Meet Our Medical Students

Medical student mosaic

Download the 2005 Dean's Report

Flexibility in their education is a major draw for students at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Medical students may pursue research, choose from a variety of elective rotations, or expand their horizons with international experiences, as one-quarter of them choose to do. “They develop their own pathways,” says Theodore Thompson, director of education for years three and four. And sometimes, as with the students profiled below, they blaze trails.

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Shannon Herrera
Kyle Williams
Leslie Carranza
Matt Taintor
Shaquita Bell
Cuong Pham
Gillian Burkhardt
Tom Virnig and Becky Koshnick

Shannon Herrera and her grandfather

“I’m tricultural,” jokes Shannon Herrera, referring to her mother (Italian) and her father (American Indian and Mexican). Because her father is a Marine, Herrera’s family regularly moved from one military base to another. Yet she still feels a strong connection to her Kansas Kickapoo tribe because of the teachings of her grandmother, who grew up on the reservation and lived with her family for several years. That connection grew into commitment when Herrera was an undergraduate taking an American history class that discussed health disparities affecting American Indians. “I learned about all these preventable problems and lack of access,” she says. “I wanted to help a community that I felt a part of.” After deciding to become a doctor, she applied only to the very few medical schools that have programs such as Minnesota’s Center for American Indian and Minority Health. She felt welcomed during the interview and four years later, she is preparing to go to San Diego to serve her residency in the Navy. Before she goes, however, she will help CAIMH with a summer program to teach science to American Indian children from fourth through seventh grades. During her medical school years, she also devoted time to speak to high school students such as those attending Anishinabe Academy because “when I was in high school, I never thought about being a doctor.” She also helped mentor American Indian undergraduates from all over the country in a two-day annual workshop that offers introduction to the MCAT, mock interviews, and other skill-building activities for applying to medical school. “I don’t feel like I do enough,” Herrera says, “but I try to do what I can.”

As an undergraduate, Kyle Williams met a boy with a rare disorder called PANDAS—Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcus. Among the boy’s symptoms were Tourette’s syndrome and obsessive-compulsive behaviors. Williams became fascinated by the disorder, as well as similar disorders such as Sydenham’s chorea, which seemed to show a link between certain types of obsessive-compulsive disorders and strep. Now a second-year medical student, he’s doing work that may help researchers better understand such disorders. He and microbiology professor Patrick Schlievert successfully submitted a grant proposal for a Howard Hughes Medical Student Fellowship to study the pathogenesis of these diseases. His findings, which suggested ways that certain bacteria could cause an autoimmune disorder, were significant. He earned two awards for his work at a conference last year for grant recipients: one that paid for a second year of study, and another that will pay for the rest of his medical school costs. He is the first University of Minnesota student to earn either award. Williams hopes his work will extend further. “We may have found a mechanism as to how bacteria can cause an autoimmune disorder, and people have been looking for the pathogenesis of that for a long time,” he says. “That’s a much bigger question that we’d like to tackle.”

CLARION, a student-founded organization that promotes communication among health professionals to improve patient safety, is ahead of the curve, says Leslie Carranza, a former board member. The organization was founded five years ago; its most prominent activity is a case study competition of sentinel events. This spring, that case study competition extended its reach nationally, with student teams participating from the University of Minnesota, University of Missouri, University of Chicago, University of Tennessee, University of Connecticut, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. When Carranza, who had previously earned a master’s degree in public health and worked as an administrator in a hospital, entered medical school, she understood how important it was to have a broad perspective. She quickly became one of the organization’s most active members. She estimates that some 200 students from such University of Minnesota programs as nursing, pharmacy, and health care administration have gotten involved in CLARION in some capacity. Now busy with her rotations, she says the background she gained through CLARION makes her a better doctor. “I know what I can ask nurses and how they can help me,” she says. “I understand how all the pieces fit together.” While CLARION’s goals are lofty, Carranza says the competitions and other activities to promote communication among future health professionals are making a real difference. “If we all worked better as a team, and we all understood each other a little bit better, we might solve some problems,” she says. “It’s not a unifying answer to all the problems in health care, but it’s a start.”

Raised in Silver Bay, a small town in northern Minnesota, Matt Taintor has long appreciated the importance of rural health care. “Both of my grandfathers were private practice doctors in fairly rural areas,” he says. “Hearing stories from them got me excited about it.” As the recipient of one of first two Dean’s Scholarships at the University of Minnesota Medical School, achieving his goal of becoming a doctor in a rural area got easier. He entered through the Duluth campus program, which has as its mission educating physicians to serve rural areas and Native American communities. The full-ride scholarship will allow Taintor to pursue rural health care without having to worry about paying back more than $100,000 in loans that he might have otherwise accrued. “I knew [going to medical school] was something I wanted to do,” he says. “I just didn’t know if it would be financially feasible for me. When I got called about the scholarship, I realized it was meant to be.”

Shaquita Bell applied to the University of Minnesota Medical School because of its reputation, but she enrolled at the school because of the people. “They saw me as a whole person,” she says. “I wasn’t a number, and I was more than just my research interests.” Meeting members of the Student National Medical Association (SNMA) as a prospective student, she has since become one of the organization’s most active members. Bell currently serves as national membership chair of SNMA, a group whose goal is to increase the number of culturally capable and sensitive physicians. In her role, she helps members communicate with each other, assists local chapters with civil rights and affirmative action issues, and oversees alumni affairs. In addition to projects for SNMA, she’s also working on issues that are closer to home. She and another student recently organized a conference that brought together Minnesota’s top political, community, and medical school leaders to discuss ways to increase diversity in medical schools. “We wanted to do something here that would make a difference,” she says.

He grew up in Little Canada, Minn., but this fall, when Cuong Pham takes part in rotations and research in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, he’ll return to his country of birth. The oldest of three siblings, Pham was not yet 2 years old when his mother and father, a former officer in the South Vietnamese army, left Vietnam for political asylum in the United States. Known as “Ku” to his friends, Pham’s name means “strong will.” He showed that his first year in medical school by founding Harambe, a multicultural arts festival of healing. He also demonstrates that strong will by going to Vietnam even though his parents have expressed trepidation about him staying in the northern part of the country. “I think it’s time for us to move on as a nation,” Pham says. As an undergrad, he had an unfocused urge to help. “Vietnam has always been part of the background,” Pham says, “so burdened with poverty and lack of education.” While still an unsatisfied computer science major, he began volunteering at a hospice. He loved talking with patients and “things just started clicking.” Now, he’s taking a year off to engage in international medical programs. First stop is South Africa, where he will spend two or three months serving a United Nations program offering a new HIV/AIDS treatment for orphans. Then he moves on to Vietnam. He hopes to strengthen ties between the University of Minnesota and medical schools in Vietnam, where each year a couple of medical students visit. Pham would like more to go and he’d like non-Vietnamese to go, too. “My plan is to build a partnership.”

Even before she entered medical school, Gillian Burkhardt heard about the Phillips Neighborhood Clinic and wanted to become involved. Brainchild of physician John Song, the clinic would be run by students and serve Minneapolis’s poorest neighborhood. “The clinic embodied the reasons why I wanted to be a doctor,” she says, “working with all facets of health care, and working with an underserved population.” A former Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar who also managed an HIV and STD prevention program overseas, Burkhardt brought to a public health perspective as well as concern for those who lack access to the clinic, which opened March 10, 2003. The Phillips Neighborhood Clinic offers poor and homeless people basic health screenings, acute services, and referrals to other health-care providers. Under the supervision of a physician, first- and second-year medical students are joined by students from pharmacy, nursing, social work, and public health. Says Burkhardt, “I’ve done a lot of my rotations at Hennepin County Medical Center, dealing with the same patient population. I think it’s helped give me more understanding and helped me help them.” The experience affirmed her commitment to a community-based approach to health care. “I’ve been an unusual student in some sense that I haven’t looked at medicine from a traditional point of view,” Burkhardt says. “The University of Minnesota has been a really good place for that.”

After Tom Virnig and Becky Koshnick met in gross anatomy, they started meeting outside class to run and lift weights together. It didn’t take long for the work-out buddy relationship to become something more; each soon knew they had met the one for them. Still, they put off marriage, knowing that four years of medical school would require considerable commitment. In 2003, a reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Gail Rosenblum, who was profiling the class of 2004, covered class experiences in clinical rotations. “A few, like Virnig,” she wrote, “are also learning firsthand the importance of bedside manner.” After experiencing confusing symptoms over several months, Virnig had been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia in June 2002. With his girlfriend turned fiancé at his side, he underwent multiple chemotherapy regimens and a bone marrow transplant. He also dealt with the side effects of chemotherapy and related serious illnesses, including infections and kidney failure. In mid-April 2004, he was diagnosed with a relapse. On April 28, 2004, they married. “We were completely in love and totally dedicated to one another,” says Koshnick. “And we didn’t know what the future would hold for us.” In six days, they managed to find a wedding dress, tuxedo, reception site, and, with the help of Koshnick’s out-of-town pastor, a church. Virnig had not been sleeping well, says Koshnick, but “he felt great the day of the wedding and was out dancing.” She adds: “It didn’t feel like we had to get married quickly—it was the wedding of our dreams.” They spent their honeymoon night in the St. Paul Hotel, where friends filled their room with roses and music. The next day, Virnig returned to the hospital for experimental therapy. A few weeks later, on graduation day for the class of 2004, he was able to leave the hospital to serve as a class greeter, which he felt was an honor. Over the years, the couple coped with his disease with the help of family and friends. School administrators cooperated as Virnig tried to return to rotations and Koshnick picked up some rotations and postponed others. Virnig, says Koshnick, was an inspiration because he took each day as it came and never gave up hope. “He never let go of living. He stayed connected to his family and friends. He was amazing. And he had a sense of humor the whole time.” On Feb. 10, 2005, Tom Virnig was presented with an M.D. degree by Dean Deborah Powell, who noted in her letter to him: “We are proud and honored to grant this degree to you. You have truly earned it.” He passed away Feb. 11, 2005. After taking some time off, this summer, Koshnick enters her fourth year. She now realizes, she says, “I had been pretty naïve about illness going into medical school. Previously, Tom and I certainly did not understand the emotional and physical toll of illness. But we also did not understand how much effort it takes to accomplish daily chores—simply keeping track of medications or even getting to clinic. We have learned, however, how truly difficult, life-changing, and all encompassing illness can be.” And this understanding, she believes, will inform her work with her future patients.