School of Medicine student Dafina Wise has been awarded one of five national Satcher Fellowships by the Student National Medical Association. She will use the $5,000 award to research the link between Vitamin D deficiency and weight loss.

Only five of the awards are granted nationwide to first- or second-year medical students who are members of the Student National Medical Association. The fellowships are granted in conjunction with Pfizer.

The award is named for former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher, who served from 1998 to 2002. Dr. Satcher, said Ms. Wise, was interested in obesity prevention and health disparities. She plans to further that interest with her Satcher Fellowship research project this summer. Ms. Wise, with mentor Dr. John Flack, chair of the Internal Medicine Department, will analyze the link between Vitamin D and parathyroid hormone levels in relation to weight loss among African-Americans, particularly women. She will present her research next year when the 2009 Satcher Fellowships are awarded.

Ms. Wise, 25, traveled to New York this week to accept her award.

The first-year student with the School of Medicine was born in Detroit, but raised in Orlando, Fla. She graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in food science and human nutrition.

Her interest in obesity intervention began at an early age. She lived in a household focused on health and nutrition. She and her siblings ran track and played basketball. Her parents instilled the importance of a healthy diet, raising her on organic foods.

Ms. Wise said she knew she wanted to become a physician since age 6. “I always knew I wanted to be a doctor,” she said. “I was passionate about science. My father often bought me models of the human body that I put together.”

While she wants to practice either family medicine or pediatrics, Ms. Wise said missionary medicine will be in her future. She recently returned from just such a trip to Costa Rica with members of the School of Medicine’s chapter of the World Health Student Organization. While there, Wise and her colleagues brought medical care to those who often go without it.

“We had the chance to treat the very poor, and those on Indian reservations,” she explained. “That’s an aspect of medicine I’ll definitely pursue. I’m very interested in Doctors Without Borders, and I’d like to treat AIDS patients in Africa.

“I chose Wayne because I really wanted to serve the underserved,” Ms. Wise said. “I’m very attracted to the humanistic side of medicine. I really like the diversity at Wayne; I like that we have all these different cultures represented here.”