Dean's Newsletter

Dr. David Guzick, M.D., Ph.D.

This newsletter is presented in two parts. First, I will summarize features of the Class of 2012 based on Dr. John Hansen’s yearly profile of the entering medical student class. Then, as in recent years, you will be able to read the personal stories of a cross-section of our entering class. As you will see, there are many roads to medical school, some direct and some less so.

Our entering class of 104 students was selected from an extraordinary group of talented applicants. This year the School of Medicine and Dentistry received over 4500 applications from AMCAS; 4222 applicants completed our supplemental application. Of these, 690 applicants were invited to visit our campus for interviews. The entering class includes 54 women, 50 men and ranges in age from 21 to 38. The average age is 24 and about 40% of the Class of 2012 is 24 years old or older.

About 36% of the Class of 2012 self-identifies as non-Caucasian and 20 are members of minority groups that are underrepresented in medicine. All of the entering students are citizens or permanent residents of the United States, but 18% were born outside the United States. Places of birth include: the Bahamas, Canada, China (3 of you), Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, Hong Kong, Iran, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria (2 of you), Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Romania, and Viet Nam. Most students in the Class of 2012 are at least bi-lingual, and several also are proficient in American Sign Language.

Members of the Class of 2012 attended 57 different colleges and universities as undergraduates: 11 attended the University of Rochester, 6 Cornell, 5 Brigham Young University, and 4 each attended Colgate, Oberlin and SUNY-Geneseo. Three students each attended Duke, NYU, Northwestern, Notre Dame, and Xavier University of Louisiana. Two each attended Amherst, Carleton, Harvard, UCLA, Penn, University of Southern California, Washington University, Wesleyan and Vassar?

Of the 30 or so subject areas in which students majored in college, about a third of the class majored in Biology or some variation of that major, 7 each majored in Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience, 6 in Chemistry, 5 in Psychology, 4 each in Biochemistry and Mathematics, 3 each in Anthropology, Molecular Biology, and Physiology, and 2 each in Economics, English, History, and Political Science. For the Class of 2012 as a whole, the average GPA is 3.7 and the average MCAT score is 33. Almost all of the class has done research in some capacity or another, most in the natural sciences but many others in the social sciences and humanities.

Among our special matriculation programs, 10 students entered from Bryn Mawr, Associated Medical Schools of New York, and the Johns Hopkins Post-Baccalaureate Programs, 7 are part of our Rochester Early Medical Scholars Program, and 8 are MD/PhD matriculates in our Medical Scientist Training Program.

Many students held volunteer or work positions overseas. Sites included countries such as Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ghana, Honduras, India, Korea, Mexico, Nepal, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan, Tanzania, Ukraine, and Viet Nam. One student was in the Peace Corps in Peru as a community health worker and also served as a health volunteer in Ecuador. Another received a grant to study the beliefs of radical imams in London and interviewed cleric Abu Hamza, who is currently serving a life sentence for his role in the USS Cole bombing. Several were AmeriCorps, Teach America, or Global Health volunteers.

A large percentage of students have engaged in volunteer or professional activities closer to home, including Hospice, Habitat for Humanity, volunteer ambulance service, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, Planned Parenthood, nursing homes, and camps for the disabled. The class includes elementary or high school teachers, dog trainers, a nanny, account executives or loan officers on Wall Street or in banks, newspaper editors, a Senate Intern for John McCain, and actors and actresses in college and professional theater. Members of the Class of 2012 are extremely talented as musicians. One of our accomplished musicians--and we have many in the class--was selected to play in the Peace Concert in Hiroshima, Japan, and to perform in Boston with Yo-Yo Ma on National Public Radio. Another was the lead singer and keyboard player for a modern rock band, touted as a band with that "classic rock feel from the 60s and 70s;" they called themselves "Hairline Fracture."

Many students are accomplished dancers, including modern dance, ballroom, swing, Irish dance, ballet (two at a professional level), jazz, and tap dancing. Others have devoted significant energy and passion to athletics, including professional snowboarding, and college varsity athletics including cross-country, golf, swimming, soccer, lacrosse, volleyball, tennis, football, cycling, and crew. Two students were members of their college equestrian team, several are accomplished figure skaters, and one student fought his way through college as a member of a boxing club.

Here are the stories of a cross-section of seven of our entering students, written in their own voices:

Marcus Burrell

I have been led to believe that I am an individual who has taken the road less traveled to medical school. I was born at Genesee Hospital in Rochester, NY and spent the first ten years of my life across the bridge from River Campus in Rochester’s 19th Ward. I still remember listening to the dampened roar of cheering crowds emanating from the football field on lukewarm autumn nights in my back yard. Even while writing this, I can recall the subtle yet persistent curiosity in the back of my mind urging me to experience life on the other side of the river.

Growing up in this environment, I quickly came to understand that some events are rooted more in circumstance than in choice. I was subject to a convoluted childhood, which would eventually crescendo to the event that solidified my decision to pursue medicine. When I was thirteen years old, my father, who had been absent from my life for nine years, called to inform me that my older half-brother had shot himself in the head.

As I came to accept the permanence of my brother’s departure in subsequent years, feelings of helplessness ceded to a sense of determination. In 1999, I took my recreational interests in junior chemistry sets and applied them practically to the University of Rochester School of Medicine’s pipeline program. Throughout my high school and college years, I was part of the medical school’s Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) program, and Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF). Through these programs I was fortunate enough to form a very dear mentorship with Dean Brenda Lee, who has been very instrumental in guiding me through this period.

In my undergraduate years at the University of Pittsburgh, I felt compelled to become an advocate for minority youths who have grown up in similar situations to my own. I was even fortunate enough to forge a mentoring relationship of my own with a student who shared the same name as my older brother. To this day, I have pledged myself to advocating for the underserved and look to continue this throughout medical school and into my professional career. I am extremely happy to enter into the medical profession and I am humbled and honored by the privilege to serve as the President of the Class of 2012.

Beatriz Folch

I have two genuine passions in life: ballet and medicine. My interest for ballet came at a very young age. I started dancing at the age of six and, ever since, ballet became a great part of my life and biggest passion for some time.

As a ballet student, I had the opportunity to train and dance with some of the best schools of the world, American, Cuban and Russian. At the age of fifteen I earned a scholarship with The Washington School of Ballet, and by the age of seventeen I was dancing with a professional company in Puerto Rico. These experiences not only gave me the opportunity to travel to different countries where I learned and explored different ballet techniques, but also allowed me to explore other cultures, thus widening my perspectives towards life.

I am a firm believer that the art of classical ballet taught me about self-control and commitment, widening my will and disposition to work hard towards any goal I set in my life. Long daily hours of training and practice helped me become a more organized and disciplined individual, therefore enhancing my ability to work in a group, and to adjust and balance my time between studies, work and ballet. I learned to make advantageous use of my time as a result of discipline and great effort.

Even though ballet absorbed a great deal of my energy and time, it did not impede me from focusing on a professional career in science and the pursuit of my goal to become a physician. Both disciplines—my ballet and my academic studies--definitely complemented one another in my life, with positive results.

My decision to become a physician was greatly influenced and empowered by both of my grandfathers, who served as very positive medical role-models, as well as a result of personal experiences with disease, volunteer summer work with autistic children, and ballet teaching to disabled children. Ultimately, I was drawn into the medical profession by my commitment to serve others in need, especially those underserved.

In preparation for my goal, a career in medicine, I participated in summer medical and investigative programs, specifically, the Summer Medical and Dental Educational Program (SMDEP) at Columbia University and the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Program at The University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. I also participated in hospital clinical experiences (shadowing) in various fields in medicine in Puerto Rico and United States. As a result, these experiences increased my genuine interest in the care of the disadvantaged, disabled and those in need.

I firmly believe that the biopsychosocial emphasis at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry will provide, develop, strengthen and enable me with the necessary skills and tools to give others in need the best health care.

Lauren Loss

“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”
— Jacques (William Shakespeare’s As You Like It)

The path that led me to a career in medicine was not the most direct, but it was the additive aspects of my winding route which ultimately guided me to where I am today, the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Ever since the tender age of three, belting out Somewhere Over the Rainbow from atop the kitchen counter, I felt I would be destined for a life on the stage. A Rochester native, I took voice lessons at the Eastman School of Music, enrolled in dance and piano classes and sought out mentors who could school me on The Great White Way, more commonly referred to as Broadway. As a high school student, to say I was actively involved in theatre and the arts would have been an understatement — it was my life. When I wasn’t at school or taking additional classes, I was performing in both community and professional level productions. Needless to say, no one in my family was surprised when I decided to apply to musical theatre programs for college — a decision that allowed me to venture to New York City where I attended the New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts’ CAP21.

New York City opened my eyes to a world of art and culture, but most importantly a world in which the actors we love to see grace the stage, whom I wanted to emulate, take the greatest risk of all — living without health insurance and often without the means to seek appropriate medical care. One of my mentors, a woman who had dedicated forty years of her life to the theatre had not seen an OB/GYN since her teens because of the expense. Another actor injured her vocal cord but without insurance she couldn’t afford surgery and subsequently had to give up her passion. It might seem difficult to believe that anyone in America, especially New York City, would have difficulty obtaining care for common medical conditions; such were the dilemmas that initially piqued my interest in medicine as a career.

As I continued to follow my dreams, moving from place to place, and performing in over eighty shows at various theatres across the country, I came to find that the healthcare discrepancies I’d noted in New York City extended beyond the actors struggling to make a name for themselves on Broadway. Everywhere I went, my fellow cast members often were without health insurance and rarely visited a doctor. Like the others, I worked a day job to support life in “the city.” Every morning I would get up and make the 10 minute subway commute to a midtown five provider medical practice. Seeing patients daily and their progress over the course of the year, witnessing those in need as they waited for the train, on the streets and even backstage, I knew that my career goals were evolving towards medicine. I found myself wondering how I could help those around me, how I could become an influential part of their lives. Maybe even develop a clinic system for actors without insurance.

So, how then does someone with a BFA in musical theatre go from the stage to the stethoscope? Thankfully, Bryn Mawr College Pre-Med Post Bac program was able to answer that question. It was there that I fulfilled my science requirements and began the application process to medical school. Now, a full-fledged U of R School of Medicine and Dentistry student, I’m excited to be back home and hope to remain quite active with theatre. Although the lights of a Broadway Stage never lit my face, as Shakespeare said, “All the world is a stage;” and this will be my next major part.

Keila Mayes

For some, the decision to study medicine can be traced to a specific “aha!” moment. I imagine this moment comes with an incredible satisfaction of finally discovering what profession calls to you. However, for me, the desire to pursue medicine has existed since my youth, slowly developing from a fun make-believe game into a serious academic and humanistic pursuit.

I started to consider medicine seriously in grade school. I participated in a variety of science clubs and fairs. Also, I read many influential books highlighting the positive impact that scientific innovation makes in the world. I could not, however, envision myself pursuing a purely scientific life. What excited me about medicine was the union of scientific reasoning with compassion and humanity. I was drawn to the one-on-one patient interactions and the focus on the individual. Most of all, I was drawn to the idea of helping others in their time of need.

By the time I reached high school, I was sure that I wanted to be a doctor and did everything I could to expose myself to medicine. During the summers, I participated in academic enrichment programs, offered by the University of Rochester, designed to expose high school students to medicine. I took classes covering evolution and biology at the local community college. I volunteered to teach healthy life practices to young students. Additionally, I bombarded my physicians with questions about their careers and set up shadowing experiences when possible.

When the time came to apply to college, I focused on universities with strong pre-medical programs. However, I also knew that medicine was not everything I wanted to explore. I strongly believed that I needed to be a well rounded individual to be both a happy physician and, more importantly, a happy person. I applied and was accepted to the University of Rochester’s 8-year Early Medical Scholars Program (REMS).

I was thrilled by the opportunities awarded to me through the REMS program. I chose not to major in biology so that I could explore my other interests. I felt free to study anything and everything I wanted knowing that I could fully focus on my career in medicine after graduating. I decided to major in mathematics and took electives in art history, religion, studio art, and Italian. I chose to further the breadth of my education through the Take-5 scholarship program in designing a 5th year curriculum to study the relationship between art, science, and religion during the Renaissance. This program allowed me to spend a semester abroad in Rome.

Throughout my entire academic experience, I have been fortunate to have many positive role models in my family. Having emigrated from Honduras a year before I was born, my family built a life in the United States from scratch. My mother learned English so that she could continue her work as an RN to support our family. Perhaps even more influential have been my three older sisters who have all become physicians. They have guided me tremendously throughout my life and have been my biggest fans.

Interestingly enough, two of my sisters graduated from URSMD in 2002. I am filled with an overwhelming sense of pride whenever I walk down Alumni Hall and see their photo on the wall. I look forward to the day when my Class of 2012 commencement photo will join theirs.

Tristan Nicholson

“But what about the prom?”

This was the question that everyone asked when I chose to attend the University of Washington’s Early Entrance Program, skipping high school and matriculating as an undergraduate student at the age of 14. I thrived as a young college student, and promptly discovered a passion for research. While doing three years of research at the UW’s Infant Primate Research Laboratory I completed an honors thesis in Anthropology, studying how early experiences affect the development of social interactions in infant macaque monkeys. By graduation I had determined that my future career would be in medical research.

After this unusual beginning I guess it is no surprise that the balance of my path to medical school has also been quite non-traditional. I am a first-generation American. I grew up with a keen awareness that education equals opportunity. As young adults, my parents came to the United States from Australia for graduate school and as a child I absorbed their dedication and intellectual curiosity. Some of my opportunities, however, came from a very different arena: snowboarding. In 1999 I raced for the USA at the Jr. World Championships in Les Menuires, France, and that season was the 5th ranked woman in Boardercross in the country. In contrast to that amazing experience, a few months later I gave my first talk at a national meeting of the American Society of Primatologists and then spent the following summer working with infant monkeys at the National Institutes of Health.

After graduating from college in 2001, I realized my dream of spending a winter in the Rocky Mountains and moved to the snowboarding mecca of Breckenridge, Colorado. One winter turned into seven wonderful years of “growing up” in this special mountain community. After retirement from competitive snowboarding I worked as a professional ski patroller at Breckenridge Ski Resort. Along with powder skiing, bitter cold and relentless wind, life as a ski patroller was full of dynamic challenges: mitigating avalanche hazards with handheld explosives, treating a patient with altitude sickness, or rope evacuating stranded skiers from a broken chairlift. During the summers I worked as a whitewater rafting guide, children’s mentor for Mountain Bike Little League, youth soccer coach and Starbucks barista.

My life in Breckenridge was a lot of fun, but I missed the intellectual stimulation of research and academics. While my medical experiences as a ski patroller were pivotal in my motivation to pursue medical school, I found most of my brief patient encounters unsatisfying. My turning point was a “skier vs. tree” incident on a cold January day in 2006. Deep in the trees on the side of the ski run, this particular patient had the most severe facial trauma I had ever seen. After a difficult extrication, “Brian” was airlifted to Denver and I remained haunted by his shattered face and uncertain prognosis. A few days later, Brian’s family contacted our ski patrol crew and invited us to view his caringbridge.org website. For the first time, I was able to understand the complete process of recovery for one of my patients. I was able to follow him through extubation and departure from the ICU, on to complex facial reconstructive surgery, and ultimately his learning to walk again. Near the end of the ski season, the patrol crew and I met Brian again when he visited. Remarkably, he explained to us that his only permanent injuries were loss of smell and vision in one eye. Brian is now back on skis, and he has continued to visit. Ultimately, my personal connection to the process and outcome of Brian’s recovery catalyzed my desire to work with patients as a physician.

I chose the intersection of science and medicine and I will be pursuing an MD/PhD at the University of Rochester. It is hard to put into words the feeling I had about the University of Rochester’s Medical Scientist Training Program other than that I just knew that it was the right place for me. The students, faculty and staff were warm and happy and it was apparent that the culture here valued my unusual path to medical school. Finally, the Rochester MSTP came with a glowing review from my best friend since college, Tara Wenger ’08. Each day of medical school I am impressed anew by my diverse group of bright and interesting peers and deeply proud to be a part of the great tradition at the University of Rochester School of Medicine.

Meredith Pensak

The decision to pursue a career in medicine comes to people at different points in their lives. For some, like my father, the desire is there from childhood. My decision, however, was born from the culmination of life experiences. Medicine is part of my family heritage; from my great-grandfather to grandmother to father, the tradition of healing has been a strong part of my past. However, it was not until I was thousands of miles away from home and family that I felt the urge to follow in my family’s footsteps.

As an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, majoring in Latin American Studies, I learned about the social, political and economic realities facing the underserved populations of the world today. During my junior year, while studying abroad in Ecuador, I was confronted with a first hand validation of the challenges faced by this population when I worked in the Tierra de Hombres Day Care Center. Returning home, I had the opportunity to intern in Washington D.C. at the National Abortion Federation. Working at NAF provided a robust education and advocacy experience exploring opportunities to impact public policy legislation regarding women’s health care issues. I saw firsthand the legislative side to the complexity of the health care system; particularly the bureaucracy that prevents disenfranchised people from gaining access to health care information and services. During my internships, I witnessed the dedicated efforts of health care advocates who served those most in need, the nation’s most vulnerable and least educated citizens. Coming from a family background where political advocacy and volunteerism is highly valued, while these experiences were fulfilling and provided me with a foundation of information, I was motivated to seek out other venues that would enable me to serve.

With this desire to seek out new adventures I elected to serve as a Peace Corps Community Health Volunteer for two years in the small Andean town of Lluchubamba, Peru. I had the privilege of becoming part of a community rich in culture and hospitality. My official work was health education and promotion of proper health practices. Working with various groups in town I had the opportunity to participate in a number of diverse projects, including an animal vaccination program, training school children to be “classroom watchmen” for proper health practices, organizing community vegetable gardens, and most significantly a Guinea Pig Breeding project. Within the protein-deprived populations in the mountains of Peru, the guinea pig is considered a delicacy and saved for special occasions. However, with this project, we were enabling the participating women to take charge of their own lives and despite limited resources provide essential nutritional supplements for their families. The impact of working on these projects has repeatedly demonstrated to me the importance of educating people about how to live healthier lives. Through working with mothers, teenagers, and kids, I heard time and again how important good health is to their advancement in life, and it was this plea that motivated me to actively pursue medicine. On an educational level I know I had a strong impact on Lluchubamba and I take pride in collaboratively working with people to positively change their lives. However, as a physician I look forward to having a more direct impact on people’s health.

Returning home from Lluchubamba I enrolled in a postbac program at Bryn Mawr College to fulfill my premed requirements. I found returning to an academic setting both challenging and rewarding. Encountering science classes for the first time in years sparked an intellectual curiosity that intrigued and motivated me because I began to see the correlation between what I was studying and a practical application. I continued to balance my academic pursuits with my hands-on passion through volunteer clinic work. I was fortunate enough to find a free clinic that serves the Latino Spanish speaking population of Philadelphia where I was able to interact with patients and physicians as a translator ranging in activities from intake histories to interpreting health care promotional literature. Volunteering in an indigent inner city health clinic reaffirmed my desire to directly impact the lives of those facing the challenges of a disparate health care system.

Matriculating to the University of Rochester was, to me, the next logical step on my journey to becoming a physician. The warmth of the students and faculty, the biopsychosocial model and the knowledge that at the U of R I will gain the skills and know how to become the kind of physician I want to be all drew me here. I am confident that becoming a physician will optimize my chances of accomplishing many of the personal and professional goals that I have set for myself; from treating those in need to advocating for health care policy change from a grassroots hands-on perspective.

Jharon Silva

No young, healthy person plans his life thinking of his impending death. One usually associates those thoughts with residues left by maturity and time. For me, however, the experience of this final truth came early.

When still in High School, as a new recruit into the Mount Sinai Scholars Program, I observed Dr. Cheryl Delbridge opening up the heart of a patient who had died due to extensive clotting. Contained within the chambers of this heart were two replacement valves. These valves, one a Starr-Edward and the other a St. Jude, had functioned for many years. I was sixteen years old, and I still remember it vividly. I was captivated by the juxtaposition between the elementary design of these heart valves, a simple ball in a cage, with the complexity of its function. I became enamored with all things creatively engineered and scientifically focused. I spent my senior year of high school volunteering in the pathology lab and its associated pediatrics division.

My time there played like a tragic montage: I deeply appreciated the significance of the work in the lab, but concomitantly the reality of death insidiously dismantled my dream. I witnessed early AIDS related mortality, and with increasing frequency in a city where its prevalence was rising. I also observed the medical team’s subtle panic that followed every incision. The doctors and nurses were thoroughly gowned in layers. They wore doubled latex gloves, full face shields and the smell of some unknown anti-microbial. It was an emotionally taxing experience that caused me to lose sight of my aspirations in medicine.

After finishing my freshman year at NYU with more doubts than certainties, I decided not to return. I spent the next decade entrenched in the madness of New York City’s underground club scene. I saw so much, yet approached life with an air of detachment. Thoughts of medicine still surfaced frequently, but they made me feel uneasy. I realize now that I had inadvertently associated medicine with death, rather than opportunities for life. This would inevitably change.

Many of my friends became sick, as HIV infection was rampant within the clientele of the bars in which I worked. A man once told me his entire life story over five glasses of scotch. He believed that his infection was God’s punishment for being homosexual, and that he should have forced himself to be straight. He was greedy for life, and begging for second chances, all while self destructively drowning himself in a bottle of alcohol. Experiences like this had become very common for me. Listening to the living come to terms with their impending death caused a shift, an inexplicable resolution of past apprehension. I felt the urgency to move, to do something, and felt guilty for not doing so sooner.

In August of 2006, I graduated from Hunter College, part of the CUNY system, with a degree in Biology. I had spent the previous six years managing bars at night and going to school during the day, it was a surreal combination of diverse social interactions and academic rigor. During my senior year I worked in the immunology department, where I developed a strong respect and admiration for the field. I wanted to continue in research but knew that in order to be a competitive applicant, I would need more experience at the bench. I applied to the University of Rochester’s NIH funded Post-baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP), which is designed to encourage motivated under-represented minorities to pursue careers in biomedical sciences by preparing them for the challenges of the PhD pathway. Four months after starting the two year program, my mentor, Dr. Stephen Dewhurst, encouraged me to begin the application process for graduate school. Although PREP does not necessarily funnel students directly into University of Rochester, I was so pleased with the quality of education and variety of experiences offered, that my decision to apply to its graduate program was solidified.

While attending Rochester as a graduate student, I learned of its extensive commitment to translational medicine, and the incorporation of basic science into clinical applications as part of the Double Helix curriculum within the School of Medicine. I felt compelled to integrate this into my academic career. I was on a graduate school path in vaccine development, and it made perfect sense to potentiate this experience with the inclusion of a clinical education, so I subsequently applied to the MD/PhD program. With the growing importance of translational medicine as a vehicle to bridge the increasing chasm between bench and bedside, I feel the environment within the URMC ideally suited to prepare participants to face future clinical demands and potentially produce individuals uniquely qualified to serve as liaisons between clinicians and investigators, cultivating collaboration and ingenuity. Matriculating in the University of Rochester MD/PhD program has already, and will undoubtedly continue to provide me, with educational opportunities I never thought possible. Ipsa scientia potestas est.

I will end with a quote from Dr. Hansen, who at the end of his class profile presentation, tells the students: “Regardless of what has preceded you, today begins a whole new chapter in your life that will forever change who each of you will become. Make the most of this opportunity and learn all you can, as you owe it to those who place their lives in your hands.”

Meliora,

David S. Guzick, MD, PhD
Dean, School of Medicine and Dentistry
University of Rochester

Dean's Newsletter

Posted September 04, 2008:
Profile of the Class of 2012

Latest News

Nominations sought for Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Education

Class of 2008 -- Post Graduate Appointment List Match Day

School of Medicine and Dentistry Gets Full Accreditation