Ekeoma UzoukwuSenior MICRO major and pre-MD/PhD Like most prospective biology majors, I came into Pitt knowing I wanted to study medicine. I registered for my biology and chemistry classes in my first year, joined different organizations, and began to embed myself in my new community. In this first year, I began plating the seeds for my journey as a pre-med student. In the summer before my sophomore year, I began seeking different ways to not only become a more competitive applicant but also for ways to enhance my experience as a biology student at Pitt. My sister advised me to try working in a lab and conducting research in the fall of my sophomore year, and thus began a whole other journey in itself.
I spent the last month of that summer exploring and emailing a number of labs here at Pitt. This was not a difficult task with the vast amount of research labs the city of Pittsburgh has to offer. The part that was hard for me was trying to decipher what kind of researched I wanted to actually do and who would have the patience to teach me the ins and outs of lab work. After a series of emails, I found these qualities in the microBiointerface lab led by Dr. Tagbo Niepa. In my sophomore year, I began my time in the lab and learned much more in those first few months then I had in all my challenging science classes. Here, I was introduced into a world in which I was responsible for work that could make a difference in the science community. I wasn’t just studying for a test that I would forget about in week or applying known and straight forward information into problem solving. I was creating new and better approaches to important issues. I discovered that in a lab, there a multitude of questions and you don’t have to accept just one answer. There are multiple answers and more solutions out there for our questions. Soon, going into lab became part of my daily life and I grew to love working behind that lab bench. As my passion for research grew, my confusion as to what my future career path would be grew with it. My dreams of becoming a doctor had not changed, but I could not ignore this newfound love for conducting research. I expressed these concerns to my mentor and what she said next changed the entire course of my career path. She asked me, “Why don’t you apply for an MD-PhD program?” Looking at my confused face, she proceeded to explain that studying to become a physician and conducting research were not mutually exclusive. There was a whole dual degree program dedicated to training physician scientists, individuals with a passion for research, medicine, and innovation. This program described me to a T and just like that I was no longer a just pre-med student nor a potential researcher. I became a prospective physician scientist.
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January 2022
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