I described what kind of doctor I wanted to be, every advisor told me I should look into family medicine. I immediately joined the MUSC family medicine interest group, and the more I learned, the more it was the obvious choice for me. Dave: Originally, I went to medical school at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) on an MD/ PhD scholarship. I was really interested in research when I was an undergraduate. I was accepted into the program at MUSC at the beginning of my senior year in college and had every intention of studying for a PhD in neuroscience, specializing in neurology and just doing animal research for the rest of my career. But around the end of my senior year as an undergraduate, I started to become interested in public health, preventative health and healthcare systems. When I got to MUSC, I tried to start my PhD in public health, but after one year, I decided to leave the PhD program and go back to medical school. I decided that I was more interested in practicing medicine than research. I ended up getting really lucky and I had family medicine early in my third-year rotations. At MUSC, family medicine is a rural rotation, and I stayed in Chester, South Carolina, for a month with an awesome family medicine doctor who inspired me to go into FM. Working with him really gave me the confidence for the rest of medical school, and by the time applications came around, I knew exactly what I wanted to do in terms of specialty. Continuing Their Journey as a Couple Julia: Dave and I started in the same class in medical school. We were friends for over a year before we started dating. He was enrolled in the MD/PhD program, with an interest in epidemiology. So initially, I realized we were going to have very different looking career paths. Dave had a famously big bushy black beard during medical school. One day out of nowhere, he completely shaved it. I was so taken aback I had to talk with him after class one day. We continued that conversation in messages, and long story short … we’re married now. He still loves to shave his beard to surprise/scare people. Dave entered his first year of research as I went into clinicals in my third year of medical school, but he realized quickly how much he missed interacting with Together for: © 2023 Constellation, Inc. All Rights Reserved. We believe what’s good for care teams is good for business. Learn more at ConstellationMutual.com 13 |
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