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Washington College [Scrubs]
Getting into medical school is harder than ever. Yet for those students who have gone through the premedical program at Washington College during the past 15 years, approximately nine out of ten have been accepted. Kate Verville, chair of the premedical committee, attributes that success to the talent and drive of the students who come her way. The students she mentors give credit to the role she plays in helping them reach their goals. What they share is the philosophy that the journey to a medical career is not a narrow path, but a time of intellectual adventure and self-discovery.
Junior Brian Desaulniers shines in the sciences. He excels in biology. He aced his first physics
exam. He looks forward to going to organic chemistry.
Yet one of the most valuable classes this premedical student has taken so far in his college career is not biology or physics or chemistry, but an English class. Last summer, Desaulniers participated in Richard Gillin's summer session at Kiplin Hall, a three-week excursion to England and Ireland that combined mountain hiking with the study of Romantic poetry.
"We learned a lot about William Wordsworth, Seamus Heaney and the Br–ntes, but I think we learned even more about ourselves," Desaulniers said. "It was awe-inspiring to climb the second-highest mountain in England, and then to climb the highest mountain in Ireland. Meeting that kind of challenge does something to you. It's a metaphor for what you do in life, what it takes to get to medical school. You can't climb just one mountain, but you have to climb many mountains to get where you want to go. It also validated what Dr. Verville is always telling us: that we should absorb as much as we can as undergraduates, do what we love to do, and not plan our lives around being premedical students. I'm a true believer in being well-rounded."
That's not to say that he's lackluster in his pursuit of medical studies. Over winter break last year, he spent an intensive internship with Dr. Sandra Takai '74, a pediatrician with a practice in Gaithersburg, MD.
"When Sandra Takai visited campus recently, we met and she asked how she could help," Verville recalls. "I told her about Brian and his interest in pediatrics, and she offered to show him the ropes. She essentially adopted him as her own son for a week, letting him live with her family, feeding him, and introducing him to her own practice, the pediatrics emergency room, and her work at the hospital. Brian has such broad interests. He's a good student and has such a great attitude towards learning. This internship with Sandra Takai really set him on the path of medicine."
This semester, Desaulniers is taking three labs, is enrolled in an emergency medical training class, and volunteers for the rescue squad. Next semester, in addition to his course load and his work with the Student Events Board, he'll be studying for the MCATS, the standardized test required for medical school admission.
What Desaulniers appreciates about the premedical program at Washington College is its flexibility. "Sure, we know right away that we have to take a standard set of classes, but how we do them, when we do them, what classes you take in relation to them, is all up to us. The program allows you to do the things you want to do, to find your own way through it."
For Desaulniers, that path may even include a medical internship during a semester abroad-someplace where there are mountains to climb.
Lauren Marini '02--a viola player who was first chair with the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra and riding enthusiast who loves everything about horses--came to Washington College four years ago wondering whether she could really be happy at a small school that offered neither an orchestra nor a riding team. She also thought she needed to go to a large university in order to fulfill her dream of becoming a veterinarian, and was determined to transfer. With only 22 veterinary programs in the United States, veterinary medicine is a highly competitive field. Two weeks into her freshman year, though, Marini knew she wasn't transferring anywhere.
"I had the greatest first-year professors you could ask for," she says. "They completely changed my attitude. They all seemed to genuinely care about me and my success. Beyond my classes, I discovered I could continue to play my viola with the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra, and I joined the Mid-Atlantic Orchestra as well. Before too long I helped to co-found an equestrian club that allowed me to continue to ride. I had such a wonderful experience."
Last December, Marini was among 950 out-of-state applicants vying for 20 spots at Cornell University's School of Veterinary Medicine. She got in. She also got into the veterinary programs at Michigan State, Ohio State, University of Minnesota, University of Illinois and Iowa State.
Marini opened her Cornell envelope at 10 p.m., the Friday before Christmas. She immediately called Kate Verville, the professor who had been there for her every step of the way-the one who had given advice on internships, the one who researched admissions requirements, the one who had urged her to persuade the schools to waive requirements for classes such as "animal nutrition" that Washington College doesn't offer, the one who read and critiqued 12 application essays, "just for me," Marini says. They talked for an hour and a half.
"My grade point average and test scores were good," admits Marini, "but so were those of hundreds of other applicants. What was different about me was my Washington College experience. It was the extracurricular activities, the high level of interaction I had with my professors, the recommendations I had that made the difference."
"Because we know our students so well, we can give them thorough and detailed recommendations that reveal a lot about who they are and what they are capable of achieving," Verville says. " I was always amazed that Laurie could do so many things and do them so well. She spent nearly 40 hours a week pursuing music and animal-related activities, and that made her stand out among all the other veterinary school applicants."
Because requirements for veterinary schools vary, Marini, a biology major, took many courses as an undergraduate that she expected to see again, including anatomy and physiology. "Lab techniques, dissection-I've done all that," she says. "Some students here are freaking out. While the first year is intense and incredibly busy, I can't say I'm overwhelmed. I feel as though I have the same level or preparation, or better, than my Cornell classmates."
Marini worked hard in college, and endeavored to get as much hands-on experience as she could. Most summers, she spent working for veterinarians. One year, she talked her way into an internship position with Genzyme Transgenics Corporation. With funding from the Douglass Cater Society of Junior Fellows, she worked with researchers at Genzyme to develop a project assessing the dangers wild birds pose to transgenic goats kept on a farm outside of Boston.
That drive serves her well at Cornell, where the curriculum is centered in problem-based learning. "I like the program at Cornell because, unlike most vet schools, they allow hands-on work with live animals before the third year. I also have much more contact with faculty here. I like the hands-on philosophy, so similar to that at Washington College, where students can have such wonderful relationships with their professors."
In her final year of medical school, when Allison Wentworth was looking for residency programs, she was drawn to a place where the people seemed to enjoy their work, and where she thought she could have an impact. She was looking for a place like Washington College.
"From my first year at WC, I was always involved in a number of activities, I developed close relationships with my classmates and professors, and I never had the feeling of being anonymous," Wentworth says. "Because the pediatric curriculum is regulated, and because I knew I'd be picking up and moving somewhere new, a big part of my decision about residency programs was based on the people I would be working with. I came away from Gainesville with a gut feeling that I would be happy there. Washington College spoiled me in a way-I expect a more personalized approach everyplace I go."
Wentworth is now in her second year of residency at Shands Hospital, a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Florida in Gainesville. After four years of classes, she was glad to finally begin hands-on medicine, completing rotations in a number of different specialties. After a four-week rotation in adolescent medicine, Wentworth is now considering fellowship programs in that field.
"A lot of pediatricians get into the field because they want to work with toddlers and young children," Wentworth says, "and a lot of doctors treating adults don't feel comfortable dealing with teenagers. That age group is interesting to me because they have their own set of needs, and it's important to allow them to get off to a good start and to make good choices, to help them learn to be responsible for their actions. Once I gain the teenager's trust they will be totally honest with me. As I physician I have a unique opportunity to reach out to these kids."
Like so many other medical students who got their start at Washington College, Allison Wentworth pursued interests beyond medicine. In addition to her studies and summer research conducted with Dr. Verville, Wentworth played varsity basketball and was active in her sorority.
"Washington College encourages you to pursue all your interests, and I learned how to manage my time, how to maintain a healthy balance. That's been especially important during my residency. I work a lot of hours, but I try really hard to maintain that balance between work and a personal life, so I don't burn out. That's something Dr. Verville always emphasized."
Elijah Johnson came to Washington College with a
dream and a plan that he had carried since he was a small boy. The dream: to become a physician like his father, a surgeon in Kenya and a missionary with the World Gospel Mission. The plan: stay focused on the dream, excel in school, and then put his finely honed medical skills to use somewhere in the expanses of the African continent, where they are so desperately needed. Near the end of his four years at Washington College, he papered his bedroom wall with seven acceptance letters, five of them bearing scholarship offers. He accepted George Washington University's full tuition scholarship.
"Elijah has the right temperament, the right personality for medicine," Verville says. "He was always so calm in the face of stressful situations-I suppose because of his background and the work he had already done with his father. Elijah always had high goals, and was quietly confident in his ability to achieve them."
It's no surprise to Verville, then, that Johnson has his sights set on becoming a surgeon.
Now in his third year at GW's School of Medicine, Elijah is three steps closer to his goal, undaunted at the prospect of five or six more years of study required to complete the surgical residency.
"I want to do surgery-it's more clear-cut than any other type of medicine," says Johnson. "And I definitely want to find my way back to Africa. What with the long hours and the paperwork and threat of malpractice suits, people in the United States don't go into medicine for the money anymore. It's really about helping people. I figure I might as well get down and dirty with it in Kenya or in other African countries, where medicine is all or nothing. They have a lot of infectious diseases, a lot of cancer in Africa. They have a lot of everything in Africa, except old people," he adds wryly.
Johnson visited his father last summer, completing his infectious disease rotation in Kenya. Instead of caring for patients at the hospital where Elijah's father works, they took their medical supplies out to the people in the rural communities. Together, the two treated 200 people in one weekend.
"The idea of having someone's life in my hands makes me feel good," Johnson says, "that's one reason I want to practice medicine. It's a good feeling knowing that you can make a life-altering decision to help somebody. At the end of the day, it comes down to you."
Johnson is grateful for the start he got at Washington College, and for the opportunities to get involved in activities he knew he wouldn't have time for in medical school. If he has one regret, he says, he wishes he had paid more attention in Professor George Shivers' Spanish class. Working in a medical trauma center in the nation's capital, Johnson has occasion to speak Spanish nearly every day. Beyond the close friends he made in school, he has fond memories of "Culture Night," an annual program that showcases the College's international community, and acting in a student play.
In his characteristically succinct manner, Johnson acknowledges: "That was cool."
Marcia Landskroener, the College's senior writer, wonders if she might get some free medical advice.
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