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.”

Melissa Dobson hopes to play a major role in the ongoing battle against cancer as a researcher exploring new findings that may one day lead to a cure.

Ms. Dobson, 26, is a Ph.D. candidate in the Cancer Biology program at the School of Medicine. The Sterling Heights native, who attended Macomb Christian High School in Warren, is interested in intercellular signaling.

“I like to study how proteins react and influence each other,” she said. That interest led Ms. Dobson to launch a career in cancer research.

“I always knew I wanted to be a researcher,” Ms. Dobson said. “I wanted to be in the lab, discovering why things happen.”

Ms. Dobson, a third-year student, said she truly became interested in medical research during her third year as an undergraduate at Wayne State University. She graduated from WSU with a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry.

The rigors of her education have caused Ms. Dobson to set aside – for now – some outside interests, especially an artistic bent that includes drawing, calligraphy and stained glass.

The arts may have to wait a little longer for Ms. Dobson, who is considering a post-doctoral program after graduation. “I’m not sure whether I will teach or become solely a researcher, but I will definitely become a researcher.”

She said she selected the Wayne State University School of Medicine because of the excellent reputation of the Ph.D. program.

“I was really impressed by the program and the caliber of people here,” she said. “I know several people who went through the program and was impressed with where they ended up.”

Emily Swan plans to use her education to counsel families with genetic predispositions to neuropathy and assist in earlier screening for Michigan residents prone to develop cancer.

The 26-year-old native of Royal Oak now lives in Madison Heights. A second-year graduate student in the genetic counseling program at the School of Medicine, she completed her undergraduate work at the University of Michigan, where she majored in biology.

After graduating from the University of Michigan, Ms. Swan first taught high school classes, and then worked as a research assistant in the Wayne State University Neurology Department. Her work there exposed her to clinical research and genetic counseling.

“I worked in the Charcot-Marie-Tooth clinic at WSU, and realized that I liked working one on one with patients,” she said. “Genetic counseling is a way for me to combine my interests in teaching, science, health, and medicine.

Ms. Swan is particularly interested in neurogenetics and cancer counseling because of her clinical research on Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, an inherited peripheral neuropathy that affects the limbs. “I’m interested in cancer counseling because it’s a field that also has aspects of public health. We can make health-promoting suggestions for cancer screening that can save lives.”

Her goal after graduation in May is to work as a genetic counselor in the Detroit region. “I have learned so much and gained so many skills in such a short amount of time,” she said. “I have enjoyed working with patients and hearing the stories that people bring to [the] clinic. Genetic counseling not only involves one patient, but involves whole families as well.”

When not in school or studying, Ms. Swan enjoys reading, bicycling, Jazzercise, geo-caching and synchronized figure skating.

Ms. Swan said she selected the Wayne State University Genetic Counseling program because of her familiarity with the program directors as well as the program.

“I grew up in the metropolitan Detroit area, and I was committed to staying in this area,” she said.

Candace Johnson has always been interested in medicine, and looked to physicians who were members of her church as role models to emulate.

Johnson, a first-year student at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, performed research at the National Institutes of Health and attended a medical conference in Seattle before experiencing work in an emergency room. “That sealed the deal,” she said.

While enthusiastic about emergency medicine, Ms. Johnson said it is too early in her medical education to settle on a specialty. “But emergency medicine is one I’m definitely exploring.”

The Class of 2011 member performed her undergraduate work at Tennessee State University, where she majored in biology.

She serves as president of the School of Medicine’s Black Medical Association chapter. The organization, she explained, seeks to help minority medical students, and to increase the number of such students. In March, she will travel to New York for the organization’s national conference.

Ms. Johnson, 25, said what she finds most surprising about her medical school experience to date is the diversity of non-medical interests among her fellow students.

“People have this stereotype of medical students as nerds who have their noses in books all the time,” she said. “While they do study hard, I’ve met so many who have diverse outside interests.”

For Ms. Johnson, those interests include writing poetry. While at West Bloomfield High School, she wrote a song titled “We Are One” for the school’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration. She wrote the lyrics and a teacher assisted with getting the music down on paper. Johnson sang the song at the celebration, which was attended by Gov. Jennifer Granholm. The governor was so moved she invited Johnson to perform the song in Lansing at her inauguration.

Ms. Johnson said she selected the Wayne State University School of Medicine because it allows her to remain close to home and family, but also because of the care it provides for the residents of Detroit and surrounding communities.

“I see a big need in this area for physicians,” she said. “The School of Medicine helps fill that need.”

Several factors seemed natural magnets to attract Ryan Kelly to the Wayne State University School of Medicine.

Mr. Kelly is a native of Detroit, and his father, who practices internal medicine in Lansing, is a 1975 graduate of the School of Medicine.

However, the 28-year-old did not immediately feel medicine’s call.

The third-year medical student majored in anthropology during his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to go into medicine. I just knew that I wanted to do something that helped people. I always wanted to work with people,” Mr. Kelly explained.

That need to work with people – coupled with an interest in travel – led the School of Medicine Class of 2009 president to Taiwan, where he taught English to kindergarteners for a year. The work schedule, he admitted, was a grueling 60 hours a week teaching in three different schools. The job did not allow much time for travel or the absorption of a different culture, but he did visit Cambodia to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

“Working with those children is when I realized I wanted to go into medicine and specialize in pediatrics,” said Mr. Kelly, 28, who lives in Detroit while attending the SOM. He received his master’s degree in basic medical science from Wayne State University.

As a member of the campus Aesculapians, Mr. Ryan takes part with other students in area volunteer activities, such as working at the Gleaners Food Bank and participating with Habitat for Humanity in building affordable housing for families. He also serves as captain of the Blueberry Pie Club intramural soccer team. The name, he explained, “is a long story” derived from his family’s penchant for blueberry pie and a Thanksgiving tradition. The team captured first place in its first and third years, and second place its second year.

“I love Detroit and I’d someday like to practice medicine and teach at a place like WSU,” he said. “I can see myself working here. I selected Wayne because of my Dad and my feelings for Detroit. Had other schools accepted me, I still would have chosen Wayne. Detroit needs good primary care physicians dedicated to the city.”

Mausumi Syamal’s life was arcing toward a career in theater, and she had even landed a role in a major Broadway production, when she felt the pull of medicine.

Ms. Syamal, 26, a third-year student at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, was rehearsing as a chorus member in New York when she made an about face, returned home to West Bloomfield, and began studying for a medical career.

“I was thinking about a career in entertainment for the rest of my life, but realized I didn’t want to do it as badly as I wanted to get into medicine,” Ms. Syamal said.

“I’ve been performing my entire life, and my undergraduate background is mechanical engineering, but in retrospect, I’ve always been interested in and around medicine,” she said. “Even in my engineering work I was studying blood flow.”

While engaged in her undergraduate studies at Duke University, Ms. Syamal spent her free time job shadowing an emergency room physician. At the University of Michigan, she involved herself in the fight against AIDS, taking to the streets with organized needle exchanges.

“I chose Wayne because it was a good fit for me because I wanted to be on the front lines of fighting disease,” she said. “Detroit is a great place to really be in the trenches. That was a big draw for me. My family is here, but this is the place where I think I can have the biggest impact.”

Ms. Syamal is interested in working in otolaryngology.

“It’s a good fit with my fluid mechanics education,” she said. “That’s where I see myself after graduation, if they’ll have me.”

Despite the rigors of medical school, she still finds time to perform and audition in metropolitan Detroit, and takes part in the university’s film competition.

Does her background in the performing arts assist in her medical studies?

“So much of medicine is auditioning,” she explained. “You audition every day as a medical student to be the best. With patients, you have to put yourself in their shoes to understand them, and that’s what acting is. It helps immensely. Every day is an audition for medical students.”