Our Purpose
Hometown:
Syracuse, NY
Undergraduate School:
Middlebury College (2006)
Medical School:
SUNY Upstate Medical University-College of Medicine (MSIII)
When did you become involved with the LMSA? What encouraged you to be part of LMSA?
I became a member of my school’s LMSA chapter the spring of my first year. Some of my Latino friends were on the executive board and they asked me if I would be their community service chair for the following year. Coincidentally, I had just learned how incredibly few students from the city of Syracuse matriculated at Upstate (<0.5% !), which is itself located in the heart of the city. I wanted to improve the mentorship and medical career exposure opportunities available to students in the struggling Syracuse City School District. Together with an amazing e-board, we did just that! The MEDS (Medical Education for Diverse Students) Program is now preparing for its third year and is looking stronger than ever! At Upstate, LMSA has been an amazing home for MEDS. My time with Upstate’s small LMSA family has been defined by devotion and service to the community. In spring of 2015, I attended my first regional LMSA event and it took all of about 2 seconds to figure out that these qualities permeate the organization as a whole. I am so honored and excited to be part of this amazing team!!
What do you expect to accomplish this year as Mentorship Chair?
This position is as new to the executive board as I am (we make a good pair!) Tentative to make public promises about what this new position will accomplish in the months to come, I will share my hopes. I hope to work with past and current leaders to consolidate their myriad mentorship activities into a defined role for this position; an important part of this will be updating our relationships with colleges in the region. With their support I’d also like to establish a clear mission statement for this position, set an agenda for the year, and develop some long-term goals for the years to come.
Career goals:
I think it would be awesome to become really involved in a community and improve the health of its citizens in a meaningful and lasting way. Specialty-wise I’m leaning towards primary care, probably Pediatrics or Family Practice.
Hobbies, something that you do in your spare time:
My athletic/recreational activities are generally of the ADHD-variety, namely CrossFit, outdoor stuff, and riding bikes—down mountains and on roads, (in my head) I can go faster than cars! I also really like water, both to drink and to swim in. My affinity for bikes and water has, at times, led to participation in triathlons, albeit very short ones.
I also like dancing, traditionally in my kitchen, in socks, to bad/pop music. However, I’m trying to learn the kind of dancing that has rules for how you’re supposed to do it. The whole maintaining the same rhythm for prolonged time period is a little weird, but Gigi said that if I didn’t learn how to dance salsa I couldn’t be her friend so I must endure.
