UF College of Medicine's new student blog, "Becoming a Physician." (Right click to view blog)
Medical school can sometimes feel like a bizarre world of its own, especially at the start.
Between the countless hours studying and anatomy lab, it’s hard being a first-year medical student. It’s also one of the most exciting and invigorating times for young soon-to-be-physicians.
It’s a journey the University of Florida doesn’t want to miss, so two energetic first-years have agreed to write a blog, “Becoming a Physician,” for UF’s College of Medicine. The blog will document the thrills and stresses of medical school as these two encounter their first cadavers, first patients and other firsts that lead to becoming a physician.
The bloggers are:
Lauren Simmons is a Pembroke Pines native who attended Everglades High School — also home of the Gators. She went on to study chemical-biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she spent her free time as a guard for MIT’s women’s basketball team. After spending numerous hours at her local doctor’s office to correct lazy eye, she became interested in medicine. She spent about 20 days in Accra, Ghana, in the summer of 2008 as a Global Impact Fellow with Unite for Sight, an experience that she said “motivated and inspired me to pursue a career in medicine, so that I could continually improve the lives of others each and every day.” She is a recipient of the Cullen W. Banks, M.D., Scholarship.
Girard Cua is a Palm Beach Gardens native who moved to Gainesville in 2009 with his mother and sister. He attended the University of Florida, where he studied English literature. He enjoys tennis, drawing and writing. Always wanting to expand his horizons, he took classes in Dutch and German in college and tries to practice the languages every day. He chose medicine after taking some chemistry and biology classes in college to see if he’d like them. He is a Florida Medical Opportunity Scholarship recipient.
Readers can follow Simmons and Cua by entering an email address in the “Subscribe to our blog” section of the blog’s menu.