others. He researched and discovered through a friend an organization called “Floating Doctors." He applied and was accepted to be one of the lead medical doctors with them in Panama for eight months. He lived on the medical base in the Gulf of Panama mangroves which is an ecoregion along the Pacific coast of Panama, Colombia and a twenty minute boat ride off the island of Bocas Del Toro, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Panama. It is an eco-tourism favorite with many tourists.

From that base, he would travel by boat to the many islands in the region and stay at each for one week at a time to provide care to people in more remote and rural areas. In addition to providing care for common medical problems, he recalls treating helminth related illnesses and providing prenatal care. He notes that as the country modernizes, its diet changes, and they are seeing more chronic non-communicable diseases, as well. This was his first such global health experience as well as his first time immersing himself in another culture.

Nick married his wife Rachel just over one year ago, who was able to accompany him on the trip to Panama.

He recalls being attracted to CMSRU because of “the commitment to service that was evident from interview day through my four years there”.

The many service opportunities with the Camden population inspired him to pursue his trip. During his time at CMSRU, he learned a great deal about healthcare, population health and the lives of people who are different from him.

Nick loves exercise and runs, bikes, and works out daily. He and Rachel love dining out, hiking and fishing.

He plans to set up a global health experience for the internal medicine residency, so he can return to Panama. He is also looking into doing the same for CMSRU medical students.

What he saw while working with Floating Doctors is that people of all ages participate in these missions. “It is always an option throughout your career if you want to do this kind of service," he added.

Interviewed by Dr. Debrah Meislich

It was such a joy and an honor to talk and catch up with Marci Fornari.

She is as vibrant, committed and passionate about her work and her community as she was when I first met her as a second-year medical student.

I asked Marci about her experiences prior to medical school that fostered her interest in service and humanism in medicine.

For Marci, community service and working towards social justice have always been a part of her life. Growing up, she and her family lived the principles of Tikkun Olam which is Hebrew for “world repair." In brief, the phrase describes our responsibility for fixing what is wrong with the world.

In high school, Marci participated with a group that did midnight runs providing clothing, food, and necessities to the unhoused on the streets. She and her family routinely volunteered in soup kitchens. Marci remained committed to the community during college. She continued to work in soup kitchens, worked for Sidekicks, and volunteered in a nursing home where she even adopted a grandparent.

Marci feels that attending CMSRU and working at Cooper were pivotal for her growth as a physician. I was curious to know what drew her to CMSRU and asked her to describe specific experiences that helped get her interested in humanism in medicine:

By far, the student clinic experience stood out for her. She told the story of two of her longitudinal patients, both of whom had no insurance, poor access to care, and had multiple chronic medical conditions. These patients were pivotal for her understanding of the many barriers to healthcare and the importance of meeting your patients “where they are." She learned the importance of getting on her patients’ level and providing care in ways her patients could understand so that they could be successful receiving their care.

Marci also feels that how CMSRU curriculum is structured also fosters humanism.

I asked her to elaborate. She gave me the example of ALGs. She feels these small learning groups moderated by a basic scientist and a clinician break down the student-teacher hierarchy. This way all members of the group can teach each other.

Marci described how she has carried this concept throughout her training. She said that we don’t need the world’s expert in the room to solve patients medical problems or for patients to do well — instead, patients need motivated caregivers who can work together to solve medical problems to provide the best care for their patients.

“We turn to each other and teach each other -- that’s what our curriculum taught us," she said. "In the real world, in medicine, we must constantly work together and teach each other.”

Healers Art was a requirement for all students when Marci attended CMSRU. She said what stuck with her from this experience was remembering that things get hard in medicine and that it is ok for things to get hard. It is also ok not only to talk about the difficult times instead of suppressing them, but also to find healthy outlets for doing so.

We then talked about her advocacy work during residency and fellowship.

After graduating from CMSRU in 2016, Marci completed her Pediatric residency at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. At CHOP she focused on intimate partner violence and helped implement screening in the pediatric ED and in CHOP primary care clinics. She received an award from Lutheran Settlement House for her advocacy work.

I asked Marci why she chose Emergency Medicine. For her it was an easy choice. Marci feels deeply that parents and children are at their most vulnerable when they come to the Emergency Room and she is committed to helping them through their crises, whatever they may be. In this way she can continue to “give back to the world”.

She continued her advocacy work during her fellowship in Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Children’s National Hospital in DC. As a fellow, Marci designed learning modules for pediatric healthcare providers about intimate partner violence screening within the healthcare setting. Although she completed her fellowship this year she is continuing this work as a Pediatric EM attending, on the faculty at GW University School of Medicine and Health Sciences and while she completes a one-year fellowship in Pediatric Emergency Ultrasound at Children’s National. Marci received the Senator Daniel Inouye and Cal Sia Section of Emergency Medicine Advocacy Award from the AAP for this service work.

Marci feels strongly about continuing this focus. Rates of intimate partner violence are very high and parents who may not seek out their own medical care will bring their children to the pediatric ED for care. Safely screening parents in that setting and providing them with the resources they need will not only help them, but help their children. Marci punctuated this by this sobering statistic: 60% of children who witness domestic violence are themselves victims of physical and/or verbal abuse or neglect.

In the future, she hopes to work in a community like Camden. Ideally, she would love to return to Cooper.

Despite her busy schedule Marci also has time for her family: her husband Mitch, 22 month old son Elliot, and the family dog. She works out on her Peloton, enjoys the beach in the summer and skis in winter.

Interviewed by Dr. Sundip Patel

Did CMSRU prepare you for residency?

Absolutely! The 4^th year curriculum with the Emergency Medicine clerkship helped my transition to residency greatly. I felt more comfortable then my peers in starting my residency. All the preclinical years helped out tremendously as well.

Tell me about a memorable Emergency Medicine case in residency.

There are so many, but one case that sticks out involved a young woman who was experiencing homelessness at that time and had a substance use disorder. This patient came in very dejected and did not know where to go and who to turn to. She had been abused as well and was not trusting of people. We had a counselor who had expertise in substance use disorders who went into the patient’s room to talk to her, but was clearly making the patient very uncomfortable. I had to step in and stop that interaction. It was one of the first experiences I had where I was directly advocating for the patient. It was a little confrontational and I’m not a confrontational person. But it had to be done.

Any memorable words of advice for future CMSRU students going into residency?

If you’re not making one person angry during residency, then you’re not advocating for your patient.

What was your favorite thing about residency?

Knowing that Emergency Medicine was the right field for me. Everything I learned pre-clinically had application in the Emergency Department. In addition, I was inspired by many people at CMSRU which has made my career path enjoyable. I really look forward to working in the ER!

What was the toughest part about residency?

Managing expectations for home life. It can be very hard to switch off from the hospital to your home life and spend the much needed time with significant others.

What will be your current job position?

I’m doing a Street Medicine fellowship at University of Pittsburgh for one year. I will also be working as an attending at UPMC. While I excited to be doing this, it will be tough as I will be separated from my fiancé for a year.

Future career aspirations?

I’m not sure if my career lies in academics versus the community. No matter what, my number one goal is to be the best Emergency Medicine physician I can be. Other future goals will be determined by what experiences I garner from my fellowship. I can easily see myself working in the public sector.

What’s a perfect day for Eddy look like?

Get up early to eat breakfast, drive down to the Shore, hours of competitive beach volleyball with friends, a cold beer, and ending the day hanging out with friends talking into the wee hours of the morning. But the day has to end with me sleeping back in my comfortable bed!

What things do you encounter in each shift in the Emergency Department that are related to humanism?

Every patient encounter touches on humanism in the ER. We have the opportunity to empathize with every patient and try to understand the reasoning for why they came into the ED and identifying any barriers to care. We need to understand our patients to make sure that we are truly treating them correctly.

What can we be doing better in the Emergency Departments around the country to help our communities?

We need to remember that every individual is human. We need to make sure that patients with alcohol disorders or substance use disorders must be treated as individuals because sometimes they are not treated as they should be. We need to understand our biases and set them aside.

Interviewed by Dr. John McGeehan

Dr. Kevin Gahman graduated from CMSRU in 2019. He attended Cedarville University, a private Baptist university in Cedarville, Ohio. He recalls his interview day at CMSRU, learning about caring for people experiencing homelessness in Camden, and how this is in some ways similar to the experiences he had medical mission trips prior to medical school. He realized that CMSRU reflected his values and would help them grow.

Kevin went on a mission trip after his junior year in college to the Kingdom of Eswatini, formerly named Swaziland, a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Eswatini is one of the smallest countries in Africa. Two graduates of Cedarville had established a mission there and had students come regularly.

He recalls going there for five weeks with other students, including Kate, who is now his wife. He loved the experience and he and Kate went back after graduation for another six weeks. They returned again in his senior year of medical school. While there, his time was mostly spent helping out with the mobile clinics, caring for those in remote regions.

They knew early on they would return to serve those in need in this country. Kate has been a nurse at Cooper on P9 specializing in cardiac care. Kevin noted that when he first met Kate and they went on the mission together they “could see the shared mission in each other and it brought them closer together.”

The facility in Eswatini has evolved and now there is a hospital built on the property with many of the capabilities of first world medicine where he and Kate can apply their skills daily. The facility is called the Luke Commission. HIV testing and treatment of infectious disease remains an important aspect of care there. Kevin recalls his first year Infectious Disease course as being very relevant. Kevin became very involved with the Street Medicine program at CMSRU which further fueled his desire to serve those in need.

Kevin finished his Internal Medicine residency at Cooper University Hospital and he, Kate, and Samuel, their baby son, will then leave to return to Eswatini for at least two years to serve the people there and apply their knowledge and skills. When asked what he thinks he will be doing in twenty years he quickly replied that they hope they will still be there helping others.

In terms of future projects, he noted that he would love to set up a program through which Cooper residents could come to the Luke Commission as well as students at CMSRU. Kevin knew this was a good humanistic fit for him right after the interview and both medical school and residency have fostered his desire to help others.

Kevin closed by saying “we honestly are not very adventurous ourselves, but we stumbled upon this and fell in love with it and going to Eswatini honestly feels like the safest choice for us because of how well we gel with the people, the workers and the patients there.”

Interviewed by Dr. Anat Feingold

For Jill, medicine is about service. She graduated from CMSRU in 2017 in the second class of medical school graduates. Jill was drawn to the mission of the medical school and its commitment to the community. She grew up in a religious family where service was a way of life. Her parents were teachers and she made the commitment to follow in their footsteps of service. She had volunteered in the Camden community for many years prior to medical school and chose CMSRU in order to learn and serve where there was less access to health care for much of the community. Jill chose to train in family medicine at Chester Crozer and was one of the 3rd year chief residents. She graduated in 2020 and began working at a Federally Qualified Health Center in West Philadelphia. She joined the National Health Service Corps and entered the workforce in the middle of the COVID pandemic - providing testing, vaccines, and medical care on a mass scale to some of the city’s most vulnerable communities.

Jill relayed stories about some of her patients and her approach to them. She told of a patient that she picked up when one of her colleagues left. The patient had been reporting persistent shoulder pain that a previous provider had dismissed. She listened carefully to his concerns, acknowledging that patients' know their bodies and an MRI ultimately revealed cervical myelopathy requiring surgery. When it became clear that the stress of getting to the clinic was untenable for another patient discharged from a nursing home following bilateral amputations, Jill decided to provide monthly home visits. Her favorite part of the job was going out with a mobile care unit twice a week to provide primary care at shelters, churches, and community centers in West Philadelphia. She recently transitioned to a new position with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health providing primary care in health centers in both Northeast and South Philadelphia.

Jill’s personal experiences with illness in her family has informed her deep connections to patients. Her parents have both required transplants during the years she spent in medical school and residency. Her father came to our ALG to share his personal experience of receiving a liver transplant with our group in 2014. More recently in 2018, Jill donated her stem cells as treatment for her mother's mantle cell lymphoma, which is now cured. She brings to her doctoring her special humanity. In her words, she “loves being a doctor.”

Interviewed by Dr. Ed Viner

I was very pleased to be assigned to interviewing Sami, for I had been one of her ALG facilitators during her first year. Her humanistic approach to medicine was already apparent at that early level and it was already clear that she would go on to become a humanistic and compassionate physician.

During her senior year, she personally conceived of and founded the Asclepian, our school’s literary magazine, which has now become an annual production. When asked why she undertook this time-consuming challenge, Sami responded that she had always enjoyed poetry, art and other ways to express the humanistic aspects of practicing medicine. As to how she chose the name, she noted that Asclepius, was the son of the Greek god, Apollo. Greek mythology has that it he had died in his mother’s womb but was saved and went on to become known as the God of Medicine. Also influencing her decision to name it after Asclepius was the fact that our community outreach program had inspired her and she felt that our school was giving new life to this revitalized city in an analogous fashion.

From the beginning, Sami aspired to become a dermatologist. However, as everyone knows, this is one of the hardest residencies to get. Accordingly, she ended up in a general internal medicine program at the Boston Beth Israel-Deaconess Hospital. During her residency, she started a medical humanities interest group, just as she had done at CMSRU. She was nominated to Gold Society membership by her co-residents who also chose her as their Annual Humanism Award recipient. Also, during her final year, she was chosen to be the Katherine Swan Ginsburg Humanism in Medicine Fellow. (Dr. Ginsburg was a young internist who died of cancer shortly after completing the Beth Israel residency program, whose family honored her by creating this program and fellowship.)

As the humanism Fellow, she founded her second literary magazine which she named the Caducean Lights (the Caduceus was the staff carried by Hermes in Greek Mythology. It consists of two serpents wrapped around a rod with two wings at the top, symbolizing wisdom and healing).

Sami continues to edit the Caducean Lights magazine which publishes short stories, photography and poetry submitted by the BI community. While at the BI, Sami also took time to do a literature research on the use of art in teaching medical diagnostic skills and the insights gained by looking carefully at their patients. She published an article on this work in the Clinical Teacher.

But, the humanistic practice of medicine is not Sami’s only defining characteristic. She also has been remarkably persistent in pursuing her ultimate goal of becoming a Dermatologist. Accordingly, upon graduation from her medical residency in Boston, and a year as a Hospitalist at Cooper, she became a first year resident in dermatology at the Eastern Virginia Medical School and Hospital. After a year there, with her new baby, she was able to transfer to the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School’s dermatology program for her second year, affording her the ability to live a normal life with her husband, Joshua Weinstock, who is currently finishing his cardiology fellowship at Cooper.

While it was difficult, she is very pleased that she has completed a full General Internal Medicine residency program, which she says she hopes will help her be an excellent medical dermatologist.

Sami is clear that the educational milieu that has been created at CMSRU, and the caring approach the school has taken in relating to our Camden community have allowed her to nurture and amplify her innate humanistic qualities. In turn, we should certainly be very proud of her extensive accomplishments, her dogged pursuit of her desired specialty and for her genuinely humanistic approach to practicing medicine and to life.

Interviewed by Dr. John McGeehan

Dr. Bleznak was a member of our inaugural class and graduated from CMSRU in 2016. She came to us from Muhlenberg College in Allentown where she did her undergraduate studies.

She was focused on a career in Pediatrics long before medical school. She was diagnosed at a young age with severe scoliosis and spent a great deal of time at Dupont Childrens Hospital in Delaware as a patient in her childhood including surgery. The care she got while there left a lasting imprint and her dream was to work there one day. Dreams come true. They made her visits something she and her parents even looked forward to. Her mother still has a drawing she did of her doctor as a child telling him that one day she was going to be a doctor and come back and work with him!

After graduation from CMSRU in 2016 she began her residency in Pediatrics at Dupont! She loved the program in every way and had a wonderful three years. Life caused a slight detour. Her husband, Alex, who went to medical school at PCOM, was in the Navy and went on to train in emergency medicine. He was called up and served resulting in their separation for a time. She worked as a Hospitalist in a children’s hospital in Virginia so they could be together.

Dupont then called and offered her the job of her dreams and she is now back in Delaware. Jenny is part of the diagnostic referral group there that concentrates on the complete care of the most complex children. They often are technology dependent and are in the hospital often and in long term care and even at home. She can provide continuity and cares for these special children in all locations allowing them and their families to have a very special relationship.

She has also is hoping to take on a major initiative working on child abuse. She is planning on partnering with the child abuse team to care for children who develop new medical complexity following trauma. She is ready to take on the physical, emotional and domestic issues surrounding a trauma and “get to know them at whole different level”. Dupont is giving her the time needed to give comprehensive care for these children. “I am really confident that I am in the right place at the right time.”

When she reflects on her years at CMSRU she recalls that interview day resulted in her ranking us first due to the focus on human interaction and placing that over metrics in selecting future physicians. Humanism has always been a priority in her life and now in her career. She related that: “I knew I would be surrounded there by people who prioritized how to be a human being” and she feels that is unique to our school.

She and her husband live in Delaware and share a love for cooking and playing with their cat, Sookie. Alex is now completing his ER residency.

When asked what she would tell current students at CMSRU she recalls that she worried a lot. She wants those that follow to spend less time fretting about the numbers and embrace the content and the learning. “Life is not a test question.” She recalls being told early on that after the first experience in gross anatomy a faculty member told her: “a doctor who does not feel will never be all that a doctor should be”. She refers to it often.