Illinois Medicine

worry about paying back loans." Madu plans to specialize in anesthesiology and has spent part of J 18 | WINTER 2012 her fourth year in an externship helping anesthesiology residents cover overnight calls in the obstetrics and gynecology service at the Univer- sity of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System. Her experience has included performing preoperative patient evaluations, assisting in the operating room and setting up epidurals. "Anything that you do has an instant result. If you give an epi- dural, patients' pain goes away. If you have someone who's failing in the OR, you can do something and try to fix it," she says. "There's also all that mental work. You're always thinking, 'What could go wrong; what's my next step; what's my backup plan?'" Madu plans to return to Nigeria probably once or twice a year to teach or otherwise contribute to the medical field, something she'll be free to do because of the financial assistance she's received. "It means the world to me," she says. "It opens up so many possibilities that wouldn't have been possible without the scholarship." ULEIGH NOWINSKI KONCHAK, a fourth-year student with a passion for public health that she first explored as an aide to then-Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama, is also at the College of Medicine in part because she earned a dean's scholarship. After graduating from Northwestern University in 2003 with a degree in education and social policy, Konchak—who grew up in Palos Park, Ill., a suburb southwest of Chicago—landed an internship with Obama's 2004 U.S. Senate campaign. As the campaign gained traction, Konchak soon found herself working full time as the deputy director of scheduling, and after the election, she moved to Washington to work in Obama's sen- ate office, assisting him with policy is- sues. "I worked on a variety of policy areas—veterans' affairs, education— and [her preference] slowly whittled itself down to solely health policy. It was what I was most interested in," she says. During this time, she worked with Dora Hughes, MD, MPH, now a senior advisor in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who rekindled her previous desire to go to medical school. Konchak, who had begun college as a pre-med student, applied to medical schools and chose the College of Medicine, drawn by a desire to return home to Chicago, to work with underserved populations— and due to the offer of a dean's scholarship, which covers the full cost of her tuition and fees for four years. By alleviating the need for her to take out hefty student loans, the scholarship is making it easier for Konchak to pursue her chosen medical specialty, family medicine. "I love the public health and prevention focus of family medicine. ...I do want to be in an underserved setting. My interests in medicine are deeply rooted in social justice." – JULEIGH NOWINSKI KONCHAK "The fact that I got school covered is unbelievable. I'm very thankful. I plan on donating back at least the same amount to the college." – ANTHONY PANTOJA "I chose a specialty that means I won't be making the big bucks in the future, and I'm confident that I would have done that even if I did have loans, but it makes it easier," she says. "I love the public health and prevention focus of family medicine. It aligns very well with the work I've done outside of medicine and my pas- sions in that area," continues Konchak, who plans to combine practice in a community health setting with public health policy work. "I do want to be in an underserved setting. My interests in medicine are deeply rooted in social justice." Scholarships are what enable some students to attend medical school in the first place. Concern about the cost of medical school and student loan debt weighed heavily on third- year student Anthony Pantoja before he enrolled. Neither of his parents completed high school, although his mother, a former waitress, eventually earned her GED and went on to get an associate's and bachelor's degree en route to becoming a systems analyst. Pantoja's father, however, stopped going to school in second grade and viewed college warily. "He saw a lot of people who went to college, dropped out and had student loans, and worked at the same restaurant he did," Pantoja explains. "He didn't want me and my brother and sister to go to college, and he wasn't happy about me going to medical school." Under that set of circumstances, receiving a dean's scholar- ship was especially reassuring for Pantoja. "I don't have to take out student loans other than for normal living expenses," he says. "I knew I wanted to go to medical school, and I was willing to take out the loans, even though I already had student loans from un- dergraduate school. The fact that I got school covered is unbeliev- able. I'm very thankful. I plan on donating back at least the same amount to the college. I want to show how grateful I am because it was extremely helpful." A native of Gurnee, Ill., halfway between Chicago and Mil- waukee, Pantoja attended University of Illinois at Urbana-Cham- paign, where he changed majors several times before settling on molecular and cellular biology. Inspired by the pre-med students in his classes, he researched the possibility of a medical career, in part by taking an emergency medical technician class and volunteering in the emergency room of a local hospital. These experiences confirmed that medicine was his chosen profession. "I like the dynamic of medicine. It's always changing. There's always new science, new ways to treat people. You always have to be on top of something," Pantoja says. Although he's still going through his clinical rotations and has yet to choose a specialty, so far he's been particularly taken with surgery. "You get such direct results," Pantoja says. "With other fields it might take years sometimes. I'm a hands-on kind of guy, and I like to see things done right away. You get that sense of satis- faction when you do surgery."

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