One Student's Story About Becoming a Physician-Scientist

José Enrique San Miguel-Ruiz became aware of medicine’s promise and limitations while still in elementary school. When he was just a youngster, his mother suffered an ischemic stroke. He was struck by the inability of doctors to give his mother hope while managing her recovery.

He resolved to pursue a career in medicine and promised “to put all my efforts into helping people heal their physical lesions, but at the same time not letting them feel overlooked by the individuals in whom they placed their hopes.”

Now a second-year medical student, San Miguel-Ruiz will spend the next eight years of his life becoming a physician-scientist. Eight years is the average amount of time it takes to obtain both an M.D. and Ph.D. in the University of Minnesota's Combined M.D./Ph.D. Training Program.

San Miguel-Ruiz was inspired to pursue both degrees after joining the laboratory of the professor who taught his advanced cell and molecular biology course at the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras. Before that, his aim was to become doctor.

San Miguel-Ruiz remained at the Puerto Rican university two extra years, working in the laboratory of Jose Garcia-Arraras, Ph.D., who conducts research on the biology of regeneration. "He made me realize that science could have practical applications," says San Miguel-Ruiz. "Treating patients with traumas of the nervous system could be combined with biomedical research that could lead to improved treatments."

In that lab, San Miguel-Ruiz published two first-author papers, and Garcia-Arraras told him about the M.D./Ph.D. career path. He received an NIH Minority International Research Scholarship that allowed him to obtain more research experience while also improving his English in Australia.

He became acquainted with Minnesota because, for more than a decade, University representatives have attended the Biannual Graduate School Fair at the Rio Piedras campus. That effort is part of the long history of outreach to underrepresented minorities carried out by the M.D./Ph.D. Program at the University of Minnesota.. Susan Shurson, assistant director, and Nick Berg, program assistant, travel the United States attending conferences and recruiting students.

Shurson has developed relationships with faculty advisors at the Mayaguez, Cayey, Ponce and Rio Piedras campuses. San Miguel-Ruiz met Berg at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students in San Diego. San Miguel-Ruiz notes, "from all the people I met at the conference, Nick was the most helpful and enthusiastic program representative. He gave me a good feeling about Minnesota."

Upon completion of his second year of medical school, San Miguel-Ruiz will join the Neuroscience Graduate Program to work in the laboratory of Stem Cell Institute Director Jonathan Slack, Ph.D., on regeneration of spinal cord. "By studying its normal development and response to injury in animal models,” he says, “we can gain more insight on how to diminish the permanent disabilities that accompany spinal cord injuries."

In the future, he expects his combination of scientific research with medical practice to allow him to offer his patients more hope and better treatments.