The diagnosis also explained some of the frustrations I experienced as a student in a research lab. The bright lights overhead often gnawed at my nerves. One pipette that makes a repetitive piercing sound (other students affectionately call it “The Beeper”) made me want to run out of the room.

With the diagnosis came grief and anger too. How had it taken so many years to get a diagnosis?

I had always been a good student and a nondisruptive kid. For years, my parents and teachers had addressed my anxieties but overlooked the source of the problem, as many do with well-behaved female children. In fact, 80% of girls with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) remain undiagnosed at age 18, likely because they mask their symptoms instead of acting out as many boys do.

Regardless of when the diagnosis comes, people with ASD can feel as though they are “living as a square in a circle world,” as a therapist described it to me.

Taking steps to adapt

When I finally received a diagnosis, I was empowered to take steps to adapt. As a Ph.D. student in the Clinical and Translational Sciences track at Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, I needed to find the right equipment that would enable me to work comfortably in a laboratory. I reached out to Mayo Clinic’s Office of Wellness and Academic Support — Disability Access Services, which assists Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science students who have a need for any type of disability accommodation. The office can help address accessibility issues in classrooms and lab spaces.

Within the office, a disability resource specialist met with me, provided information and offered several suggestions. I made arrangements to take periodic breaks from the lab to mitigate the effect of the bright, overhead lights. I learned about headphones I now wear at work to block out the sound of the dreaded Beeper. Among the suggested accommodations, I had the opportunity to choose those that would be helpful. Some of them, like extra time for exams, I don’t feel I need.

A new scientific goal

Importantly, my diagnosis steered my research focus. My scientific goal is to enable earlier diagnosis for ASD. I aim to develop an objective diagnostic test for autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. I hope to help other children and families receive a diagnosis as early as possible so they can seek supportive care and adaptive equipment to improve their lives.

As I chose a dissertation advisor, I was excited to join the laboratory of reproductive immunologist Sylvie Girard, Ph.D., in the Department of Immunology. Dr. Girard valued my life experiences and my desire to identify a practical biomarker that could be used in the clinic to identify infants at high risk of developing neurodevelopmental disorders.

We decided on the placenta as a place to begin looking for biomarkers. Pregnancy always involves inflammation, but too much inflammation can be detrimental to a growing fetus. The placenta, which is typically discarded after a baby is born, can serve as a proxy for the biological influences on childhood development, providing a window into the prenatal environment and fetal exposures.

At Mayo Clinic, we have the opportunity to study donated placental tissue samples for inflammatory markers. In addition, we can obtain consent from mothers to review data from their children’s medical charts as the children grow up. We then can correlate findings in the placenta with physicians’ clinical notes from routine pediatric appointments, observing children’s delays in hitting developmental milestones, up to age 24 months. The laboratory and clinical information may help us identify key molecules that could serve as early indicators of ASD risk.

Demystifying a diagnosis

For me, having information about my own ASD has been liberating and inspiring. However, as one ASD expert has explained about the variety of experiences that exist on the spectrum, “When you meet one person with autism — you’ve met one person with autism.” Often, when I disclose my diagnosis to others, a common response is, “You seem fine. Your autism must be very mild.” But autism can present challenges that others can’t see. My autism affects my life daily.

I am grateful to have the opportunity to modify my work environment so I can bring my expertise and enthusiasm to the important issue of neurodiversity. Through honest conversations and my laboratory research, I hope to continue demystifying ASD.

This article was originally published in Mayo Clinic News Network.

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"When I first learned that Mayo Clinic was advancing the larynx transplant, I thought the procedure is something that will be exciting for Mayo to be able to do for patients — something I couldn't even fathom," she says. "I knew I wanted to be fully involved in advancing the research in this area."

In addition to her medical degree, Hardy is pursuing a master's degree at Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Her research project is looking at ways to make the post-laryngeal transplant regimen easier for patients. Because receiving a transplant requires lifelong immunosuppressive drugs to prevent rejection of the new organ, Hardy is investigating removing the cells of a laryngeal transplant model, looking for approaches that reduce the immune response and, hopefully, the need for medication.

"If we can reduce the immune response or the need for immunosuppression, that could make laryngeal transplant available to more patients and improve their quality of life," she says. 

Voice as a Hobby and a Scientific Study

Finding joy in singing with others, Hardy participated in a choir in college, and when she came to medical school at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, she performed with a community-based barbershop group.

"I've always loved anything related to the voice," she says. "When I came to medical school, I'd never thought of incorporating that into my career until I began learning about laryngology and ear nose and throat surgery and realized how those specialties matched that specific interest."

As a medical student also interested in conducting biomedical research, her interest in the intersection of that work and singing would put her at the cutting edge of a brand-new field of study: regenerative sciences. During her first year of medical school, as she sought opportunities to work in a lab, she found David Lott, M.D., chair of the Department of Otolaryngology (ENT) - Head and Neck Surgery/Audiology at Mayo Clinic in Arizona. His research applies the approaches of regenerative medicine to restoring the voices of patients who have had a laryngectomy — a surgery to remove the voice box.

Regenerative medicine is an approach that shifts the focus from treating disease to rebuilding health by repairing, replacing or restoring damaged tissues, cells or organs. As director of the Head and Neck Regenerative Medicine Lab at Mayo Clinic, Dr. Lott has focused on establishing techniques to regenerate the voice box and restore its abilities after diseases or traumas.

"We're training the next generation of scientists and clinicians who are going to be pushing the field ahead."

— David Lott, M.D.

His work led to the first laryngeal transplant at Mayo Clinic — actually replacing a damaged voice box with all its necessary functions. People whose voice box was damaged from injury, cancer or the residual effects of radiation treatment — as many as 60,000 people in the U.S. — can neither speak with their natural voices nor breathe through their noses. Mayo Clinic is in the process of establishing the first ongoing larynx transplant program in the country. Dr. Lott and colleagues are advancing the transplant procedure and also exploring other regenerative approaches to larynx restoration, including the use of stem cells and growth factors to help grow functional tissue.

As Hardy learned about the lab's various approaches to laryngeal transplant and the potential to restore function through regenerative sciences, she knew she wanted to contribute to research to further options for voice-impaired patients.

The field of regenerative medicine is so new that few people are versed in its principles and techniques. Mayo Clinic is at the forefront of training the workforce in this emerging field, offering doctoral and postgraduate training in regenerative sciences through the Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Hardy is an example of the future physician-scientists that Mayo is training to deliver the newest regenerative technologies and carry on the work for the next generation.

"Education plays a key role, complementing the research and practice components, in the laryngeal transplant," says Dr. Lott. The entire staff involved in a transplant rehearsed and trained for it, including nurses who underwent specialized in-service training and online courses. Training for the laryngeal transplant provided a unique learning opportunity for residents at Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education, including head and neck surgical resident Payam Entezami, M.D., who assisted the surgical team. 

To address patient needs following the transplant, Hardy found she could amplify her medical school training by pausing it to pursue a master's degree in regenerative sciences, attending classes about its innovative approaches and conducting research in Dr. Lott's lab. She is among Mayo's first students in the program and says she is impressed by the topics involved — stem cells, tissue engineering, 3D bioprinting — and the vast areas of medicine it touches.

"There are so many different approaches within regenerative medicine and ways to apply it to specific clinical areas of interest," she says.

"We’re educating a specialized clinical workforce of the future, who will have the understanding to manifest the potential held within regenerative medicine," says Saranya Wyles, M.D., Ph.D., a dermatologist and associate director of education at Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Biotherapeutics. "Regenerative technologies, focused on restoring form and function, have the potential to transform standard of care. The approach begets a new set of skills."

Dr. Lott is enthusiastic that Hardy's research will contribute to the growing information about laryngeal transplant. He's also emphatic about the importance of the various educational opportunities emerging in regenerative medicine.

"We're training the next generation of scientists and clinicians who are going to be pushing the field ahead," he says. "It's one thing to be able to develop regenerative approaches for patients now. It's a whole other to establish the experts in this new field who can help patients for years and years down the road."

This article was originally published in Mayo Clinic News Network.

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REWAN ABDELWAHAB understood the many barriers to healthcare facing underserved communities. Born in Egypt, Rewan emigrated to the U.S. as a child and witnessed the lack of access to insurance and the difficulty navigating the U.S. health system faced by immigrant and low-income communities.

“I want to go into medicine as an advocate, to help provide treatment and management of care with a nuanced understanding and curiosity of a patient’s background and how care might be accommodated to that background,” Rewan says.

Once at Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, Rewan quickly found herself advocating for cultural and religious consideration not only for patients, but also for her fellow students and medical professionals across the country.

As a hijab-observing Muslim, Rewan discovered that religious practices haven’t always been considered in creating guidelines for sterile procedures and clothing in operating rooms. Motivated by a personal experience during a surgical observation and empowered by faculty mentors, she submitted an informative guide to the Journal of the American College of Surgeons focusing on adjusting operating room protocols to accommodate hijabs, natural hair, tichels, Sikh head coverings known as dastars, and beards, among others.

The impact of her advocacy was swift and far-reaching. Shortly after publishing the guide, the journal announced updated national guidelines for religious head coverings. At Mayo Clinic, the departments of Surgery and Anesthesiology have instituted staff training and new protocols for scrubbing in that consider the diverse religious and cultural backgrounds of all staff, including private wash areas and sterile head coverings.

“It was the support and resources of Mayo that allowed us to make a really substantial and tangible change in medical practice,” Rewan says. “Because of Mayo’s tailored aspect of education, I was able to dedicate time to push this initiative forward.”

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IT WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL that Ewoma Ogbaudu experienced the tragic spark that inspired his journey to medicine.

After emigrating from Nigeria when Ewoma was 3, his family grappled with various struggles in the United States, including financial challenges. These hardships shaped him, driving Ewoma to push himself academically throughout childhood, ultimately finishing as the first Black valedictorian of his Surprise, Arizona, high school.

Then, Ewoma’s young cousin died prematurely due to complications from a congenital heart defect. Even then, Ewoma knew the socioeconomic disparities their family faced contributed to the level of care his cousin received.

This formative experience and many more like it — from volunteering with community organizations in disadvantaged areas of New York City as an undergraduate at Columbia, to sharing tears with a Black mother and her son during a rotation as they processed the realities of her breast cancer diagnosis — have reinforced Ewoma’s decision to pursue medicine. Moreover, they continue to inspire him as he begins his master’s in business administration at Stanford this year, with the ultimate hope of leveraging business principles as a physician leader to improve access to healthcare.

He explains that none of this would be possible without the generous scholarship support he received from Mayo Clinic benefactors.

“I didn’t see it as just an investment in me and in my future, but I also saw it as a really strong investment in the marginalized and underserved communities that I want to impact in my future as a physician,” he says.

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GORDON XIE found his calling to medicine at a young age. While he was in high school, a family member was hospitalized with a mysterious medical condition. 

“When my family was at the hospital, there were moments where things could go one way or another,” Gordon says. “Everybody’s scared, and seeing the doctors bring out the best side of us made me really want to be able to do that for somebody else.”

Gordon believes that medicine is “the intersection of science and service,” and he sees his role as that of a teacher, informing and guiding patients and their families in times of crisis.

Spurred by his personal experience, Gordon volunteered with the homeless, youth and veteran populations near Ohio State University, further cementing his commitment to serving the most vulnerable. It also has led him to an interest in critical care medicine, a career path, he explains, that wouldn’t have been an option without the scholarship he received from Mayo Clinic benefactors.

“If I graduated with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, I would feel pressure to choose a career path to easily pay back my loans,” Gordon says. “This scholarship has removed money from the equation and empowered me to choose the field of medicine I am most passionate about.”

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Yonghun overcame his despair — and began following a new path. He had always had an interest in medicine, even taking pre-med courses while pursuing his degree in computer science at Stanford University. The death of his grandfather confirmed that he wanted to become a physician.

"That feeling of helplessness made me want to learn more about disease so I can empower people around me with that knowledge and learn how to better transition them through difficult times," he says.

Inspired by Passion, Propelled by His Scholarship

Yonghun is now a student at Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine. A first-generation immigrant from a low-income household, Yonghun acknowledges that scholarships made it possible for him to pursue this direction in his career. “I feel truly fortunate to be progressing through my education without the weight of debt influencing my career decisions,” he says.

With his scholarship giving him the freedom to follow his passions, he has focused on providing health care to people sleeping in parks and living in their vehicles. Yonghun says that as a child of immigrants, he relates to many of the struggles of people facing homelessness. As a child, he often interpreted at his parents' medical appointments, rarely received dental care because of the cost, and witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of addiction and the stigma surrounding mental illness in his community.

Today, Yonghun volunteers at The Landing day center, a nonprofit helping those facing homelessness in Rochester, Minnesota. He works alongside Casey Caldwell, M.D., a retired Mayo Clinic physician, to bandage wounds, listen to patients’ concerns about symptoms, and deliver other basic care. 

"Those facing homelessness deserve the same kind of care and concern that any other patient would receive," Yonghun says. "Their value should not be tied to if they can afford a home."

Reaching the Unseen and Underserved 

Yonghun feels compelled to not just care for unseen populations but also to be a voice for them in the broader medical community. As a student, Yonghun is achieving this by helping create opportunities for his classmates to care for those who are often underserved in the community and health care. 

When Jim Withers, M.D., the founder of the Street Medicine Institute, spoke at Mayo Clinic, he inspired Yonghun’s classmate Jeffrey Woods to start a similar program in Rochester. “When I heard Dr. Withers speak about street medicine, it was the most inspired and moved I’d been since starting medical school,” says Jeffrey.  “Building relationships with the community to help, heal and comfort those shunned by society is, for me, the pure spirit of medicine. Getting Mayo Clinic medical students and leadership on board was one of the easiest things I’ve ever done — a testament to the kind of people who work and learn here.”

Knowing about Yonghun's connection to The Landing day center, Jeff reached out to him, and Yonghun eagerly agreed to get involved.

First, they created a selective course focused on street medicine that attracted 28 medical students in its first year. They learned from community experts and participated in outreach efforts, such as creating warming kits and connecting with individuals to learn more about their needs. “We went under bridges and into the woods,” says Yonghun. “I think it’s important for us to experience the unconventional environments where people who don’t have reliable shelter live.”

The students are hoping to return to those unconventional spaces soon. They are creating a volunteer opportunity for students to provide basic medical care to people experiencing homelessness and to help connect them to resources for more complex care.

Fueling the Next Generation of Change-Makers 

By making it possible for committed, values-driven students like Yonghun to attend medical school, scholarships help drive big changes in health care for decades to come. What Yonghun is doing today for underserved communities is just a start. 

"I have this wish to create change on a large scale," Yonghun says. "I don't want to sit idle. I want to be an active part in driving changes that solve problems and make health care better for everyone, especially those who are often unheard and unseen." 

Make a gift now to inspire students like Yonghun to pursue their dream of a better future for health care.  

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Claudia Manriquez Roman graduated with her Ph.D. in virology and gene therapy and regenerative sciences from Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in May 2023, after working under mentor Saad Kenderian, M.B., Ch.B., a hematologist and oncologist who specializes in immunology and immunotherapies. Her thesis project was primarily centered on the development and optimization of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy, a cutting-edge immunotherapy that modifies a patient’s own immune system to target and destroy cancer cells. Her key focus was understanding the activation of CAR-T cells when encountering tumor cells and mitigating CAR-T cell death.

“It’s important for me to do meaningful work that is actually helping people who have cancer,” Dr. Manriquez Roman says.

Dr. Manriquez Roman’s studies revealed significant findings. She discovered that reducing the presence of a specific cytokine, an inflammatory molecule that’s present in patients who experience CAR-T cell-associated toxicities, resulted in CAR-T cells that are less prone to cell death. She also found similar results in depleting a specific receptor involved in the pathway that leads to cell death. Her research has opened the door to explore new approaches to improve the therapeutic efficacy of CAR-T cells in both blood cancers and solid tumors.

“These results provide opportunities to use secondary strategies for patients who have already relapsed or whose therapies are not working for them,” Dr. Manriquez Roman says. “The results we presented in my thesis lay the foundation in how we can better understand and modify these CAR-T cells so they can work better for patients.”

Dr. Manriquez Roman is now a scientist in the Center for Regenerative Biotherapeutics at Mayo Clinic, with the goal of fully translating CAR-T cell products into therapies that can be tested in clinical trials and eventually become new treatments for patients.

“Students and researchers like Claudia are essential,” says Dr. Kenderian. “These skills of engineering, making and testing CAR-T cells from the lab to clinical trials are hard to acquire. This is how we train the next generation of physicians, scientists and physician-scientists so we can continue to make novel therapies for patients.”

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A desire to help people drew her to engineering, but amid the liveliness of the Emergency Department, she realized a life in the lab would never compete with direct patient care. "A lot of engineering is working with devices and tools that could help people," Fatima says. "I loved that, but it missed the interactions with people that you're helping."

Change of Direction

After that experience, Fatima started to pursue a career in medicine and began applying to medical schools.

She initially applied to Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine because of the opportunity to split her training between its campuses in Minnesota and Florida, completing her final two years close to her family in Georgia. This is a new option, with the first full class of medical students training in Florida graduating in 2022.

But it was the interview process that sold her on Mayo Clinic. "Everyone I interacted with was so amazing and kind," she says. "I saw that reflected in the other applicants too. It just seemed like a genuine place that fosters a real community."

Discovering Her Passion

Fatima says that community and small class sizes have resulted in many experiences and direct interactions with faculty that would not be possible most places. Those experiences included a session to learn more about orthopedic surgery, which left Fatima knowing exactly what she wanted to do in medicine.

One of Fatima's favorite hobbies is home renovation. She loves the challenge of intricately piecing together the right screw or nail with precisely cut materials to bring a creation to life. "I've always liked building things," she says. "Orthopedics is like carpentry, putting things back together and working with angles and cuts. It was just so great."

That trip to the Emergency Department that initially pulled Fatima into medicine also influenced her decision to specifically focus on orthopedic trauma medicine. These specialists care for patients with significant injuries to the musculoskeletal system, such as broken, fractured and dislocated bones. She recalls being especially intrigued by the trauma cases coming in, making orthopedic trauma medicine the perfect combination of the problem-solving she loves and the excitement she felt in the Emergency Department.

The Power of Scholarship

Fatima received scholarship support for medical school and credits it with helping her discover a career that aligns with her passions. She says, "It's really allowed me to figure out what I want to do and go for it.”

As she pursues that dream and begins the daunting process of applying for residency programs, one of the things that keeps her motivated is recalling handwritten notes full of gratitude and thanks from patients she never met. "I would see them posted in the offices of Mayo Clinic surgeons," she says. "I want to make that kind of impact in somebody's life.”

Mayo Clinic attracts exceptionally bright students like Fatima who are driven by the opportunity to use their passions to bring hope and healing to patients. Scholarships help fuel that desire and empower the next generation of physicians. Make a gift now to help students pursue their dream of a medical education.

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Then, the team heard from a pathologist who had examined a tissue sample from the patient and discovered the answer.

"What sticks in my mind was the look of relief and gratefulness in his mom's eyes," says Dr. Bois. "The consultant told her that we had a name for what was going on with her son. We knew what her son was actually fighting and could turn our efforts to treating it."

Dr. Bois is now the pathologist bringing those answers to physicians, patients and families. Because of that experience, she knows that behind each slide she reviews, there is a story, and it's humbling to be the first to discover the answer.

Discovering a passion for medicine

While Dr. Bois finds deep meaning and intrigue working behind the microscope today, it wasn't where she envisioned working when she started college. In fact, she didn't even envision herself in health care. She was pursuing a degree in business with plans to go to law school.

That changed during her sophomore year in college when she had surgery for acute complications of an underlying autoimmune disease.

"I interacted with physicians and nurses daily in the hospital, and I saw what a difference their compassion made in my care and recovery," Dr. Bois says. "It gave me a renewed sense of purpose. I knew I had to at least consider going into medicine."

She returned to the University of Florida and enrolled in a couple of pre-medicine classes. In biology and chemistry, she discovered a passion that she hadn't experienced on her previous track toward a business degree. After the semester, she committed to pre-medicine as her major. She started shadowing physicians at her university and working in a lab doing research on cell proliferation models in insects.

When it was time to apply to medical school, Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine was her top choice. Dr. Bois knew Mayo Clinic well. Her dad, Steven Buskirk, M.D., is a radiation oncologist and longtime leader at Mayo Clinic who has served on Mayo Clinic's Board of Governors and Board of Trustees.

"My dad modeled the values every day as I was growing up. Those tenets resonated very deeply with me," says Dr. Bois. "There was no way to compete with Mayo Clinic in my mind, and the call that I was accepted was one of the biggest honors of my life."

Fascinating finds under the microscope

During medical school, Dr. Bois' career took shape when she was introduced to pathology. "I was considering radiology, pediatrics or psychiatry as specialties at the time. Pathology wasn't even on my radar," she says. "But my pathology teachers were phenomenal and drew me to the specialty."

Dr. Bois says it was like she discovered a secret world in her pathology courses, a world only comprehensible with the help of a microscope. She found it fascinating to read about how a disease process occurred and then watch it happen as she reviewed organ systems and looked at cells. She started to understand how diseases affect the body on a different level, satisfying her curiosity about how and why disease and illness happen.

Years later, she still approaches her work with the same enthusiasm.

"Every time I look at a slide under the microscope, there is more that I want to know and understand so I can better help patients," she says. "Better understanding how diseases work makes it possible to research how to prevent them from ever happening."

Generous benefactors help make it possible for Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine to create values-driven leaders like Dr. Bois for generations to come. The scholarships they provide allow the best and brightest students to train at Mayo Clinic to become innovative, compassionate physicians.

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"Seeing that really left a mark on me," says Johanny. "That's how I became inspired to become a physician — to alleviate suffering and improve access to care to people who are in similar unfortunate situations as my grandfather."

Discouraged but undeterred

Despite her motivation, Johanny was often discouraged by the financial investment required for medical school. "When I was in college, my mother was making about $15,000 a year, and I was working multiple jobs while attending school full time to help," she says. "With the expense of applying to medical school and tuition, I didn't see a way that medical school could work."

However, Johanny could not let go of her dream to practice medicine and started looking for someone who could help her find a path to medical school. She reached out to a friend who had recently started medical school. That friend connected her with Suliman El-Amin, M.D., a resident at Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education at the time.

Dr. El-Amin agreed to mentor Johanny. He gave her advice on study strategies for entrance exams, provided feedback on her application essays and helped her plot out a plan for applying, and even helped her explore ways to make applying to and attending medical school affordable.

Dr. El-Amin directed her to financial assistance resources to help with study resources, application fees and test fees, which can add up to thousands of dollars. Johanny also delivered restaurant orders and groceries in addition to her full-time job to help cover expenses.

Within six months of meeting Dr. El-Amin, Johanny was applying to medical schools, including Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine.

Scholarship gives the gift of exploration

Dr. El-Amin introduced Johanny to Mayo Clinic. "I saw in him that Mayo Clinic places a very high value on mentorship," she says. "And as I learned more about Mayo Clinic, I found that Mayo Clinic's values reflected a lot of my own values."

However, training at Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine would not have been possible without a full-tuition scholarship funded by generous benefactors.

Johanny's scholarship not only gave her the opportunity to train at the school but also made it possible to explore her passions in medicine. "One of the biggest gifts that comes with [a scholarship] is the freedom to really explore everything in medicine and think about what I value most and where I can serve patients the best instead of just thinking about how am I going to pay for the loans that I accrue in medical school," she says.

A future grounded in compassion and respect

For Johanny, her priority is making high-quality care more accessible. She wants to serve people from all walks of life, especially Spanish-speaking patients, immigrants and people from low-resource settings like her grandfather.

Johanny is already taking advantage of opportunities to serve these patients. She volunteered with primary care providers in Mexico and completed a course in the Dominican Republic to learn more about providing care in low-resource settings. She also has published articles on care for immigrants and presented to community groups about health care advocacy.

She hopes her future also includes starting a nonprofit to help underrepresented and economically disadvantaged students apply to medical school. "Access to medical education for these students is essential," she says. "They understand the experience of patients with similar backgrounds and are more likely to practice in settings with patients who don't always have access to the care they need."

However, for many of these students, the expense of medical school is prohibitive, and they have very limited resources to guide them through the application process when applying to medical school. Johanny wants to connect students with mentors like Dr. El-Amin. 

Again, she's already working on these aspirations. She helped start Student National Medical Association and Latino Medical Student Association chapters at Mayo Clinic. Both focus on supporting minority medical students.

Regardless of what her future holds, Johanny wants to practice medicine with the compassion she has witnessed at Mayo Clinic. "The first experience I had while at Mayo Clinic was seeing a physician in the hospital taking care of her patient, and one thing that amazed me, and something that I seek to emulate wherever I go, is the compassion she had," Johanny says. "No matter where other people come from, no matter what their journey has been, they always deserve to be treated with love, respect and dignity."

Make a gift now to help students like Johanny pursue their dream of a medical education.

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