Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/62124
salute to graduates These graduates, one from each campus, are representat ives of our lates t alumni MEET THE CLASS OF 2010 REBECCA GARZA College of Medicine at Chicago A native of south suburban Chicago and northwestern Indiana, Rebecca Garza returned to Chicago after earning her bachelor's degree in human biology at Stanford University, drawn both by family ties and the opportunity to participate in the college's Urban Medicine Program, which has a curriculum focused on addressing underserved urban communities. "I like taking care of people, and medicine puts you in a unique position of being truly responsible for another person's well-being. It's very intimate and rewarding," Garza says. Garza says she's particularly enjoyed her clinical experience, which has included rotations for everything from family medicine practice to trauma surgery in locations throughout the Chicago area. She ultimately plans to perform reconstructive surgery for breast cancer or pediatric craniofacial patients, and she also wants to remain in academic medicine and be a teacher herself someday. A Dean's Scholar, Garza was inducted into AwA, the medical school honor society, as a third-year student. "I wanted to do really well," she says, "because this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, and I want to be the best informed physician for my patients." JOHN BARTON (BART) ROSE III College of Medicine at Peoria Bart Rose's commitment to providing medical care to the underserved grew out of his upbringing as the son of a doctor who practiced in California's Sierra Nevada mountain range. "I remember going with him on drives into the back country to make house calls on people who couldn't get out of their home," he says. After earning a bachelor's degree in microbiology from California Polytechnic University, Rose did Alzheimer's disease research in the neuroscience department of the University of California, San Diego, while earning a master's degree in leadership of health care organiza- tions from UCSD. Rose has made volunteer service a priority while at the College of Medicine at Peoria. He is one of the founding members of the col- lege's Health Education, Awareness and Resources Teams, a student-run community service program that provides health education and screenings for underserved and Spanish-speaking individuals. Rose plans to pursue residency training in surgery and thinks he may specialize in transplant surgery or surgical oncology. "I'm also sure there will be a public service aspect in my practice," he says. SHAUNTE' GRAY College of Medicine at Rockford Growing up with asthma in south Los Angeles, Shaunte' Gray experienced barriers to health care firsthand. "Even in the emergency room, I'd have to wait hours and hours to see a doctor," she remembers. "It made me interested in health care disparities. That's why I decided to go into medicine." The first person in her family to earn a degree from a four-year university, Gray worked her way through the University of California at Irvine, where she earned a bachelor's degree in sociology, then a master's degree in biology from California State University, Dominguez Hills. At the College of Medicine at Rockford, Gray has established herself as a student leader, serving as president of the Rockford campus' student council and as a member of the regional dean's executive council and other groups. Gray plans to do her residency training in obstetrics and gynecology and hopes to then complete a fellowship in maternal–fetal medicine. Afterwards, she wants to work with high-risk mothers and provide counseling to adolescent women. "Where I come from, there's a high rate of teen pregnancy," she acknowledges. "There're so many things we can do to address it through adolescent outreach." LOREN ZECH College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign The son of a physician and electrical engineer who performed mathematical modeling for the National Institutes of Health, Loren Zech attended the University of Maryland, where he began as a philosophy student and switched to pre-med after a summer internship at the NIH. The combined MD/PhD program led Zech to the Urbana campus: His dissertation examines whether disease is an objective criteria or a social construction, as it has been regarded by various societies throughout history. He argues for the former, defining disease as a bio- logically abnormal variation in a system with an established model for normal function. He does point out, though, that there still are areas where normal function remains undefined, such as aging. Zech plans to pursue a residency in dermatology and then practice at an academic medical center, putting him in a position to keep wrestling with this issue as a clinician, teacher, researcher and advocate. "People are going to be bringing new problems to doctors because they believe biotechnology can address them," Zech predicts. "There's going to be debate about whether physicians should be doing it, why they should be doing it, and who's going to pay for it." 12 | SPRING 2 010