I am honored and excited to be on the Premed leadership and programming team for GSU. Currently, I am a Principal Senior Lecturer in the School of Biology which provides an innovative training ground for GSU premed students at both undergraduate and graduate levels. My efforts have resulted in unique courses that prepare our GSU students for their first year of didactics– the year of medical school that tends to have the highest rate of student burnout. These case-based courses include: Applied Medical Physiology, Human Physiology Lab, Functional Histology, Pathophysiology, Orthopedic and Osteopathic Medicine, and Surgical Anatomy. I feel hands on learning is a more effective way to teach our students content and skills relevant for a career in medicine. I have been fortunate in building unique partnerships with WellStar and hospitals abroad to provide important clinical internship opportunities for our students.

Many post-bac students realize they need academic enhancement during their “gap” year, which prompted the development of a Master in Biology, Medical Science concentration. We are carefully tracking about 25 graduate students as they progress through medically-relevant coursework that makes these candidates stand out amongst other applicants. I also serve on the College of Arts and Sciences Premed Advisory Committee where we assess applications and write committee letters for applicants. This has been extremely helpful in modeling my mentoring strategy. Early mentoring is critical in improving matriculation rates into medical school. I firmly believe that the key to good mentoring is to keep a constant thumb on the pulse of student progress, both in the classroom and clinic. That way, we can identify areas for improvement for each premed student before it is too late or too costly. There are other goals on the to-do list, and I welcome your input. How can we mainstream premed preparedness? What would you like to see developed to help our GSU students succeed? Where are the deficiencies? Please feel free to contact me if you have further questions or suggestions.