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Class Notes

UMHS 2023 residency Match Dr. Nihal Satyadev started a neurology residency at Mayo Clinic Florida in the summer of 2023. Dr. Satyadev has been interested in neurology ever since his grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. While he was an undergraduate, he founded The Youth Movement Against Alzheimer’s, 501(c)3, which expanded into the largest youth-based Alzheimer’s nonprofit in the country and was acquired in 2023 by Seth and Lauren Rogen’s nonprofit, Hilarity for Charity. While he was a UMHS student, he founded Care Generation, a 501©4 nonprofit to help combat the disease through pursuing the creation of an “AmeriCorps for caregiving”. Born in Edison, NJ, Dr. Satyadev moved to Tustin, CA with his family when he was five years old and grew up in Southern California. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Redlands in Redlands, CA and his master’s in public health from George Washington University. He is working on pursuing a master’s in computer science from Georgia Institute of Technology in concurrence with his residency training. “Since my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I’ve been working through various ventures (i.e., research labs, nonprofit startup, advocacy) to address different facets of neurodegeneration and its effects,” he said. “ In order to truly address Alzheimer’s disease, however, I felt patient care would offer me the opportunity to identify clinical features that would be important factors towards better understanding the disease. Working to mitigate Alzheimer’s disease was the reason I joined medicine, and neurology was a natural fit.” What interests Dr. Satyadev the most about neurology? “The most exciting thing about joining neurology at the stage it's currently at is that new treatments are being developed every year. I’m excited to be a part of the field as it sheds its stereotype of being a “diagnose and adios specialty.”

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Dr. Kirthana (“Kerthy”) Sugunathevan started a general surgery residency Match at Detroit Medical Center Sinai Grace in Michigan in summer 2023. Those who follow UMHS social media may have seen the many Instagram she has done because she worked as a UMHS Media Ambassador for several years, writing posts and shooting short videos about things happening in St. Kitts and during her clinical rotations. Kerthy is from Guelph, Ontario, Canada and spent a few months teaching at UMHS before starting her residency. She hopes to teach medical students again someday. “Teaching is something that interests me,” she said. “So, in some format, I'd love to maybe pursue a Master's in medical education or just somehow incorporate that in my future career.”

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2023 Residency Match and Class of 2023 graduate Dr. Zachary Vandeveer started an interventional radiology residency in summer 2023 at Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Vandeveer was valedictorian of the Class of 2023 and was also active in AMSA and various student organizations at UMHS. He is the first-ever UMHS graduate to Match into interventional radiology. “In order to be a great interventional radiologist, you have to be a great diagnostic radiologist,” Dr. Vandeveer said. “So, they go hand in hand. But, the interventional side has a lot more intervention; procedures, injections, and more. What really interested me was that it's the most technologically advanced field in medicine. In IR you can kill cancer, stop bleeding, and provide concentrated radiation treatment all while using image guidance as a road map. In summary, Interventional Radiology is advanced image-guided minimally invasive surgery via a variety of different techniques. Allowing care to be customized to each patient and for each procedure.”

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Dr. Carlos A. Villanueva Soto is a UMHS Class of 2023 graduate and started an internal medicine residency at the University of Puerto Rico in Centro Médico de Puerto Rico, PR in summer 2023. Dr. Villanueva Soto is one the most prominent UMHS students from Puerto Rico and worked as a UMHS Media Ambassador for many years. Dr. Villanueva Soto also did a huge amount of volunteer work in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria hit back in 2017. In fact, the impact of Hurricane Maria was actually part of the reason he applied to UMHS in the first place because he did not want to wait around trying to get into another medical school. He is thrilled to his native island to work in internal medicine because there is such a great need for doctors in Puerto Rico. “There is currently a shortage of specialists,” he said. “There is a massive exodus of physicians moving out of Puerto Rico and moving to the mainland, with one of the reasons being the current situation we have of insurance companies taking over everything that we care about, which is making sure our patients get proper healthcare. I feel that my decision to stay in Puerto Rico is the most correct decision that I could ever make.”

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 cavillanueva@umhs-sk.net

Instagram: @TipicoCarlos

UMHS 2023 residency Match Dr. Andrieu Aguinaldo started an internal medicine residency this summer at Prime West Consortium, West Anaheim Medical Center in Anaheim, California. Born and raised in California, Dr. Aguinaldo is pleased to be returning to his home state for residency. He graduated in 2022 and took a year off before Match to work as a Clinical Research Coordinator in Lomita, California. "I had the opportunity to work on more than 15 Clinical Trials that focused on significant analysis on cutting-edge treatment for a variety of diseases, ranging from COVID-19 to Eosinophilic Duodenitis"—which is a rare condition causing inflammation throughout the digestive system,” he said.

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Class of 2022 valedictorian Dr. Alexa Datko started a Family Medicine residency in the summer of 2022 at the University of Wyoming-Casper. A native of San Diego, CA and a former Division One athlete, Dr. Datko is excited to be working in a residency that helps her combine her passion for sports medicine with her desire to bring badly needed healthcare to Wyoming, a state with a large rural medically underserved population. “When I was looking at applying for residency, I wanted something in which I could do everything,” she said. “Family medicine definitely stood out to me being able to do sports medicine, being able to do OB if I wanted to and just get that well-rounded kind of sense of medicine. When I was looking at University of Wyoming, they have a specific OB tract. You could do C-sections; you could do other OB procedures and essentially fulfill what you would need to do to go straight from Family Medicine and into OB. Or if you really wanted to, you could still apply for a fellowship, but I think it was the opportunity to get hands-on experience in many areas that appealed to me the most. It is a smaller town and they do also have a rural track and training program.” Dr. Datko likes the fact that she is helping rural medically underserved communities. “It just kind of gives me the idea that I could get into anything. That is something that we don't necessarily see in residencies. You go to the big cities and there are specialty doctors for everything, but a lot of the United States doesn't live like that. There are plenty of places that are low income, under serviced. And this residency gives me that. University of Wyoming at Casper gives me that opportunity to learn everything that I would need to be a great doctor and excel in a smaller town.” Read more.

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  Dr. Michelle Hornedo, originally from Puerto Rico, started an Internal Medicine residency in summer 2022 at Ohio Health, Riverside Methodist Hospital. "Ohio Health, Riverside Methodist Hospital has the internal medicine program,” she said. “It's a hybrid between an academic and a community-based hospital. They have such amazing opportunities with different electives; they really prepare their residents with the didactics of the ABIM exam. I really was drawn to them, not only because of everything in their curriculum that they offered to the residents, but also the fact that during the interview, they were very warm and welcoming and they were very open to talking about all of the topics and the things that they were willing to bring to the table when it comes to the residents and what they teach. One of the main things that drew me into Internal Medicine was the fact that as an internal medicine physician, you're able to see, in a day-to-day life, all kinds of different conditions and illnesses, that I personally, needed for becoming a physician. It's one of the things that, if I see one specific topic, I can see it in various days. For example, you go from cardio to gastrointestinal, to neurological, you can see all of these different things every day, on a day-to-day basis. An internal medicine physician is equipped with diagnosing them, creating a treatment plan for all of these illnesses, and you can also go into a subspecialty, you can do the Hospitalist route, you can become a primary care physician. The opportunities are really limitless because you can look at—if you want a sub specialize into a specific, let's say cardiology—like I mentioned, you can. It's something that drew me to it because the options are limitless.” Read more.

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Dr. Tendai Marume recently matched into an internal medicine residency program at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, PA. He graduated in 2022 and took a year off before applying to the Match to pursue his love for teaching and worked as a Clinical Instructor of Preclinical Sciences at UMHS in St. Kitts. “Internal medicine has the same work and life balance aspects I've been looking for,” he said. “The ability to take care of patients in an inpatient setting and contribute to the medical education of medical students and residents is something I've always been yearning for and looking for in a residency program. I'm fortunate that the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital Internal Medicine Program has a medical educator track for internal medicine residents that are interested in teaching.” Read more.

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Dr. Jared Sharza is from Canandaigua, New York and started an Emergency Medicine residency at McLaren Macombe Hospital in Michigan in summer 2022. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he did a lot of frontline and EMS work. “I feel like a lot of the times people just think that Emergency Medicine is a lot of heart attacks,” he said. “It's a lot of immediate treatment, but Emergency Medicine is the stabilization. It's the triaging. And it's the treatment of different patients that come into the hospital. It can be from lifesaving measures, to non-acute measures, with patients coming in just for minor complaints. And from there, they're either discharged to go home or they're admitted into the hospital for further workups, evaluations, or procedures by other teams. In that sense, emergency medicine is the frontline of the hospital for different resources. Emergency medicine—on top of my experience having been a medic for just eight years now—I really enjoy the fast-paced environment. I enjoy the variety that comes into the department. I like how I can go from one case to another and it can be something mild to mild, or mild to severe, and that kind of environment I really do thrive in. It's just about anything and everything. And I also do enjoy some procedures as well. Emergency medicine allows me to really do all of those different things.” Email him at jaredsharza@gmail.com

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Dr. Amir Akram started an internal medicine residency at Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in Dayton, Ohio in 2021. “Wright State was my number one choice and I am beyond excited to have matched there,” he said. “One of the reasons I rated it highly is because there are three clinical sites where you complete your rotations. Miami Valley Hospital is the main site and is a large tertiary care center, while the other sites are the Dayton VA and the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. This unique model of training is something that really pulled me to this program.” He said he likes internal medicine because he is fascinated by the versatility of the specialty. “One moment you can be managing a person with COVID-19 who is struggling to breathe, while the next moment you can be treating a delirious patient trying to climb walls. Each patient is a puzzle and each puzzle is so different from the other that it requires you constantly keep changing your way of thinking. You are forced to have a broad knowledge base and regularly update it, while using it to treat acutely and chronically ill patients with utmost compassion and care. There is lifelong learning with internal medicine that I am excited about.” Read more.

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Dr. Esther Galant started an anesthesiology residency at Rush University Medical Center in Illinois in the summer of 2021. Dr. Galant finds anesthesiology a fascinating specialty. “There is a meme of a duck floating on a pond. Over the surface it looks like it’s just enjoying the breeze and relaxing but under the surface, it shows its legs working really hard. That is how I see Anesthesiology and that also fits who I am as a person. Additionally, through my rotations I discovered I enjoyed taking care of acutely ill patients. My last rotation was in pain medicine in Louisiana. It surprised me how much I enjoyed it. Anesthesiology gives me the opportunity to do pain management and take care of acutely ill individuals. One of my goals for residency is to practice more self-compassion and be more generous with my time and energy. I want to inspire and empower my co-residents, attendings and patients in everything I do.” Read more.

UMHS Class of 2021 grad Nisha Hollingsworth, MD LNHA transferred to UMHS from another Caribbean medical school and said “it was the best decision I ever made,” especially because of the outstanding clinical rotations. Dr. Hollingsworth was still working as a Licensed Nursing Home Administrator, managing a 109-bed skilled nursing facility with a COVID-19 unit, but in summer 2021 she started a Neurology residency at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. Dr. Hollingsworth is originally from Barbados, West Indies. Her parents immigrated to New York when she was three years old. She grew up in both New York and South Texas but called South Florida home before starting residency in West Virginia. She had been working as a licensed Nursing Home Administrator at a skilled nursing facility. Her experience in this field helped foster an interest in Neurology, ultimately leading to obtaining a residency in this area of medicine. “My love of neurology definitely stemmed from my time spent in skilled nursing facilities,” she said. “While I was not directly involved with patient care, I was still very involved with patients and families. Everyone that comes into a SNF [Skilled Nursing Facility], even those with the same diagnoses, [are] all different. I have seen maladies that others would only read about in textbooks. I’ve seen every type of dementia and movement disorder there is, from Alzheimer’s to Korsakoff to Huntington’s and Hemiballismus. Seeing the disease progression and treatment, it is always fascinating and once I learned that neurologists were the ones helping to diagnose and treat these conditions, that was it for me; I knew it’s what I wanted to do. Neurology gives me the ability to stay in long-term care and geriatrics and, at the same time, be a part of an ever-evolving field of medicine.” Read more

Class of 2021 grad Dr. Tom Kowalski has literally come a long way on his journey to becoming a doctor. Dr. Kowalski started a psychiatry residency at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, NC in the summer of 2021. Born in Poland, he came to the USA with his parents and two siblings when he was just three years old, settling in Cleveland, Ohio. He was always interested in medicine, and he has finally made his dreams a reality. Dr. Kowalski started a psychiatry residency at p is one of the most in-demand specialties in the US but not enough people pursue psychiatry. Dr. Kowalski said he believes interest in the specialty is growing. “I think the tide is definitely changing with psychiatry,” he said. “While it was once not as in-demand, I think medical students are certainly gravitating to it more and more. It is no longer a ‘backup option’ and the statistics and lack of unfilled Psychiatry residency positions back this up. Trust me, psychiatry programs see who wants to actually do it and who thinks it can just be a backup. It is becoming much more competitive. Psychiatry offers flexibility, like I previously mentioned. You can help any and all people based on what you specifically want to address.” Read more.

Born in India, Dr. Divya Krishnan spent the first six years of her life in Dubai and eventually moved with her family to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada where she remained until heading to St. Kitts to attend UMHS. She didn’t originally plan to become to doctor but always knew she loved the sciences. Dr. Krishnan is presently in a family medicine residency at AdventHealth Central Florida in Winter Park, FL. Family medicine was her specialty of choice for many reasons, but she especially wants to help enrich health equity for underserved populations and offer preventative care. “Family medicine appeals to me as it touches on most fields of medicine,” she said. “Furthermore, I feel that this specialty is ideal for my interests as it provides an all-rounded approach to medicine that includes discussions on social determinants of healthcare, preventative health, holistic medicine and health maintenance. I am especially interested in serving underserved populations particularly while navigating preventative health and health maintenance with the added hurdles of health literacy, cultural influences and healthcare access.” Read more.

Dr. Chelsea Paterson started her residency training as a preliminary surgery resident at Saint Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury, Connecticut in the summer of 2021. The Leamington, Ontario, Canada native said she wanted to do a general surgery residency because the specialty fascinates her and found the hands-on aspect and instant gratification to be very rewarding. However, as she spent more time training in the ICU she began to develop a passion for Critical Care medicine. She later chose to transition specialties and matched into an Emergency Medicine position at Kent Hospital in Warwick, Rhode Island. Dr. Paterson says she enjoys the variety of medical pathologies and acuity found in the Emergency Department ranging from dislocated joints to intense traumas and resuscitations. She recommends this field to anyone who is looking for a combination of complex medical conditions with hands on procedures and the ability to have excellent work-life balance. She may be contacted via email at chelsea.paterson2@gmail.com Read more.

Dr. Alisha Qaiser started a neurology residency at Mercy Health St. Mary’s in Michigan in the summer of 2021. The Toronto, Canada native was inspired by her aunt, a family physician in Australia. “What drew me to Mercy Health for residency was the small class size to receive dedicated one-on-one time with the faculty, the wide spectrum of elective opportunities, and the program’s emphasis on resident education,” she said. Read more.

Dr. Sarah Singh first discovered her interest in medicine by spending time with her grandfather, an ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat specialist). Dr. Singh—born and raised in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada—started an Internal Medicine residency at West Virginia University School of Medicine in summer 2021. Dr. Singh is especially interested in working with patients living in Medically Underserved Areas from rural regions of Appalachia. “I’m at Camden Clark Medical Center [in Parkersburg, WV]. This was the first program I interviewed with and I kind of knew from then that this is where I would end up. Everyone I spoke with was very welcoming and I felt like I belonged right from the interview. It's in a more rural area so there's a fair amount of interesting pathology that comes in. This program also offers the opportunity to learn how to do procedures, such as central line insertion, chest tube placement, and others. The IM residency program is also the only residency program at this hospital so, unlike in other areas, I won't have to fight with other residents over the chance to do procedures or see patients, I can do it all. They also do a fair amount of community outreach which was important to me. Suffice to say, I'm very happy about matching into this program.” Read more.

Dr. Alexandra Salas Solá matched in emergency medicine at Hospital Episcopal San Lucas in Ponce, Puerto Rico and started residency in the summer of 2021. Originally from Lares, Puerto Rico, Dr. Salas Solá was pleased to return for residency in her homeland and is making a difference providing medical care to underserved patients on the island. She pursued emergency medicine for many reasons. “I decided to pursue Emergency Medicine because of the diversity of cases and procedures, the high level of awareness, critical thinking, communication, and the quick response needed to treat patients effectively”, she said. “With emergency medicine you get to practice a little bit of every medical field in a fast-paced environment. I love that no day is the same in the Emergency Room; every day is a surprise. I find joy in the fact that an emergency physician is the first line of care in an emergent case, and you get to counsel and provide support to the patient by educating them on their condition and reassuring when needed I aspire to advocate for the patients and underserved communities whose only point of medical care may be the emergency department and intend to educate my patients and provide them with community resources when needed.”

Dr. Venus Swearingen is currently in a family medicine residency at UAMS in Arkansas and started in summer 2021. She became board-certified in family medicine in July 2024. When she decided to attend medical school, the California native first heard about UMHS by reading a former student’s blog. Dr. Swearingen is committed to mentoring students of color and was part of “Making It in Medicine,” a Umoja Medical Workshop Zoom presentation held in November 2020 at Moreno Valley College in her native California. She has also been a panelist on UMHS livestreams such as "Black Women in Medicine" during Black History Month and a UMHS Rural Medicine Livestream: "Making a Difference in Underserved Areas" in 2022.

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 dr.swearingen@yahoo.com

 Instagram: @dr.swearingen

Class of 2020 graduate Dr. Bahaa Elzein is currently in private practice in the metro Detroit area and pursuing Locum Tenens opportunities across the country doing Hospitalist work. He plans open his own Primary Care/Urgent Care Center in the near future. Dr. Elzein started an internal medicine residency at DMC Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital in Michigan in summer 2020. He completed the DMC/WSU program in 2023. “The Detroit Medical Center (DMC) is an alliance of hospitals that encompasses over 2,000 licensed beds, 3,000 affiliated physicians and over 12,000 employees,” he said. “DMC Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital is one of the eight hospitals/institutes composing the Detroit Medical Center. DMC is affiliated with medical schools from Wayne State University and Michigan State University. DMC has one of the largest Graduate Medical Education (GME) in the nation. There are three Internal Medicine residencies affiliated with DMC that take a total of 80 residents per year. Downtown (48 interns), Sinai-Grace (24 interns), and Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital (eight interns). Being from Detroit, I really wanted to stay home and close to my family.” Dr. Elzein has been a MSUCOM Clinical Faculty Member MSUCOM Clinical Faculty at Michigan State University since January 2023. Clinical faculty at Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine entails interest in academic efforts and dedication to teaching and/or research.

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Dr. Simin Emadzadeh, a Canadian originally born in Iran, started a family medicine residency at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Livingston, MI shortly after graduating in summer 2020. “St. Joseph is an amazing program with a great staff and administration,” she said. “They are all like one big family. The majority of their residents are Canadian, which made me so hopeful and confident. I had the best connections with their residents during the interview dinner and even during the conference. “I knew I wanted family medicine because that’s the path to come back to Canada and to serve my community but I also always loved cardiology and wanted to pursue that path to fellowship. Believe me when I say it’s a very hard decision when it comes down to it. I only applied to one Internal Medicine program and the rest was just family medicine and I only applied to [programs in] Michigan and Chicago, so my chances were very, very slim to begin with. I knew that, at heart, I wanted family medicine and a life with balanced work hours and the relationship that a family doctor makes with his/her patients are of a different type. So, I chose Family Medicine and Family Medicine chose me.”

Class of 2020 UMHS graduate Dr. Abraham Halik is a board-certified Internal Medicine physician and completed his medical training at MedStar Health, affiliate of Georgetown University. He is currently an Endocrinology Fellow at the University of Maryland and has a strong interest in diabetes, thyroid disorders/malignancy, and bone mineral disease. He graduated magna cum laude at UMHS. As an undergraduate, he attended the University of Texas at San Antonio and obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in biology with a concentration in microbiology and immunology. Dr. Halik started his internal medicine residency in summer 2020 at MedStar Union Memorial Hospital, part of the MedStar Health system. “MedStar Health Internal Medicine combines the best aspects of academic medicine, research, and innovation with a complete spectrum of clinical services to advance patient care,” he said. “As the largest healthcare provider in Maryland and the Washington, D.C., region, MedStar Health’s 10 hospitals, MedStar Health Research Institute, and a comprehensive scope of health-related organizations are recognized regionally and nationally for excellence in medical care. MedStar Health has one of the largest graduate medical education programs in the country, training 1,100 medical residents annually, and is the medical education and clinical partner of Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University. MedStar Health is a not-for-profit, regional healthcare system based in Maryland with more than 30,000 associates and 4,700 affiliated physicians supporting MedStar Health’s patient-first philosophy that combines care, compassion, and clinical excellence.”

Dr. Sarah Harbeck started a psychiatry residency program at Piedmont Macon (previously known as Coliseum Medical Centers) in Macon, GA in the summer of 2020. “I had several considerations in mind when ranking residency programs,” she said. “My top two considerations included my desire to work in a diverse patient population and my desire to stay in Georgia. Furthermore, I wanted to get a feel from the faculty that they were truly passionate about education and that they would be receptive to feedback provided by residents. I also wanted to work in an environment where it felt like the residents were supportive of each other rather than cutthroat. Piedmont/Coliseum checked all those boxes.”

Dr. Brian Hernández-Colón started a residency in the summer of 2020 at St. Luke Episcopal Medical Center in Ponce, Puerto Rico. “This residency was my first choice because I have witnessed how well the residents work together as a team and I like that the attendings take their time to teach,” he said. He first became interested in OB-GYN when he took an Obstetrics and Gynecology clerkship as his first rotation at UMHS. “The day I witnessed my first delivery, I told my wife that I wanted to become an OB-GYN,” he said. “I was drawn to its variation between surgery, hands-on procedures, primary care and the excitement and joyfulness that can come from obstetrics. This is a specialty where you really connect with patients by developing genuine relationships at crucial life milestones. The rest of my core rotations only solidified the fact that it was truly what I wanted to become.” Many aspects of the specialty interest him. “By the time I was rotating in Maternal Fetal Medicine, I was convinced this is what I am supposed to do. I loved learning about the intricate fetal anatomy and the art of interpreting a fetal sonogram. The importance of discovering predictable factors for diseases and searching for red flags as a form of prevention complement my problem-solving personality. I am intrigued by how we can intervene and possibly change the prognosis of that little human’s life from that moment on. I appreciate not only women’s health but also the baby’s health. Obstetrics and its rewarding moments gave me the reassurance I needed to choose this medical career.”

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UMHS 2020 graduate Dr. Cynthia Kudji Sylvester and her daughter Dr. Jasmine Kudji are two gutsy women indeed. Back in spring 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Cynthia Kudji Sylvester matched into the family medicine residency program at LSU Health Systems in New Orleans. Her daughter Dr. Jasmine Kudji also matched into LSU Health Systems in general surgery. When we interviewed them for the UMHS Endeavour, the story of a mother-and-daughter doctor duo matching into the same hospital system went viral worldwide. They were on “NBC Nightly News,” “The Today Show with Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush,” profiled in People magazine, and more. In 2022, Dr. Cynthia Kudji Sylvester was still working in the Family Medicine Residency Program at LSU Health in New Orleans, but Dr. Jasmine Kudji became a pediatrics resident at Tulane Ochsner and Tulane Lakeside in Louisiana at the Tulane University School of Medicine. The Kudjis were approached by the producers of “Gutsy,” an Apple TV + series hosted by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. “Gutsy” is an eight-episode series featuring such renowned women as comedians Wanda Sykes and Amy Schumer, famous mother and daughter actors Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson, comedy writer Amber Ruffin, TV star Mariska Hargitay, activist Dr. Jane Goodall, and unsung heroes like Dr. Cynthia Kudji Sylvester and Dr. Jasmine Kudji—all women who, as Apple TV puts it, “make us laugh and inspire us to be [gutsier].”

In 2020, Dr. Nicholas Mills started his radiology residency in Michigan, a long way from his native California, in a medically underserved community north of Detroit. “It is a categorical radiology residency at St. Joseph Mercy Oakland, a community hospital in Pontiac, Michigan. I will be doing a transitional year there for my first year and then completing my radiology residency after that. It’s a really cool hospital in a very unique location. For those who don’t know much about Michigan, Pontiac is a little north of Detroit. Pontiac has a poverty rate of about 32% (more than 2 ½ times the national rate). It is a very diverse population of patients that I hope to learn from and make a difference for.” He first became intrigued with radiology while studying anatomy in a UMHS class. “Radiology is really cool and there is a lot more to it than you would think when you get to experience it,” he said. “The first thing that interested me in radiology was being able to see so much detail in the anatomy of the human body. Seeing the CT and MRI images of the brain and spinal cord in [the late] Dr. Michael Doherty’s class first sparked that interest. It’s like going to the anatomy lab every day, but with patients who are still living and you can still help. You also get to see how a lot of the diseases you study affect the body and see the physical changes they make. I think that’s awesome. I could look at images all day, but there is also a lot more to radiology than that. Depending on the subspecialty you choose, you can have a lot of patient interaction, perform a lot of procedures, and work with a lot of other doctors.” Read more.

Dr. Shivaan Oomrigar started an Internal Medicine residency in the summer of 2022 at HCA Florida Kendall Hospital in Miami, FL. Her story is inspiring because she did not Match on the first try (she graduated in 2020 and obtained residency in 2022). In addition, Dr. Oomrigar lost one of her eyes to cancer at a young age and she’s always wanted to become a doctor ever since because she saw as a child how physicians can truly make a difference in people’s lives. “She starts a residency in Internal Medicine this summer at HCA Florida Kendall Hospital in Miami, FL. Her story is inspiring because she did not Match on the first try (she graduated in 2020 and obtained residency in 2022). In addition, Dr. Oomrigar lost one of her eyes to cancer at a young age and she’s always wanted to become a doctor ever since because she saw as a child how physicians can truly make a difference in people’s lives. “My first experience with Internal Medicine was during my clinical rotations,” she said. “That was the first instance where I actually had to study for Internal Medicine, where I got to have hands-on experience with it. I did my Internal Medicine core rotation as well as a sub-internship in Chicago, Illinois with Dr. Murray Scheinman. In his clinic and when we would go on the floors with him, that's where I fell in love with Internal Medicine. I love it because you work as a team to try and analyze and solve these complex medical cases and you use multiple counseling physicians and consultants to work together to treat a patient. It's a very much multidisciplinary approach, which is what I love. It's a giant puzzle where everybody gets to work together and we all reap the benefits when, of course, the patient succeeds or we find the diagnosis, we find the right treatment. For me, it's combining the best of both worlds, science with the personalized touch and personalized compassion approach to medicine. That's why I love internal medicine.” Read more.

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Dr. Josué Alejandro Ocasio Tapia, a UMHS Class of 2019 graduate, was pleased to learn he was starting an Internal Medicine residency at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) University District Hospital in the summer of 2019. Dr. Ocasio Tapia is among many successful UMHS grads who have matched in their Puerto Rican homeland. Dr. Ocasio Tapia grew up in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico. He admits he did not always want to be a doctor. He received a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a major in accounting and a minor in management from the University of Puerto Rico, Arecibo campus. During his second year of college, he was hired to work at the Dr. Karl Lang Cardiopulmonary Institute as an administrative assistant. While working there he learned how medicine gives one the privilege and responsibility to help others. “My passion for medicine started to grow,” he said. “Throughout my life, I discovered I had a passion to serve others, since early in adolescence I participated in community activities mainly for the special education department for elementary school in the town of Manatí, as well as visiting nursing homes during Christmas time to bring music, food, supplies and family activities for the residents,” he said. Many factors convinced Dr. Ocasio Tapia to choose UMHS over other Caribbean medical schools. In addition to the high Step 1 pass rate at UMHS, he found a conference given by Earl Mainer, UMHS Senior Associate Director of Admissions for the Southeast and Puerto Rico, especially informative and inspiring. “When I went to the conference held by Earl in Puerto Rico, I learned about all the resources UMHS offers to help us reach our degree, how they make the moving process and adaptation easier and smoother for us, and the fact that they don’t see you as an MCAT score or GPA; UMHS looks at your potential and passion to become a doctor and put everything in place to guide you throughout the process. This helped me decide on going to UMHS,” he said.

Class of 2019 UMHS valedictorian Dr. Shane O’Toole is working as an anesthesiologist at Anesthesia Management Services at McLaren Health Care, one of the most prestigious hospitals in the Upper Midwest. Dr. O’Toole completed residency at McLaren. He chose UMHS for many reasons. Dr. O’Toole has been interested in anesthesiology ever since he worked as an endoscopy technician and saw how crucial the role of an anesthesiologist is in a hospital. “A patient may come in for a simple procedure, but the anesthesiologist is the one watching the EKG to monitor the heart, watching the vent to make sure the patient is being properly ventilated, watching the fluid intake and output through the IV and making sure everything else is functioning smoothly throughout the procedure,” he said. “It is really a specialty where you need to account for every organ system and think of the patient as a whole.”

  UMHS Class of 2018 graduate Dr. Laura Tafuri is presently an OB-GYN physician at Southwest Community Health Center Inc. in Bridgeport, CT. She has been an active UMHS alumni member and in fall 2022 was part of the panel on the UMHS livestream “Women’s Cancer Awareness: Doctors Discuss Ovarian, Cervical, and Breast Cancer Screening,” along with UMHS 2016 graduate Miriam Bernstein, MPH, MD, and Natalie Osborne, MD, who works at Joseph France General Hospital in St. Kitts. She started an OB-GYN residency at Bridgeport Hospital (affiliated with Yale University) in Connecticut in the summer of 2019. It is truly a case of coming full circle. “I was actually born at Yale in New Haven, so I think it’s funny that now I am a resident in the Yale system,” she said. Dr. Tafuri has wanted to become a doctor for as long as she can remember because for her, medicine is a family affair. Her dad is a Family Medicine physician and her mother was an ICU nurse while Dr. Tafuri was growing up. “So, there was no shortage of medical talk at the dinner table and I loved it.” Through the outstanding connections she made while in clinical rotations at UMHS, Dr. Tafuri ended up getting an OB-GYN residency at Bridgeport Hospital Yale New Haven Health.

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Class of 2019 alumna Dr. Sarah Mohtadi is the first UMHS graduate to Match in California. She is currently a Psychiatry resident at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles. In addition to putting in long hours as a resident, the California native also helped with volunteer COVID-19 vaccination efforts in the state at the height of the pandemic, and even vaccinated the Mayor of Long Beach, CA. UMHS received California recognition in 2020, allowing graduates to Match in California residencies. Dr. Mohtadi was elated to learn she was the very first UMHS grad to Match in the Golden State. “It feels surreal that I am the first UMHS graduate to Match in California. I remember how my graduating class would talk about the possibility of having residency options in California in the future, but I had no idea I would become part of that reality,” she said. “I received my diploma in December 2019 and applied for the 2020 Match. This was my first choice in the Match, and I say this as motivation for others who are interested in applying for residency in California.” She graduated from Cal State Northridge with a biology degree and completed her master’s degree in psychology. Graduating from university and med school and then obtaining a California residency was groundbreaking for Dr. Mohtadi personally and professionally in more ways than one. Dr. Mohtadi was happy she matched at Charles R. Drew, a hospital system that helps many medically underserved people of color and uninsured individuals. “The Charles R. Drew University Psychiatry program allows us to rotate in a few hospitals, such as Harbor-UCLA, Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, and Long Beach VA. The variety of locations is what drew my attention to this program. Moreover, their mission is what I believe in and hope to be as a physician. The program’s aim is to serve communities where healthcare disparities are prevalent. This is where I want to be.”

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Dr. Michael McCullagh, a 2019 graduate of UMHS originally from Canada, recently completed a family medicine residency at Yuma Regional Medical Center in Yuma, AZ, and has commenced a hospitalist residency at the same hospital. He expressed his satisfaction with his family medicine experience, highlighting the importance of learning and practicing medicine both in clinical and hospital settings while actively engaging with the community. Dr. McCullagh said, "You genuinely want to have a fulfilling experience where you can not only learn and practice medicine in clinical and hospital settings but also actively engage with the community. During my time here, I've had some fascinating opportunities. I've been involved in volunteering for the local sheriff's department, where I take part in search and rescue operations. We're positioned along the border, offering assistance to asylum-seekers who are crossing into the country. I'm sure many are familiar with the healthcare challenges associated with migrant populations at the border, and we are right at the epicenter of it here in Yuma.”

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Dr. Ralston just started as a Sport Medicine physician at CoxHealth in Springfield/Branson, MO. He completed a Sports Medicine fellowship at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), home of the world-renowned Razorbacks football team. Dr. Ralston is a Board-Certified physician from the American Academy of Family Physicians. Dr. Ralston and fellow UMHS grad Dr. Søren Estvold ’18 hosted a livestream “Career Opportunities in Sports Medicine with UMHS Grads Dr. Soren Estvold and Dr. Grant Ralston" in January 2024. He told UMHS: "With sports medicine, I feel like every single week I'm learning something new or learning some new technique that's coming out, either surgical or non-op. The point-of-care ultrasound has become extremely valuable for sports medicine physicians, so I think being able to be really good at the ultrasound, both for diagnostic purposes and also for therapeutic when you're doing different injections, that's continuing to be cutting-edge. I also think certain therapies are continuing to show more promise such as prolotherapy or PRP, different types of injection techniques, different ways to help each athlete get back onto the court or field as soon as possible, there's breakthroughs almost every couple of months."

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UMHS Class of 2018 valedictorian Dr. Obteene Azimi-Ghomi is currently a Trauma/Surgical Critical Care Fellow at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX. In summer 2023, he completed a residency in General Surgery at Kendall Regional Medical Center in Miami, Florida in the summer of 2018. Dr. Azimi-Ghomi, a Maryland native, wanted to become a doctor ever since he was eight, when his uncle gave him a copy of Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy. He credits UMHS for giving him all the necessary tools to successfully obtain a residency. “I absolutely believe that attending UMHS and the experiences I had there gave me several advantages going into residency.” It was during the clinical program that Dr. Azimi-Ghomi realized he wanted to focus on becoming a surgeon after medical school. “Many times, during my surgical clerkships, we were medically managing patients on the ward, trying all that we can do to not only avoid having to perform surgery, but also medically optimize the patient and their pre-existing conditions,” he said. “Half of surgery is knowing when and when not to operate. A good surgeon never cuts unless when absolutely necessary. And when we do operate, it is an art. Every incision and stitch is performed diligently and intentionally. I can’t express in words the feeling of going in to see a patient who is acutely ill, identifying the pertinent anatomy as well as the pathology or disease, knowing how to approach and treat the disease, and observing the dramatic improvement in their health.”

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Dr. Estvold completed a family medicine residency at Augusta University Medical Center in Georgia in 2023. He hosted several LGBTQ+ Medicine livestreams during Pride Month for UMHS starting in 2020. Dr. Estvold is now in a Sports Medicine fellowship at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, CA. In January 2024, Dr. Estvold and fellow UMHS grad Dr. Grant Ralston ’19 hosted a livestream “Career Opportunities in Sports Medicine with UMHS grads Dr. Soren Estvold and Dr. Grant Ralston.” Dr. Estvold will be starting a new fellowship in Texas in late summer 2024.

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Dr. Jasmine Rivas completed a family medicine residency at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC. She is now a board-certified family medicine physician and hospitalist working in Tallahassee, FL. Dr. Rivas is Hospitalist for Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare.“I’ve been working as a hospitalist for the last three years now and I love the work that I do,” she said.  She is also President of Medi-Call Direct, Inc., a company she founded to help increase patient advocacy and health guidance.

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UMHS 2018 graduate Dr. Mikayla Troughton is currently a physician anesthesiologist and assistant professor at M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN. She completed her residency in anesthesiology at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in June 2022 and went on to complete an obstetric anesthesiology fellowship at McGraw Medical Center of Northwestern University in Chicago, IL. She is passionate about perioperative safety, high-risk obstetric care, critical care management, and reducing maternal morbidity and mortality. She was interviewed for the UMHS Endeavour during the pandemic about her frontline work with COVID-19 patients and was a panelist on the 2022 UMHS livestream “Rural Medicine: Making a Difference in Underserved Areas.”

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Dr. Brian Gonzalez Sanabia grew up in Moca, a town on the west side of Puerto Rico, approximately 80 miles from San Juan. At the age of 13, he worked as a lifeguard during the summer. It was while working on the sunny shores of Puerto Rico that he first learned how much he enjoyed helping others, especially those in need of medical attention. As a lifeguard he had the opportunity to save several people’s lives through resuscitation. It was at that moment that he knew he wanted to become a physician. “When I was introduced to the field of medicine by one of my best friends, I fell utterly and profoundly in love with the idea of becoming a physician, and that I would have the opportunity to serve the community while also pursuing my passion for science,” he said. After graduating from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez with a biology degree, he was ready for medical school. He visited six different Caribbean medical schools, but UMHS in St. Kitts stood out from the others. UMHS provided a personal approach that others had not. He was especially impressed by the “attention and availability” of the admissions officers. Whether via a phone call, an email or convenient online information webinars, UMHS offered him all the information he needed to learn about what was required to attend medical school. He was especially interested in UMHS because he could return to Puerto Rico for his clinical program. This was a big plus for him since his wife and kids are in Puerto Rico. He is one of many UMHS graduates who have returned to Puerto Rico (where he will complete his residency). He is now in a position to help bring desperately needed medical care to the island after Hurricane Maria. “UMHS puts students first and are dedicated to your success. Professors are very approachable and eager to teach. Basic sciences are very comprehensive and prepare you well for USMLE Step 1. From the first day, the professor steers you towards unlocking your highest potential. This was key to obtaining my desired scores and eventually being competitive enough for the match.” Read more

UMHS 2018 grad Dr. Arjun S. Kanwal is currently a Cardiology Fellow at New York Medical College in New York, NY. Upon graduation of fellowship, Dr. Kanwal will be joining Virginia Heart and the Inova Health System as an attending cardiologist with a specialization in Sports Cardiology and Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. He completed an internal medicine residency at MedStar Health/Georgetown University in Baltimore, MD. Dr. Kanwal has been active in the UMHS Alumni Association and was one of the panelists on the UMHS livestream “Cardiology: A Discussion About Cardiac Care & Careers in Cardiology” with fellow UMHS grad Dr. Igor Areinamo.

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Class of 2017 graduate Dr. Nick Kessener applied to several Caribbean medical schools and was accepted by all, but it was the personalized, polite attention he received at UMHS that helped him decide to start his medical journey at the state-of-the-art campus in St. Kitts. He also liked the fact that UMHS has affordable tuition and is run by the Ross family, with their years of experience helping IMGs from the U.S. and Canada achieve countless goals in the Caribbean and later back in North America. Dr. Kessener had a strong medical background before attending med school. He previously worked in Nuclear Medicine doing stress tests for a cardiology group in Colorado before he decided to go for his M.D. He starts his residency in summer 2017 in the combined Medicine/Pediatrics program at the University of Illinois St. Francis Medical Center, and part of his time at Children’s Hospital of Illinois, south of Chicago. Besides landing such a prestigious residency, Dr. Kessener says he’s pleased that finally he, his wife and children will all be able to live in the same place for at least four years. The UMHS Endeavour caught up with this busy young doctor to talk about his experiences at UMHS, his advice for med students going through the Match process, his goals for residency, and more. “My study at UMHS helped prepare me well for the matching process in terms of further development of interpersonal skills. With the diversity found at UMHS both in its student body and in clinical rotations, you get to work with many people from many different backgrounds.”

Dr. Nichole Zuccarini is currently a Critical Care Physician at HCA Florida Ocala Hospital in Ocala, FL and started the position in 2022. Her interest in medicine started out with majoring in medical technology at Michigan State University and receiving a Bachelor’s of Science. She spent time after graduation working in a lab and in marketing and sales. She eventually wanted to become a doctor and chose UMHS because of the state-of-the-art facilities at the St. Kitts campus. She matched in Internal Medicine at the Detroit Medical Center Sinai-Grace Hospital in Michigan after doing an additional rotation there in late 2016. She was especially excited about her residency because she worked with patients who never had Primary Care before. “I went to UMHS because of their extended basic sciences program and awesome school facilities in St. Kitts. As a result of a reduced course load in the basic science program, I was able to excel academically.” Dr. Zuccarini worked as a Critical Care Fellow at Wayne State University Medical Center for three years before moving to Florida to work at HCA Florida Ocala Hospital.

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Miriam Bernstein, MD, MPH is currently an Attending Physician OB/GYN at Upstate University Hospital at Community General in Syracuse, NY. She was previously an Attending Physician at Oneida Healthcare in the Greater Syracuse-Auburn area of New York. In addition, she was a hospitalist and resident physician at Saint Peter’s Healthcare System in New Brunswick, NJ. She wanted to be a doctor ever since she watched a TV series at age nine. Her dream came when she obtained an OB/GYN residency at MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland. Attending UMHS helped Dr. Bernstein achieve that dream. “The school's reputation and the natural beauty of St. Kitts weighed into my decision that it was a good fit for my goals. I also was attracted to the aspect of being a part of a newer school. I felt it would give me more of a chance to personalize my experience and be treated as an individual and not a number like at some larger schools.”

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Dr. David Henkin, a 2016 graduate of UMHS, gave the keynote speech at the UMHS White Coat Ceremony in May 2024 in St. Kitts. Dr. Henkin is currently working as the Medical Director for Outpatient Palliative Care at Henry Ford Health in Detroit, MI. He completed his internal medicine residency in 2020 and a fellowship in hospice and palliative medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. Dr. Henkin's typical work day involves seeing about eight patients, conducting chart reviews, and engaging in administrative tasks. He emphasizes the importance of clear and meaningful communication in his field. He is also proud to be a UMHS alumni member. "I think that it's growing every year," he said regarding the UMHS Alumni Association."There are more and more alumni. It's probably smaller than other medical schools. This is our opportunity to stay close and to network and to stay connected with everyone that we went to school with or went to the same school together. So, I say use these opportunities to just stay in the loop with everyone and network."

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Dr. Elizabeth Nielsen completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Southern Illinois University (SIU) in Springfield, IL from 2016-2019. She then Matched into a Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship at SIU also and finished in Fall of 2022. “Medicine is a long road of hard work, but it pays off and training is finished,” she said. "I started my career as a locum physician in Pulmonary and Critical Care in various places in Illinois near home. I recently moved to the Milwaukee area (western suburbs) and started with ProHealth in Waukesha and Oconomowoc Memorial Hospitals in August 2023. I enjoy being outdoors, going to the gym, listening to live music, painting, traveling and visiting family and friends in my free time.”

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Aaron Vazquez, MD, MBA, has been Medical Director of Behavioral Health at Intermountain Healthcare in St. George, UT since October 2020. He completed his residency in Psychiatry at Case Western University/University Hospitals in Cleveland, OH. He has participated in two UMHS livestreams, including “Suicide Prevention and the State of Psychiatry” with fellow UMHS grad Dr. Harki Kaur and “Non-Traditional Medical Student Livestream: A Student’s Perspective” with UMHS grad Dr. M. Papus Keita and UMHS student Evelyn Brewster. Dr. Vazquez is a strong advocate of getting published while still in medical school. Dr. Vazquez was one of the co-authors of an eating disorders study published in Psychotherapy Research in 2013, “Effects of Providing Patient Progress Feedback and Clinical Support Tools To Psychotherapists In An Inpatient Eating Disorders Treatment Program: A Randomized Controlled Study.” Dr. Vazquez admits he prefers “listening over speaking.” He told UMHS that he became interested in psychology and psychiatry because he has always been fascinated by human behavior. "The medical education at UMHS was the catalyst that gave me the skills and confidence to become a leading physician,” he said. “I am ready to pursue all of my medical ambitions."

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Rahul Gosain, MD, MBA, is the Medical Director of WCI in Webster, NY, and the Regional Director of Infusion Services of WCI, overseeing the regional infusion growth to improve patient accessibility. “So that all our patients can get the best care close to home,” he said. “As a community general medical oncologist and a hematologist, I see and treat patients with various solid tumors and blood cancers. With the Oncology Brothers platform and podcast, my two passions, clinical practice and education, come together. With this platform, we aim to provide perspectives on developments in cancer care and treatments. Our podcast's discussions aim to bridge the gap between academic and community oncology for better cancer care for all our patients close to home.” Dr. Gosain completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the John Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD in 2015. He completed a Hematology & Medical Oncology Fellowship at the University of Louisville in KY in 2018. He completed an MBA in Healthcare, Technology and Leadership at John Hopkins University-Carey Business school in March 2024.

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Dr. Charles Opperman was in one of the first UMHS graduating classes (2012) and completed his residency in internal medicine at Kettering Medical Center in Ohio. Dr. Opperman has served as clinical teaching faculty for Kettering Medical Center’s internal medicine residency program, along with teaching assignments with Wright State University and Ohio University Schools of Medicine. Dr. Opperman now runs Simplicity Health Direct Primary Care in Centerville, Ohio, near Dayton. UMHS interviewed Dr. Opperman about his medical education and how UMHS helped him get where he is today. Dr. Opperman spoke to us about the challenges and benefits of studying at a new Caribbean medical school and how President Warren Ross helped him and other students with a personalized, hands-on approach and the benefits of small class sizes. We also discussed the concept of Direct Primary Care, defined by the American Association of Family Physicians as “a practice and payment model where patients/consumers pay their physician or practice directly in the form of periodic payments for a defined set of primary care services.” Direct Primary Care practices like Dr. Opperman’s charge patients an affordable flat monthly fee in exchange for a variety of primary care services and more.

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Dr. Kristin (née Riggs) Miller was in the very first graduating class at UMHS. The 2011 graduate is currently the President of the UMHS Alumni Association. Dr. Miller’s journey from leaving her hometown of Cincinnati, OH to attend UMHS in St. Kitts and her return to the USA and eventually becoming one of the most successful UMHS graduates to date is inspiring indeed. UMHS caught up with Dr. Miller at the end of a busy weekday. Even after a long day of treating patients, Dr. Miler is still bubbly and upbeat and has a nurturing aura and glow on her face and a twinkle in her eye when she speaks. She spoke to us about her experiences at UMHS; why she originally wanted to be a pediatric oncologist and how she decided instead to go into family medicine; how she paid off nearly half a million dollars in student loans and how she is making a difference as a family medicine doctor at Mercy Hospital in Yukon, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City; why she likes being a doctor for senior citizens; her work as a life coach; and also as part-time co-owner of a med spa, and more.

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Dr. Igor Areinamo ’13 is presently Alumni Secretary of the UMHS Alumni Association and has had several years of residency and fellowship after graduating from UMHS in 2013. He is currently a pediatric critical care and cardiology specialist in Salt Lake City, Utah. 2013 UMHS graduate Dr. Areinamo was Chief Resident for the Pediatric Residency program at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. Dr. Areinamo was part of the third class at UMHS. Originally from Venezuela, where he first completed three years of medical school at the Central University of Venezuela, Dr. Areinamo moved to the U.S. in 2004 and received a bachelors in psychology from Argosy University in Tampa, Florida. He first learned about UMHS at an information session in Orlando, hosted by the late Nancy Ross. Nancy helped persuade him to attend UMHS and Dr. Areinamo has worked hard to make it where he is today. He was one of only five IMGs (International Medical Graduates) to match into Pediatric Cardiology in 2015. In a letter to UMHS President Warren Ross, Dr. Areinamo credited much of his success to what he learned about UMHS. “This is a major achievement not only for me but also for us as a medical school as I am extremely proud to represent UMHS wherever this career takes me,” he wrote. The married father of two also matched into a Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship position at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah.

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Dr. Holly Wirkus (née Huth) '17 is Alumni Vice President for the UMHS Alumni Association. She is originally from Michigan. She completed her Internal Medicine Residency in Chicago and completed her Hospice and Palliative Care Fellowship from Vanderbilt University in Nashville in 2021. She is currently a Hospice/Palliative Medicine & Internal Medicine physician at Ascension St. John Center for Palliative and Supportive Care in Gross Pointe Woods, MI.

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Dr. John Trangucci 16 never planned to become a doctor or a plastic surgeon. The New Rochelle, NY native wanted to be a pro baseball player. When he entered college on a scholarship for a NCAA Division II school, he realized he was “good but not great” as an athlete and decided to forfeit his athletic scholarship and instead obtained an academic scholarship to study pre-med courses. After completing his undergrad, he chose UMHS because he had been put on waiting lists for US schools and, after extensive research and meeting the admissions director, he liked the small class sizes and the personalized attention from professors and staff. When he was accepted to UMHS, he was thrilled. “I always tell people UMHS is the one that gave me the shot to achieve my dream,” he said. UMHS spoke to Dr. Trangucci about why he decided to become a doctor, why he chose UMHS over other Caribbean medical schools, his general surgery residency at UPMC Harrisburg Hospital in Harrisburg, PA, how he obtained a PGY-6 plastic surgery fellowship at Temple University in the Department of Surgery, Division of Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery in Philadelphia, how he became interested in plastic surgery and all the latest breakthroughs in this highly specialized and competitive area of media and more.

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Dr. Ga-ram Han ’18 was born in South Korea, grew up in Africa and did her undergraduate studies in the USA before finally applying to UMHS and heading to St. Kitts to study medicine. Dr. Han's story of the long road to residency and now a fellowship is inspirational indeed. Dr. Han had an unusual journey to becoming a doctor, but she managed to match in a prestigious general surgery residency at Mayo Clinic Arizona in Phoenix. She was one of the general surgery chief residents and in 2023, started a fellowship in Colon and Rectal Surgery at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, MI. UMHS spoke to Dr. Han about her amazing journey, why she chose UMHS over other medical schools, how her father's generous friend—now a successful businessman—back in South Korea helped pay her tuition, her interest in surgery and treating colon and rectal diseases and why she loves this special area of medicine, and more.

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UMHS 2015 graduate Christine Marshall, MD, MBA (née Fetterolf), is a family medicine physician who specializes in obesity medicine and weight management and works for Pippen Health in Greater Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Marshall is from Royersford, PA. She decided to become a doctor after seeing her parents, who are both deaf, struggle to understand their own health issues because of miscommunications with healthcare providers. She was determined to one day change the way deaf families experience healthcare by improving deaf cultural awareness in healthcare and eliminating the need for sign-language interpreters for her own patients. She says she always had an interest in how the human body works growing up and now, after years of hard work, she has made her dream of becoming a doctor a reality. In the summer of 2015, Dr. Marshall started a Family Medicine residency at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, PA and hoped to make a difference advocating for cultural competency in healthcare, particularly in the area of disabilities. In September of 2022, Dr. Marshall was a panelist on a UMHS livestream about treating deaf patients, "Closing the Deaf Gap: Giving a Voice to Deaf Patients." Dr. Marshall published an article, "Tips for Treating Deaf Patients," in the September 15, 2020 issue of Physicians Practice magazine. "Growing up with deaf parents, I was able to experience firsthand what medical care was like for the deaf community," she wrote.

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Dr. Aaron Hoo is the first-ever UMHS  graduate to match in the second iteration of CaRMs (Canadian Residency Matching System) Family Medicine residency. Originally from Malaysia, Dr. Hoo moved to Canada as a child in the 1980s. Like many students at Caribbean medical schools, Dr. Hoo took an unusual path to becoming a doctor. He earned an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a diploma in Naturopathic Medicine. He worked as everything from a banker to a Naturopathic Doctor in private practice in his hometown of Vancouver, Canada before entering the M.D. program at UMHS. In 2002, he was dividing his time between his practice in Vancouver, British Colombia and rural Hodgson, Manitoba, Canada (a two-hour drive north of Winnipeg). Two weeks each month, Dr. Hoo flew to Winnipeg and drives up to Hodgson to work as a Staff Physician at the Percy E. Moore Hospital, a 16-bed facility. At the rural hospital in Manitoba, Dr. Hoo primarily treated First Nations (indigenous) patients with multiple co-morbidities—people who were not seeing doctors regularly, The particular First Nations community in Manitoba that Dr. Hoo treated had many healthcare needs. “Drug abuse amongst the First Nations community is very prevalent with mental illness and suicide,” he said. “We do see crystal meth usage. We also see a lot of cocaine toxicity, cocaine-induced psychosis. From our perspective, what we would end up doing is basically stabilizing them in our ER and then shipping them out to the tertiary care centers, whether we would have to recess them in our recess bay, call in our air ambulance to get them out. But that's a lot of what we end up doing in the [ER] right now in our local community. So, in a small facility, our role is just to stabilize our patients, package them up, and ship them out.” Working as a doctor in a rural setting is not for everyone. “It does take a lot of commitment,” Dr. Hoo said. “I appreciate that we want to attract people into this realm of medicine, but that has to be balanced with a work-life balance as well, and that, of course, is difficult.” Dr. Hoo was a panelist on “Rural Medicine Livestream: Making a Difference in Underserved Areas” in 2022. Dr. Hoo currently works in private practice in Vancouver.

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Dr. Fomitcheva spoke to UMHS about what she enjoys most about being a primary care physician. “You build a patient base that you regularly follow for preventative medicine,” she said. “The most rewarding part for me is building long-term relationships, when patients come to me and say, "This is my doctor." They know me by name. You get to have more of a personal relationship with patients. Sometimes you're treating several generations. It can be grandparents, patients, and their children, once they get to the age of 18. And then the most rewarding thing I think that I hear on a regular basis is when people say, ‘Wow, thank you for explaining that.’ The primary care setting actually allows you a little bit more time to delve into, why do we need to take statins? Why do we need to take blood pressure medication? Why is it important? I like to provide education for my patients, and my patients really appreciate that.”

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Dr. Kareem Sioufi, an ophthalmologist, discusses his career and experiences in the field. He recently started a position as a medical retina specialist at the Woolfson Eye Institute in Atlanta, Georgia. He completed his ophthalmology residency at MUSC Health Storm Eye Institute and a general surgery residency at Medical University of South Carolina. He also worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in retina and a research intern in ocular oncology at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia. Dr. Sioufi recently completed a retina fellowship at the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Washington in Seattle. He emphasizes the importance of early detection and treatment in conditions like AMD (age-related macular degeneration ) and discusses the advancements in treatments for the disease. He also highlights the work-life balance in ophthalmology and the strong patient-physician relationships in the field. Dr. Sioufi offers advice to prospective students considering a career in ophthalmology and encourages them to be persistent and build mentorships within the field. In addition, he talks about the use of medications like Avastin, originally created to treat colorectal cancer but now being used to treat AMD in patients and help save their eyesight. Dr. Sioufi grew up in Damascus, Syria but left in 2012 shortly after war broke out in the country. He moved to the USA because he has an older brother who is a doctor in the States.Dr. Sioufi is now married and has a three-year-old daughter. He said that after the intensity of his fellowships, he is enjoying the work-life balance of being a medical retina specialist.

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UMHS graduate Dr. Shamim Shakeel Khan, a family medicine physician from Toronto, is proof that Canadians studying medicine abroad can return to practice as a doctor in Canada. Dr. Khan is presently a Family Medicine physician in private practice at Maple Forest Family Physicians in Concord, Ontario, Canada. After completing her undergrad at the University of Toronto Mississauga and graduating from UMHS, she completed her family medicine residency at Northeast Iowa Family Practice in Waterloo, Iowa, and then returned to Canada to work for a year at Cira Health Solutions in Mississauga, Ontario in the greater Toronto area. UMHS spoke to Dr. Khan about her medical education and how UMHS helped her eventually return to Canada to practice medicine, as well as what she experienced in residency and her new experiences as a licensed family medicine doctor in Canada. What are some of the best things about being a UMHS graduate in Canada specifically? “I feel like UMHS prepared me well for residency," she said. "I was able to gain a hands-on experience during clinicals in St. Kitts, and then throughout my rotations that helped me with residency and practice. And then, generally speaking, the journey is interesting. So patients like to talk about it, and so I can tell them that I spent time in school in St. Kitts, and then I traveled across the US and Canada doing various rotations at several different hospitals and they find it very interesting.”

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Dr. Aashish Jay Kumar ’14 is the Chief Medical Officer at Interventional Spine and Pain Specialists in Charlotte, NC. He was one of the first non-transfer UMHS students to Match in the competitive specialty of anesthesiology. The North Carolina native completed his PGY-4 residency in Anesthesiology at Wayne State University/Detroit Medical Center. Dr. Kumar has had research published in peer-reviewed research journals, such as the prestigious anesthesiology publication, Anesthesia and Analgesia. Along with fellow 2014 UMHS grad Dr. Andrew Albert Letayf, in January 2023 Dr. Kumar hosted one of the most-watched-ever UMHS livestreams “Medical Specialty Spotlight: What is an Anesthesiologist?”

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Dr. Andrew Albert Letayf ’14 was one of the first UMHS graduates to Match in anesthesiology. In January 2023, along with fellow UMHS alum Dr. Jay Kumar, he was a panelist on the livestream “Medical Specialty Spotlight: What is an Anesthesiologist?” He spoke about why decided to attend UMHS. In an interview about the livestream, Dr. Letayf said, “ I went to the interview at UMHS and it was probably the greatest decision I made. They gave me a chance to be what I wanted to be when I grew up. I always wanted to be a doctor. UMHS was the only medical school that I felt was good enough for me to apply to. If I didn't get into UMHS, I was actually going to wait another year and reapply to the American medical schools. But then when I went and I did the tour there and I saw the facilities and I saw how beautiful the island was, and I met with President Warren Ross, I had a feeling that this was the right place.”

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Dr. Alejandro Pineda ’14 matched in residency in internal medicine at the University of Missouri, Columbia and completed residency there in 2018. “In search of some warmer weather from Missouri, where I grew up, my wife and I decided to move out to Phoenix, Arizona, where I happened to come across a medical group as a hospitalist,” he said. “Since then, I essentially progressed as a hospitalist for about a year, and progressed enough to kind of bring forth new ideas to my medical group. And I was promoted to lead hospitalist to help run a brand-new hospitalist program at a hospital in Tempe, Arizona. I did that for about a year, and progressed well enough to actually take over the lead hospitalist duties for my entire medical group of about 30 or so hospitalists and providers.” He currently works for Mountain Vista Medical Center in Mesa, AZ as Chief of Staff. He is also Chief Medical Officer for Universal Medical Group in Arizona. He and brother Dr. Juan Camilo Pineda (a 2017 UMHS and also a hospitalist) hosted a UMHS livestream "Primary Care Spotlight: What is a Hospitalist?" in the fall of 2022.

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Dr. Juan Camilo Pineda ’17 works for Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, GA. “I work for one of the many hospitals that they have, and I work for a hospital that used to be a private hospital but they recently were bought out, so they are kind of transitioning more into the Emory structure,” he said in a 2022 interview with UMHS. “My daily life is in the sense of I get there at 7:00 in the morning, and I don't have to get there at 7:00, but I like to get there early so I can get to know my patients. I review my patients, and every day there's a different number of patients just because we can never predict how many patients can admit overnight, but for example I can admit ... or I'll probably carry, at the most, maybe 16 patients a day. And so, I will look over my 16 patients, and then I will have a meeting with all the physical therapists, the charge nurses, the social workers, the case managers, and all those types of people that arrive at 9:00, to kind of discuss each patient, because some patients are not necessarily a medical condition you're trying to solve. Sometimes you're trying to get them to a rehab center, or trying to get them to a nursing home because, although you fixed their issue, they are not going to be well enough to go to their home to be able to be taken care of by themselves for a while. That's where you speak with your other cohorts, to kind of figure out those issues.” Dr. Juan Camilo Pineda hosted a livestream with his brother and fellow UMHS grad Dr. Alejandro Pineda ’14 in the fall of 2022, “Primary Care Spotlight: What is a Hospitalist?”

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Persistence and hard work pay off for Canadians who study medicine abroad at UMHS, complete residency in the USA and return to Canada to practice. UMHS graduate Dr. Rebecca Bremner, a hospitalist/family medicine physician from a small town in Ontario, has lots to say about her particular journey. Dr. Bremner completed her rural family medicine residency at Louisiana State University in Bogalusa, Louisiana. After completing her undergrad at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, graduating from UMHS and finishing her residency, Dr. Bremner returned to her native Canada to practice family medicine. In 2022, UMHS interviewed Dr. Bremner about her medical education and how UMHS helped her eventually return to Canada to practice medicine. What are some of the best things about being a UMHS graduate back practicing in Canada? “The one thing, thinking back to basic sciences—and I would attribute to my success— is the quality of the professors that we had,” she said. “The way that our professors teach, I think, is different from if I had stayed here in Canada and gone to medical school. Some things are self-taught here. I don't think that would have been a successful strategy for me. The fact that the professors just lay out all of the information in a super easy-to-understand way is helpful for each student’s success, and if you don't understand, that's okay because they have tons of time where you're able to access them in their office hours. Our basic sciences professors helped me develop the basic knowledge I needed to succeed. I also feel the number of different clinical experiences that I had throughout school also was helpful in my success. In medicine, if you're staying in one hospital setting and dealing with the same attendings time and time over, you may not be able to grow as much as a person. The way I've chosen how to practice medicine: I've picked and chosen from all the different doctors I've worked with, things that I liked that they did, or maybe things that I didn't like that I made sure I would never do again. With all of the moving that I did, even though it, at times, was a little challenging to find housing and things like that, I'm really thankful for all the different physicians that I worked with in terms of my clinical rotations to help me just figure out how I want to practice medicine.”

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Dr. Jerome Couture ’19 just started a new position as a Nocturnist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Penn State Health in Hershey, PA. Dr. Couture was previously Medical Director/Internist for the United States Air Force in Hampton, VA. “As an internist at a clinic with 3500+ high-acuity, geriatric patients, I successfully provide comprehensive medical care to a large and complex patient population, utilizing evidence-based practices and personalized treatment plans to improve overall health outcomes associated with a high level of patient satisfaction and positive feedback,” he said. He was also a part-time hospitalist at Sentara Health in Hampton, VA. After attending UMHS in St. Kitts, he matched in Internal Medicine at UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) Mercy in Pennsylvania and completed his residency there in June 2022. Dr. Couture is originally from Stratford, Quebec, a Canadian agricultural town near the U.S. border of Maine and Vermont.

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Dr. Andrea Cuviello ’13 spoke at the White Coat Ceremony on January 20, 2024 at UMHS in St. Kitts. Dr. Cuviello is a noted Pediatric Palliative Oncologist and assistant professor at Phoenix Children’s in Arizona. She was previously an assistant professor and instructor at the renowned St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Dr. Cuviello was interviewed by UMHS in January 2024 about her career as a Pediatric Palliative Oncologist and discussed how she helps treat children with cancer while also providing emotional support to families. She spoke about what palliative care is, how she is contributing to the research aspect of this area of medicine, new treatments and medical breakthroughs that are saving more lives, as well as her medical education at UMHS and more. “I’m currently an assistant clinical professor and staff physician at Phoenix Children’s,” she said. “I am primarily part of the palliative care division and I work very closely with our pediatric oncology team to help support patients and families with cancer. I'm also developing a research side to our division, which is part of the new vision for Phoenix Children's as an institution. As far as what palliative care is, I give it a blanket description of being an extra layer of support and an advocate for our patients and families. Most commonly, I would say people hear palliative care and they think of it being end of life or hospice-related, which is true. And I kind of describe that as sort of a branch on the tree of all of the things that I do. More often I'm actually helping with symptom management. I do a lot of work around communication and that's really just helping to make sure our patients and families are getting the information that they need in a way that they prefer. And then the last bit that I do is really focused around goals of care. And when I say that, I really just mean getting to know patients and families and helping them keep what's most important for them and their child at the forefront of all of their medical decisions.”

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Dr. Melissa Alvarez ’17 started a new position as Interventional Cardiology Fellow at Summa Health in Akron, OH in July 2024. Dr. Alvarez recently completed her time as Chief Cardiovascular Disease Fellow at Nuvance Health/Danbury Hospital in Danbury, CT. She completed an internal medicine residency at Mercy Catholic Medical Center in Darby, PA in June 2021. In January 2024, Dr. Alvarez was interviewed by UMHS about her new position at Summa Health. “Interventional cardiology is the group of doctors that take care of coronary artery disease from a procedural perspective,” she said. “So, when you hear someone has a heart attack and they get brought to a lab and they get a stent placed, the interventional cardiologist is the one that's doing that procedure. I'm someone who's always liked procedures. I like being hands-on. I don't enjoy being in the office all the time. So, I'm really excited that I get to do this role. The other thing interventional cardiologists get trained to do is valve replacements. There are patients where surgery isn't a great option for them because they're too high risk or they've had surgery previously, so redoing surgery would be difficult. There are procedures in place to replace valves by going in through the arteries in the legs so that you don't have to cut someone's chest open. So, I'll be able to do that as well.”

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Dr. Mwamba Malekani ’19 is currently an American Psychiatric Association SAMHSA Fellow at the American Psychiatric Foundation. She is also Clinical Faculty at Michigan State University in the Detroit Metropolitan Area. She started a psychiatric residency at Authority Health GME in Detroit, Michigan, affiliated with Michigan State University, in 2022. After graduating in 2019, she worked at the prestigious McLean Hospital in Massachusetts (known for its top-notch psychiatric treatment hospitals) before matching in spring 2022. She grew up throughout the Midwest and more recently in the Northeast but her parents are from Africa.  UMHS spoke to Dr. Malekani about her residency in a 2022 interview. “The mission and work there is particular to work with patients who are underserved, and I know that's a growing movement right now in medicine, helping folks who are more underserved physicians, whether rural or urban,” she said. “Authority Health's focus is more of an urban environment. In addition to that, when I was looking at programs that was a big selling point for me with Authority Health. As far as why I went into psychiatry? Again, it was definitely something that I came to a conclusion on much later in my medical school journey. I initially had a lot of interest in more of the surgical specialties. And I think I could credit that to the anatomy professors on the island. Going through clinical rotations I really enjoyed pediatrics and I also enjoyed neurology.”

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Dr. Neda Svrakic ’21 started an Internal Medicine residency at Rosalind Franklin University Medical School (RFMUS) Chicago Medical School in 2022. Becoming a doctor is a family tradition for Dr. Svrakic. Originally from St. Louis, MO, Dr. Svrakic learned a lot about medicine from her father, a psychiatrist. “I am first-generation Serbian,” Dr. Svrakic said. “My parents immigrated to United States in 1989. My dad's a psychiatrist. He's a Fulbright professor at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. I come from a long lineage of psychiatrists in my family, and so I knew that I always wanted to go into medicine. It's always been a huge part of my life, part of my childhood. I decided to major in molecular and cellular biology at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. I did that with the intention of going into medical school, so I was pre-med.” UMHS spoke to Dr. Svrakic in 2022 about her Internal Medicine residency at the Chicago Medical School, part of the Rosalind Franklin University Medical School in North Chicago, IL.  “They have a really great Internal Medicine program, and a lot of fellowship programs, and a lot of fellowship success for their residents,” she said. “But, also, if you decided to just become a hospitalist, there's so many opportunities within the Rosalind Franklin network, but also in the city of Chicago. It's such a medical hub, so many hospitals, so many medical schools. It's a program of 10 of us. It's really IMG-friendly, but there's also a lot of residents who went to medical school at Rosalind Franklin or in the States.”

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Dr. Adham Osman ’15 is currently working as an intensivist in the Advanced Cardiac Surgery unit at Advent Health Orlando in FL. As an intensivist, he specializes in critical care and deals with the sickest patients in the hospital. His work involves responding to “code blue” situations and resuscitating patients who are dying. In his specialized ICU, they focus on patients with primary cardiac and pulmonary problems, as well as those who require extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) devices. They aim to stabilize and reverse any reversible causes to get the patients back to health. In cases where the patient's heart and lungs are too sick to recover, they also perform heart and lung transplants. Dr. Osman spoke to UMHS in an April 2024 interview about what an intensivist does. “An intensivist—it's basically a specialist in critical care,” he said. “We are tasked with dealing with the sickest patients in the hospital. Patients that are classically considered to be crashing. If you've ever seen movies or TV shows when they call it ‘code blue’ overhead and somebody's heart or lungs have stopped working, they typically call the ICU team. We respond to those calls and try to revive and resuscitate patients who are otherwise dying and we try to stabilize them and reverse any causes that we can to get them back to health, if possible. I work in a specialized ICU called the Advanced Cardiac Surgery Unit. In that ICU, we typically specialize in patients who have primary cardiac problems, pulmonary problems, and patients who are so sick that they require devices called ECMO or what we call extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. It’s a device that pulls blood out of the body, oxygenates, and pumps blood back into the body to take over the role of the heart and lungs when their own heart and lungs are too weak to do so.”

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UMHS 2017 graduate Dr. Harkirat Kaur is an attending adult psychiatrist at Amen Clinics in Atlanta, GA, an outpatient psychiatry practice. She completed an adult psychiatry residency at University Hospitals in Cleveland, OH in 2022. Right after graduating from UMHS, she was a transitional year resident at Coliseum Health System in Macon, GA. Dr. Kaur is active in the UMHS Alumni Association. She co-hosted a UMHS livestream “Suicide Prevention and the State of Psychiatry” with fellow UMHS graduate and practicing psychiatrist Dr. Aaron Vazquez ’15 in fall 2021. More recently, she was a keynote speaker at the 2023 White Coat Ceremony in St. Kitts on September 9th. UMHS spoke to Dr. Kaur about psychiatry and a typical day at Amen Clinics shortly before she spoke in St. Kitts in fall 2023. “I think psychiatry is a field in which you build a connection with your patients given that you are truly trying to understand the etiologies behind what affects their mind so much,”she said. “It could be trauma, relationships, just overall day-to-day changes in life, jobs, etc. So, I think psychiatry, in that way, is a very underrated field to this day. If we don't have a healthy brain, we can't really have a healthy lifestyle. I think that really encourages me to learn more and gears me towards psychiatry. Given that brain health is just as important as our physical health, if our mental health gets improved, our brain will be healthy. Amen Clinics is kind of all over the country. We have about 11 or 12 clinics across the nation. In terms of my day-to-day, I see patients both in-person and through Zoom, So, I do tele-psych and in-person appointments which consist of new patient evaluations, seeing return patients, and routine follow-ups as well. I also have designated therapy days where I see patients for therapy sessions.”

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UMHS has many students and graduates from Puerto Rico. Some choose to return to Puerto Rico for residency after graduation, but some also Match at hospitals on the US mainland or eventually secure prestigious fellowships throughout the USA. UMHS 2017 graduate Dr. Angela M. Torres Torres is an example of alumni who succeeded through hard work and determination. She first heard about UMHS at an in-person conference in Puerto Rico hosted by admissions rep Earl Mainer. She enjoyed learning more about the state-of-the-art campus in St. Kitts and was even more impressed with UMHS when she eventually traveled to visit the school. UMHS spoke with this young doctor to about why UMHS is so popular among med students from Puerto Rico, why she chose UMHS over other med schools, how UMHS admissions and faculty helped and encouraged her throughout her years of studying, why she chose to return to her native island for residency, how she became a clinical research coordinator at Emory University in Atlanta, and how she obtained a cardiology fellowship at Marshall University in West Virginia. “I chose UMHS because I knew students have the option of completing rotations either in the U.S. or Puerto Rico, and qualify for licensure in the U.S., Puerto Rico,” she said. “Being a family person, I always imagined myself doing my residency in Puerto Rico, and having the opportunity to do most of my clinical rotation in programs with residency opened a door for Internal Medicine in Hospital Damas.” Dr. Torres Torres excelled in research. “Research has always been one of my major strengths. I enjoy knowing that I am part of such cutting-edge device studies that will potentially improve the quality of life of many people. A cardiology fellowship is one of the most competitive internal medicine fellowships and their cardiologists serve a diverse population of patients, yet the lack of diversity within the cardiology workforce has continued to persist and does not stand for the composition of the patient population in the United States. I also was chosen to become part of the American College of Cardiology Women/Hispanic IM Program. Doing research and working to increase diversity and inclusion imperatives that will diversify the cardiovascular workforce, create a more inclusive cardiovascular profession through education and awareness. Lastly, being part of improving cardiovascular health outcomes for all patient groups helped me to get into the Cardiology Fellowship at Marshall University in West Virginia.”

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Dr. Mohit Mahalan ’20 started a Family Medicine residency at Summa Barberton Hospital in Barberton, Ohio in the summer of 2022. Dr. Mahalan graduated in December 2020 but did not Match on his first try. He persisted and eventually matched, and his story is an inspiration. UMHS spoke to Dr. Mahalan about why he chose UMHS over other Caribbean medical schools, his experience with UMHS professors, clinical rotations, how he eventually obtained a Family Medicine residency, his thoughts on being a doctor today, building trust with patients, and more. Dr. Mahalan grew up in Yardley, PA, was raised in the Bucks County area and studied psychology at Temple University.  “I made a friend there who was the ultimate reason as to how I ended up at UMHS,” he said. “When I started at UMHS, I went through the motions, did basic sciences, did the rotations, and I graduated in December of 2020. Then I matched [in] 2022.” His college friend convinced him to attend UMHS. “She told me about UMHS being run by the Ross family—the same one who [originally] owned Ross University—and she spoke very highly of them, the school, and her experience there.”

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Dr. Jenna Ulrich ’18 did not start out wanting to become a doctor. In fact, she originally went to university for a policing degree (sometimes called Justice Administration), but after becoming ill in her early 20s, she developed a passion for health and wellness. The native of Severn, Ontario in Canada soon switched majors and eventually completed a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology at York University, she said, because she “realized medicine was my calling.” UMHS spoke to Dr. Ulrich about why she chose UMHS, how the students and professors she encountered gave her an invaluable support system for life, how UMHS helped her get an Internal Medicine residency at Bridgeport Hospital in Connecticut (with ties to Yale University in New Haven), and more. Dr. Ulrich said she believes the clinical education she received at UMHS was key to her success on the road to residency. “UMHS provided me with the opportunity to learn from a variety of teaching hospitals across the U.S during my clinical years,” she said. “This gave me the chance to care for an assortment of patient populations. I think this will be an advantage in my future as a physician as no matter where my career takes me. I have a great base of knowledge of medical diseases that affect patients from the East to the West Coast.”

Dr. April Frater ’17 is proof that “nontraditional” students can make dreams of becoming a doctor reality. She didn’t even think about becoming an M.D. until age 26. The native Canadian completed a Family Medicine residency at Tuscaloosa College of Community Health Sciences in Alabama in 2021 and is now a Family Physician in Alabama. Dr. Frater is happy she studied medicine at UMHS. “Attending medical school in the Caribbean has been one of the best experiences of my life,” she said.

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Dr. Kristin Biggie ’15 is currently a pediatrician at Taslimi and Mirza in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area. She completed a pediatrics residency in at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Florida in 2018. UMHS interviewed Dr. Biggie shortly before she graduated in 2015. The South Florida native said she was pleased to be in her home state, allowing her to be close to family and friends and serving fellow Floridians. “Everything about pediatrics interests me,” she said. “I like working with patients at the inception of health vs disease. I like the component of pediatrics that is an investigation, since most patients cannot express themselves through words. I like to experience the love families share and the care they give their children. I like that the diseases that affect children are organic in nature and not derived from self-induced habits. I love standing back and observing a child heal from the care we provide as physicians.”

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Dr. Rohit Shah ’15 is board-certified in addiction psychiatry and psychiatry. He is currently an addiction specialist and medical director at AMITA Health in Chicago, IL. Dr. Shah completed his residency in psychiatry at Southern Illinois University. He was chief resident there. He then completed an Addiction fellowship at Indiana University. Dr. Shah has worked in various settings: detoxification, residential, in-patient, partial hospitalization program, intensive outpatient program, and clinic. UMHS spoke to Dr. Shah in September 2021 about the state of psychiatry and what med students and doctors need to know regarding warning signs for suicide, the correct terminology, training for healthcare staff, physician suicide, specialists known as suicidologists, and more. “I have always been fond of Psychiatry and Neurology,” Dr. Shah said. “I appreciate all the underlying neuroscience, especially seeing patients responding to psychotropic medications and the neurotransmitters involved. Addiction for me is rewarding as it is more medical with detoxification and having objective evidence of labs and vital signs. Furthermore, it is inspiring to see patients in their recovery and how resilient they have become. The work-life balance of psychiatry and potential for one of the highest compensated specialties is also a plus.”

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Daniel Asher ’17 is a hospitalist for Piedmont Healthcare in Columbus, GA. UMHS interviewed Dr. Asher in 2020 at the pinnacle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since that time, Dr. Asher has been working as a hospitalist at Piedmont. Dr. Asher explained to UMHS what a hospitalist does. “A hospitalist is a licensed physician who practices exclusively in a hospital and treats/manages a large range of diseases,” he said. “My job is to treat patients who are hospitalized due to a variety of illnesses. I have the ability to consult other physicians who specialize in a certain aspect of medicine to further help manage/treat my patient.” Dr. Asher said. “I specifically work with the residents at night and then we essentially just run the hospital, any code blues or rapid responses, we’re the rapid response team and code blue team. I do procedures, I do central lines, I do arterial lines, I do intubations, I guess just kind of run the hospital while everybody’s asleep.”

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Dr. Alexander Zayid ’19 is a Board-Certified Primary Care Physician through the American Board of Family Medicine. Dr. Zayid completed his training through Michigan State University affiliate Providence Hospital in Southfield, Michigan. 

Dr. Zayid has always had a special interest in preventative medicine from both a biologic and aesthetic standpoint. His goal is to treat problems before they arise by taking a proactive approach to screening and preventing disease, rather than simply reacting to a diagnosis. Dr. Zayid focused his preventative training in weight loss, aesthetics and anti-aging medicine. During the height of the pandemic in 2020, Dr. Zayid was working on the frontlines in Michigan hospitals and conducted several interviews with UMHS about his work during the unprecedented days of COVID-19 before vaccines were available. “I worked COVID-19 floors for three months from March to June,” he said a 2020 interview. “Unfortunately, we lost many patients along the way. As a physician this is something to be expected, but as a resident this was a lot of exposure to this kind of thing very early. It is a very somber and sobering experience, one that I feel will only motivate me to become a better physician while reminding me of the fragility of life.”

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Dr. Alexander Khobeir ’22 started an emergency medicine residency at McLaren Oakland Hospital in downtown Pontiac, Michigan in the summer of 2022. He is currently a PGY2 resident. Dr. Khobeir spoke to UMHS on a break from his busy day of working in the ER in Michigan. He is currently in his second year of residency at McLaren Oakland Hospital, serving a medically underserved area of Michigan. Dr. Khobeir discussed the basics of emergency medicine. “Emergency medicine is, I think, one area of medicine where you have to use everything,” he said. “I’m talking from psychiatry, to internal medicine, to pediatrics, to family medicine, to surgery, to OB-GYN. Emergency medicine, foundationally, is about treating medical emergencies. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at the system now, it is not that anymore. It's also a lot of primary care, we'll say, but it's not a primary care. It's, ‘I need medical attention now. I need this doctor to quickly figure out what's going on and take care of that.’”

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Dr. Sarhad Najor ’17 started his residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan in summer 2017. It has been a long road to residency indeed for Dr. Najor, who spent the past 17 years in Michigan but was born in Iraq. We caught up with this young doctor to talk about why he found the small class sizes at UMHS helpful and his confidence in the Ross family’s excellent track record in medical education. We also discussed why he decided on a Med/Peds residency, his tips for making the most out of the Match process, and why he feels the time he spent at UMHS constituted the “best four years” of his life. “Because of Dr. Ross and Mr. Warren Ross’ background, I had great faith in attending UMHS," he said. "I knew they would move this medical school to the correct path based on their history with molding great medical schools.”

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Dr. Alessandra Secco ’14 is currently an Infectious Disease physician at Metro Infectious Disease Consultants in Niles, Illinois. Dr. Secco first became interested in medicine when her grandfather became ill with cancer. She enjoyed being at his bedside but wanted to do more to help him and to understand and treat his illness. Dr. Secco graduated from UMHS in June 2014 and immediately started her Internal Medicine residency at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois. She was pleased with the clinical rotations at major U.S. hospitals offered by UMHS, allowing her to work directly with patients in areas where health care is desperately needed. "I was extremely prepared for my boards and especially so after our Kaplan review course during our 5th semester.,” she told UMHS. “I also felt confident with patient interaction and physical exam techniques due to our excellent preparation during our 4th and 5th semesters."

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UMHS 2013 graduate Larry McMann, MD, RD, is currently Interim Medical Director at HCA Healthcare at Colton Medical Center in Michigan as well as Special Op at TeamHealth. He completed an Internal Medicine residency at Wayne State University in Michigan. He is also a hospitalist at Rural Physicians Group. Dr. Larry McMann achieved success at UMHS and finally became a doctor after a long journey that included being erroneously told by an undergraduate advisor that medicine “would not be a good fit” for him, a brief stint working as a dietitian, and later struggling as a medical student at a different school. Dr. McMann persevered and earned his M.D. at UMHS, getting one of the highest scores possible on USMLE Step 2. “UMHS does a great job of giving you the tools that you need to succeed,” he said. “The motivation of the faculty, the positive attitude; they have real zeal for what they do. They don’t have an attitude like this is their job. They have an attitude like this is their calling.” Dr. McMann credits the highly credentialed, caring UMHS faculty for his success. “At UMHS, the focus from day one is getting you to understand the material and that can be going to the classroom, you interacting with your professor and them really caring about whether you know the information or not when you leave the class.”

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Dr. James Brown ’11 started a fellowship as a Transplant Pulmonologist at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia in 2018. He was previously an Internal Medicine Chief Resident at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia. Originally from Forsyth, Georgia, Dr. Brown has always loved science and helping people. He chose UMHS because he was impressed by the clinical program. UMHS helped him score high on USMLE exams and reach his goals. “I was very well prepared and have had no trouble with any examinations,” Dr. Brown said.

Dr. Kirsten Fill ’17 didn’t always plan on becoming a doctor. The Ontario, Canada native studied biomedical engineering at Queens University and started a corporate job after graduation, but decided she wanted something more rewarding. She decided to pursue the passion for medicine she developed as an undergraduate. Dr. Fill spoke to UMHS about why she was initially so impressed by the cadaver lab, high-tech classrooms and fun social activities in St. Kitts, the extensive Step 1 preparation at the Portland, Maine campus and her invaluable experiences in clinical rotations, and how she successfully made it through the Match process. Dr. Fill started an anesthesiology residency at Drexel University at Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia in 2017.

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Dr. David J. Kadouri ’12 is an obstetrician/gynecologist physician in Erie, PA. He is currently licensed to practice medicine in Pennsylvania and Ohio. He is affiliated with Saint Vincent Hospital-Erie. Dr. Kadouri is a native of Toronto, Canada and decided to study medicine at UMHS because he liked the sense of community at the school and the unique relationship between the student body and faculty. The outstanding training he received at UMHS and through its clinical rotations helped him obtain a residency in OB/GYN at the prestigious Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Pennsylvania. He finished residency there in 2017. “The education at UMHS is extremely intimate; it is the perfect setup for an ambitious and eager student to thrive,” Dr. Kadouri said. “The class sizes are small, and there is a very personal feel. My friends and faculty felt like family. Their sense of investment and genuine interest in my success was clear and palpable. My teachers were always available, and the roles and barriers of the usual student-teacher relationship didn’t exist. I could approach any member of faculty, from TA to professor, up to the dean—with absolute comfort and ease, and they would give you their time to teach and help you succeed.”

Dr. Alexandru Cojanu ’16 is currently a board-certified psychiatrist at Prisma Health in Greer, SC. He completed his residency at Detroit Medical Center/Wayne State University in psychiatry. It has been an incredible journey for Dr. Cojanu, originally from Romania. He started out majoring in Kinesiology (the science of human body movement) at the venerable College of William and Mary and graduated as a nationally ranked NCAA Division 1 tennis player. He became a professional tennis player and toured around the world, but his fascination with medicine only grew deeper while working as an athlete. His love of how the human brain works led to pursuing a master’s degree in Neuroscience at Virginia Commonwealth University. As Dr. Cojaunu told UMHS in 2016, this was his introduction to the world of how the human brain functions. “Since I knew I wanted to work with people as opposed to being inside a lab, I chose medical school as the next step,” he said. Dr. Cojanu first learned about UMHS from an old friend during a Skype call. When he saw his friend studying in the beautiful tropical surroundings of St. Kitts, Dr. Cojanu admits he was “immediately hooked” and started researching UMHS. He was particularly impressed by the experience of the Ross family and the fact that the fifth semester was back in the USA in Portland, Maine. He also liked having the ability to pursue third and fourth year clinical rotations all over the United States.

Dr. Rohan Manocha ’17 is currently a Family Medicine doctor at Vennix Integrated Health in Tottenham, ON, Canada. He started his residency in Family Medicine at University of Toronto – Downtown in the summer of 2017 and was pleased to be returning to the Toronto area. Dr. Manocha grew up in nearby Richmond Hill and studied Kinesiology at Western University in London, Ontario. An avid Toronto sports fan, Dr. Manocha realized he had a passion for medicine while taking anatomy and physiology courses as an undergrad and volunteering his time at the local hospital in his hometown of Richmond Hill.   Dr. Manocha enjoys time with his family, something he likely had little time for during his journey through medical school at UMHS. UMHS spoke to Dr. Manocha about why he chose UMHS and how it specifically helped him obtain a prestigious residency back in his Canadian homeland. He also shared advice on how to get high scores on the USMLE exams and make the most of the residency Match process. "UMHS provided an avenue for me to fulfill my career goal of becoming a practicing physician in Canada,” he said.

Dr. Lara Gizzi ’14 is currently an Emergency Medicine physician and a Certified Neuromodulator (Botox) Injector at BrightMD Beauty in Oakville, ON, Canada. She completed a family medicine residency at the University of Ottawa in Canada. Dr. Gizzi has a unique perspective on working in medicine in Canada. Dr. Gizzi initially met with an admissions representative and had a good feeling about UMHS, so she “took a risk” by applying to UMHS. Ultimately, she made the right decision to enter UMHS as a Canadian studying medicine abroad. The Toronto area native had missed a deadline to apply online to Canadian medical schools and did not wish to wait a full year before applying again. UMHS spoke to Dr. Gizzi in an interview about the close connections she made with professors in St. Kitts and working as a teaching assistant to the challenges of living abroad on a tropical island, and the myriad of lessons learned during clinical rotations and electives in the USA and Canada. Dr. Gizzi adapted quickly to St. Kitts and the UMHS campus and bonded with her fellow students, realizing she was “surrounded by people in the same boat with the same fears,” all wanting to become doctors. Dr. Gizzi discussed what Canadians can expect before, during and after studying medicine at UMHS.  “I did electives in plastic surgery and cardiology through McMaster University, as well as an elective in family medicine in a private practice in Toronto,” she said. “This most certainly assisted in my successful entry into residency in Canada. Having letters of reference from Canadian physicians and proof that I made it my prerogative to invest time learning in Canada was of utmost importance.”

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Dr. Nicholas Garcia ’15 is currently an Aesthetic Surgery Fellow at Inspire Aesthetics in Delray Beach, FL. He was previous a Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Fellow at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN. UMHS interviewed Dr. Garcia in 2017 when he was a second-year General Surgery resident at Kendall Regional Medical Center in Miami. He is proud to be one of the first UMHS graduates to obtain a General Surgery residency. He was first drawn to the state-of-the-art facilities at the UMHS St. Kitts campus during a visit. Because a couple years had passed since receiving his undergraduate degree and he had not participated in academic classwork for a while, Dr. Garcia was initially admitted to UMHS through the Accelerated Review Program (ARP). While at first he was a bit disappointed by starting as an ARP student, he realized that the program helped prepare him for the success he later found in medical school and in successfully matching after applying for residencies. One unexpected perk of studying at UMHS was meeting, on the first day of orientation, the woman who would later become his wife. “Throughout my years there and in clinical rotations, she pushed me and I pushed her when days got rough. I was doing what I loved, with someone I loved, I couldn't ask for more,” he said.

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Dr. Amrita Amanda D. Lakraj ’12 is a neurologist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is affiliated with Froedtert Hospital and the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Lakraj has expertise in treating inpatient dementia, Parkinson's disease, visual impairment and blindness, and more.. Dr. Lakraj completed a fellowship in ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University in 2018. Before that, she completed a neurology residency at Froedtert Hospital, part of the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee in 2017. While still a medical student, Dr. Lakraj did neuromuscular research at Yale and published a case report. In addition, as a postdoctoral research associate at Yale, she observed patients and published manuscripts about movement disorders. Dr. Lakraj also contributed to a chapter for a textbook. UMHS spoke to her back in 2013 about how she became interested in neurology, her research experiences, and how her medical education at UMHS prepared her for such a challenging, lifesaving area of medicine. “Growing up and entering medical school, I always wanted to be a pediatrician,” she said. “My inspiration for becoming a neurologist actually stems from my experience in the neuroscience course at UMHS. Neurology as a field is known to be complex, and this was confirmed by many of the upperclassmen who I witnessed to be struggling and spending an immense amount of time studying the material. Eventually, it was my turn to take the course and I decided I would work extra hard in fear of failing. However, to my surprise, I was delighted to find that I was enjoying what I was learning and actually wanted to spend more time studying. The gross anatomy of the brain intrigued me, the puzzles of spinal cord lesions challenged me, and the different neurologic pathologies kept me wondering, “How and what if?” With that being said, I cannot overlook the influences of the two professors who taught the course (Dr. Alan Ernst and [the late] Dr. Michael Doherty) who guided my learning in every way, answered every dumb question I had, and supported my interest in the subject matter. I truly owe the seeds of my success to them and their teaching. Ultimately, I ended up doing well in the class and had the opportunity to be the neuroscience teaching assistant for the class to follow. After starting my clinical clerkships and experiencing a sense of intrigue over neurologic cases early on, I knew that neurology would become the epitome of my career goals in conjunction with my journey to residency and becoming a physician. I was incredibly lucky to Neurology Sub-Is and research at great hospitals and really enjoyed every minute of these experiences, further confirming my career aspirations.”

Dr. Banafsheh Motazedi '15 is currently an endocrinologist at Sentara RMH Medical Center. She completed an endocrinology fellowship at Georgetown University Hospital in 2021. She also completed an internal medicine residency at Providence Health System/George Washington University Hospital in Washington, DC. UMHS spoke to Dr. Motazedi in a 2019 interview about her journey through medical school, meeting her husband during clinical rotations in Michigan, what interests her about endocrinology, and more. Dr. Motazedi is from Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a double major in integrative biology and health studies with honors. When it was time to apply to medical schools, she heard great things from a friend who was completing basic sciences at UMHS. “From my own research, I learned about its well-structured program which was comparable to medical education in North America,” she said. “Moreover, its small class sizes, accessible professors, courses taught by teaching faculty from US/Canadian medical schools, state-of-the-art campus, its large and well-equipped anatomy lab and incredibly remarkable simulation lab were amongst the pluses that drew my attention toward UMHS.”

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Dr. Mamadi Papus Keita ’16 graduated magna cum laude from UMHS. Dr. Keita is a Cardiothoracic Surgery Fellow at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. He has been an active member of the UMHS Alumni Association and has participated in several UMHS livestreams. “Clinically, I have a strong affinity for adult congenital heart surgery, aortic surgery, heart & lung transplantation, high risk cardiac surgery, as well as the niche of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) and its surgical management,” he says on his LinkedIn profile. “ I enjoy conducting research and being involved in innovation projects, especially those that are at the junction of medicine and engineering. In fact, in my previous role, I served as the general surgery chief resident of research and innovation at Carle Illinois College of Medicine —The world's first engineering-based medical school. Lastly, I have a particular interest in global cardiac surgery and expanding access to care in Africa.”

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Back in March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic started erupting nationwide and the whole country literally shut down, UMHS started interviewing young UMHS grads on the frontlines. The very first doctor we spoke to was UMHS 2018 graduate Dr. Jordan Stav, an Emergency Medicine resident at Ascension Macomb-Oakland Hospital in Michigan. Dr. Stav responded to a post we left on the UMHS Alumni Facebook  page, and what he had to say was chilling and sobering. Dr. Stav spoke to the UMHS with the proviso that he was not an infectious disease expert and was only sharing from his own experience. His story received such an overwhelming response from current and prospective students, faculty and alumni that the UMHS Endeavour blog started a news interview feature series called “Alumni on the Front Lines,” with breaking news reports about what how our alumni were coping with the Covid pandemic in hospitals across the country. UMHS recently spoke with Dr. Stav to talk about emergency medicine as a specialty on a daily basis. “I'm in emergency medicine, so we don't really know what we're going to get,” he said. “My days start at various times based on where I'm at in the schedule, sometimes mornings or nights. Show up, walk in, log into your computer, and either you're immediately called back to the resuscitation bay to start going to work or sometimes you have time to talk to your colleagues and see how the department is running. But usually, from start to finish, it is nonstop. Emergency medicine is a great field. There was a lot of talk not too long ago about a drop-off in it, and that's not what I'm seeing at all. Volumes are higher than ever. I love what I do. It's an unbelievable field.”

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Dr. Thivisa Rajagopal ’15 is currently a Family Medicine physician, Board-Certified by the American Board of Family Medicine, practicing at St. Lawrence Health, an affiliate of Rochester Regional Health, in Canton, NY. Dr. Rajagopal and husband Dr. Thushyanthan Pathmalingam both decided to attend UMHS when they had trouble getting into Canadian medical schools. Dr. Rajagopal immigrated to Canada from her native Sri Lanka at a young age and always wanted to be a doctor. She and her husband started Family Medicine residencies at the Washington Health System in Pennsylvania. Dr. Rajagopal completed her residency at Washington Hospital in August 2019. In a 2016 interview, she spoke about her experience at UMHS. “Every aspect of UMHS makes you become an independent, self-learning and brilliant doctor,” she said.

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Dr. Billy Zhang ’17 is an Internal Medicine Physician from Providence St. Joseph Heritage Medical Group in Irvine, CA. He is also Assistant Professor at California University of Science and Medicine. Dr. Zhang previously worked as Associate Program Director and as an Attending Physician at Nychhc Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn, NY. He was an also Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine from November 2021 to May 2024. Prior to that, he was an Internal Medicine resident at Main Line Health from August 2019 to June 2021. Dr. Zhang has licenses and certifications in Advanced Cardiac Support and CPR and AED from the American Heart Association. Dr. Zhang was a panelist on the UMHS livestream “Primary Care Spotlight: Internal Medicine vs. Family Medicine.” He was Vice President of the UMHS Student Government Association at UMHS when he as a med student in St. Kitts.

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