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.”

Alison Van Dyke believes that her work as an M.D./Ph.D. candidate studying in the Cancer Biology program may one day lead to much earlier diagnosis of those at high risk for lung cancer.

Studying with Ann Schwartz, M.P.H., Ph.D., Ms. Van Dyke’s work focuses on inflammation in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCL), including chemoprevention methods, and the association between biomarkers and survival among NSCL patients. Future projects include exploring the relationship between cytotokine single nucleotide polymorphisms and the risk of NSCL and survival among those patients.

The research, she said, may lead to the development of screening tools that could be used to identify people at high risk for developing lung cancer. Those identified as high risk for development of the disease could then be clinically monitored more closely, resulting in earlier diagnosis and improved prognosis.

“I’m attracted to helping make highly unpredictable diseases more predictable in their course, thus enabling patients to lead lives that are not dictated by variability in their disease manifestations,” she explained.

Ms. Van Dyke decided to enter a medical career while studying behavioral neuroscience as an undergraduate.

“I took a course on the psychobiology of stress,” she explained. “It focused on how chronic elicitation of the stress response can lead to cardiovascular disease, peptic ulcers and other conditions. It was through that course that I was intellectually drawn to medicine as an applied science. I like the idea that something being researched could directly translate into the care of a human being.”

Originally from Memphis, Tenn., Ms. Van Dyke, 33, selected Wayne State University School of Medicine for her education because the school presents a “unique combination of intensive clinical training unparalleled elsewhere and competitive interdisciplinary research” in her interests.

The second-year graduate student, who has completed two years of medical school, said the new formalized M.D./Ph.D. program administrators have been flexible in allowing her to tailor her course of study to current research and her future interests.

Ms. Van Dyke’s goals include a career in academic medicine. “I’ve discovered that I really enjoy making complex subjects more digestible and like giving talks,” she said. “Deciphering genetic associations with disease risk, presentation, and outcome and adverse reactions to pharmacological interventions while focusing on inflammatory pathways in autoimmune diseases remain my future focus.”

Students at the Wayne State University School of Medicine serve the community in many ways.

Mike Kopec, 25, chose to volunteer with Karmanos Hospice slightly more than one year ago because of his interest in end-of-life care.

“I wanted to be exposed to patients who were dying, something that I had never experienced before,” he said. “I also felt that I would be able to serve those patients well by spending time with them when they perhaps needed some extra companionship or care.”

In that role, Mr. Kopec may sit silently with nonresponsive patients, chat with those who are up to a talk, or bring a holiday or birthday card to brighten the day. “Sometimes I act as an advocate within my capacity when the situation calls for that,” he said.

Since the summer of 2006, the third-year medical student has been immersed in a project evaluating depression and its risk factors among teenagers attending two Detroit-area teen health clinics.

“I originally got involved in this project because I have an interest in community health and wanted to do a project that contributed to the Detroit area in some way,” said Mr. Kopec. “From this study I hope that we will be able to come up with some effective interventions to improve mental health among Detroit teens.”

Mr. Kopec decided to pursue a medical education his senior year in high school after his family physician assisted him with recurring headaches. “He helped me, and I thought I’d like to be there for people and build those types of trusting relationships. It’s the humanistic side of medicine that attracted me.”

The third-year medical student grew up in Flint, but now lives in Detroit. He chose the Wayne State University School of Medicine because he wanted to remain near his family and study in Michigan, but also for the clinical training opportunities the school provides. “That was a big plus,” he said. “The patient load here is such that we get a lot of hands-on training.”

With 18 months of medical school to complete, he has not yet settled on a specialty, but is considering primary care.

No matter his chosen field or practice location, Mr. Kopec insists he will live in the community he serves. “I want to be among the patient population I’m serving. No matter where I am in the future, I want to be involved in my community. That appeals to me and that’s why I currently live in Detroit.”