2024 Natural and Applied Sciences Updates

Throughout my time at Loyola University Maryland, I have had the privilege of engaging in meaningful activities that have enriched my college experience. My Biology and Forensic Studies majors complement each other well, as I am able to prepare myself for medical school, while learning about the justice system and some of the main issues in Baltimore city. Some of these issues include gun violence and the drug epidemic, which contribute to the social determinants of health and healthcare outcomes in Baltimore. I grew up in a suburb of Baltimore and visited the city often as a child, but throughout my time at Loyola, I have called Baltimore my home and have engaged in experiences that have allowed me to meet fellow Baltimore citizens, experiencing the beauty of the city. The most formative part of my time at Loyola has been my time with Health Outreach Baltimore, both on and off campus. I started as an HOB advocate during my second year at Loyola, and I have continued serving the Baltimore community. I am now in a leadership role as the Clinical Coordinator of the Mother and Baby Unit. Each week, I visit Mercy Medical Center and work towards connecting mothers with resources in the Baltimore community, such as food resources, childcare, and employment opportunities. Through my work with HOB, I have become familiar with both the federal and local resources that exist for families, and this opportunity has opened my eyes to the strength and resilience of the mothers of Baltimore. In my role as an advocate, it is my job to support the self-efficacy of my clients, while using my assigned weekly time to assist them in accessing resources. Through my clinical coordinator role, I have been tasked with training new advocates in the Mother Baby Unit, providing them with weekly feedback on their clinical notation. I also engage with Resource Team each week, which is an HOB group that works towards discovering new resources with which our advocates can link our clients. As an HOB advocate, I interact with clients of diverse backgrounds, largely different from my own. In the Mother Baby Unit, my clients are mainly Black mothers who have just given birth, and I acknowledge that I will never have the same experiences that they do, especially within the medical system. As an HOB advocate, I work towards providing compassion and support for my clients during and after their vulnerable time in the hospital, and I will bring my cultural competency that I have gained from HOB into my future career.

Another activity that I have engaged with on campus at Loyola is Best Buddies. The fall semester of my third year, I had the opportunity to serve as the interim Peer-Buddy Coordinator for Best Buddies. While I was in high school at Notre Dame Preparatory School, I served in a leadership position for a club called Rafiki. Rafiki hosted weekly parties for women with developmental disabilities in the Baltimore area, and it was one of my first experiences that ignited my love of service. Since COVID-19, the Rafiki club had not been active, so I wanted to work towards connecting these women with a new social opportunity through Loyola. The women from Rafiki attended Best Buddies meetings over zoom those fall and spring semesters, and the meetings were a success. Although I am not a part of leadership with Best Buddies anymore, this opportunity allowed me to reconnect with one of the women from Rafiki, who I am still in contact with today. Through my time with Best Buddies, I was interested in promoting diversity of ability, by fostering meaningful interactions between the Loyola students and visitors from around Baltimore.

During the spring semester of my third year at Loyola, I studied abroad in Newcastle, England. I had the chance to travel around Europe, and I experienced different cultures. I also had the chance to shadow a pediatric urologist and other pediatric doctors at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle. Through this experience, I observed the differences between the United States and England in terms of their healthcare systems. Since healthcare is completely free in England, I was able to view medicine in a non-monetized context and talk with doctors about the pros and cons of the system. Through HOB, I have learned about the barriers to healthcare access in Baltimore and the United States, and it was eye-opening to experience a culture where healthcare is a guaranteed service. I also learned about some of the drawbacks to free healthcare in the eyes of physicians, such as long wait times for appointments for patients due to no-show patients.

Another on campus activity that I engaged with at Loyola was completing research credits in Dr. Tangrea’s lab. My research partner, Kristine, and I worked on a couple of projects throughout Fall 2023, including immunohistochemistry staining of tumor tissue samples as well as miRNA retrieval and quantification of tissue samples. This was my first experience working in a lab, so it taught me a great deal about different lab techniques as well as the patience that comes along with scientific research. By the end of the semester, I was comfortable performing new techniques in the lab and it also fostered my interest in pursuing research in the future. The topic of Dr. Tangrea’s research is cancer, specifically quantifying different levels of miRNA in tumor and normal samples from University of Maryland. Taking part in research that used samples from real patients was humbling and I did not take the experience lightly. I hope to one day contribute to the compassionate care of these patients in a hospital setting, as well as engage in research that works towards their positive health outcomes.

A final activity that I engaged with while at Loyola was my volunteer experience at the Shock Trauma Center at University of Maryland. Again, this experience was extremely humbling, as I witnessed the surgeries of patients who had just undergone traumatic, life-altering experiences. I had the privilege of observing brain surgeries, skin grafts, major abdominal surgeries, complicated orthopedic cases and more. I worked closely with people in all positions at the hospital, including the surgical technicians, nurses, and physicians, giving me a holistic view of the operation of a hospital. I took part in numerous tasks in the operating rooms, including disinfecting equip ment, making beds, assisting the circulating nurses, transporting patients, and collecting blood products from the blood bank  during surgeries. The most memorable experience from my time at Shock Trauma was on my last day volunteering, when I witnessed the organ procurement procedure on an individual who had been pronounced brain dead after an accident. The heart surgeon allowed me to watch him perform the surgery up-close, while he explained every step. Seeing a beating heart for the first time is an experience that I will never forget, and it motivates me to continue my journey towards becoming a doctor, dedicating myself to care and advocate for patients during their most vulnerable moments. I am extremely grateful for my experiences at Loyola, and I am honored to have been nominated for the Choudhury Sarkar-Dey Medal.