A Relevant Experience: Kevin

The inaugural SOCM Summer Institute was the first experience of my medical education, and looking back on it, I could not be more pleased. In my view, the first year of medical school by itself does not bestow upon the students a strong sense of relevance. The Summer Institute showed me that everything we learn has real significance outside of simply passing boards. It put a face on the conditions that we learned about first year and motivates me to want to be the very best physician I can be. Studying metabolic pathways can get a little tiresome, until through the SOCM you hear about a doctor diagnosing a local person with Wilson's disease (a rare copper metabolism disorder that will get about 10 minutes of class time). The context that was put around medical education proved to be a valuable asset during first year.

I have lived in the Tulsa metro area my whole life, but I discovered so much about the health status of our city that week. The health disparity is startling to me, and the fact that it is happening within a ten mile radius of my home makes me want to do something about it. I think that the profession of medicine has taken a hit since the golden days of the 1950s, but in each of these interviews I saw people getting excited about how we can change our community for the better. Some of our interviewees seemed genuinely surprised that we wanted to know how we could best serve them, yet isn't that in just about everyone's personal statement? I think that this experiment that we are embarking upon can transform the way people look at medicine in our day, and that gets me excited.

At first, these problems we are facing and hoping to address might seem disheartening to you. I hope that during the week you will give serious thought to what a solution might look like and how you might fit into it. The presentations that were given on Friday made me very hopeful for improvement of our local health care system. I see at OU Tulsa a group committed to making a difference quickly, and that is something I think is worth pursuing for the betterment of our community.

Kevin, MSII
Tulsa, OK