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In This Issue:
At left, Brady Magaoay, an FDSRP participant, with Miguel Pinilla Vera, MD, of the Pulmonary Division. Right, Christiane Stachl, a participant in BWH’s STARS program, with mentor Nathalie Agar, PhD, director of the Neurosurgery’s Surgical Molecular Imaging Laboratory.
While growing up on the Taos Pueblo reservation in New Mexico, Kirsten Concha-Moore attended many community clinics staffed by volunteer doctors who came from all over the country. This experience ignited her desire to pursue a career in medicine.
“I always admired the doctors that came to help, so when it came time for me to plan my future, I wanted to become one of those doctors,” said Concha-Moore, a senior at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who hopes to practice medicine on her reservation as a family physician.
This summer, she took steps toward achieving her goal by participating in the Four Directions Summer Research Program (FDSRP), one of two summer programs hosted by the Center for Faculty Development and Diversity’s Office for Multicultural Faculty Careers.
Both the FDSRP and BWH Summer Training in Academic Research and Scholarship Program (STARS) provide Native American and underrepresented minority college juniors, seniors and medical students an opportunity to work on basic science research projects under the guidance of BWH faculty mentors. The eight-week program also provides the students with clinical shadowing experiences, social networking opportunities and weekly roundtables with BWH faculty representing the breadth of professional pathways in academic medicine.
“I was able to see the different fields in medicine and how vast it really is,” said Brady Magaoay, an FDSRP participant and senior at Stanford University. “I want to return to Hawaii and become a doctor there and give back, especially since we have a shortage of doctors.”
STARS participant Curtis Haynes said his time at BWH taught him not only about research, but also how to effectively collaborate with others. “I’ve learned so much during my time here from working with mentors and my peers,” said Haynes, a junior at Tougaloo College.
STARS has a unique collaboration with the Jackson Heart Study, the largest single-site, prospective, epidemiologic investigation of cardiovascular disease among African Americans. This partnership brought Haynes and other students from Tougaloo College, Jackson State University and University of Mississippi Medical Center—where this study is being conducted—to BWH to advance their research skills.
Christiane Stachl, from the University of Washington, felt right at home at BWH.
“The work here has been so stimulating that I feel that I’ve used every single part of my brain at all times,” said the STARS participant. “The faculty and everyone running the program have given me so many opportunities that I probably wouldn’t have experienced otherwise.”