more than medicine

This weekend I had the amazing opportunity to attend this year’s Biomedical Science Careers Program Conference, BSCP.  This conference is open to minorities ranging from high school to postdoctoral students. We had the chance to meet many successful people in the sciences working in many areas such as, in industry, academic labs, medical doctors, professors, deans of colleges, even people that had created their own company or were CEO’s and CMO’s of an established company.

I want to break down the conference and tell you a little bit about what it consisted of more in depth and what I learned.

BSCP is a two day conference established in 1991 by Dr. Joan Y. Reede, MD, MS, MPH, MBA, Dean for Diversity and Community Partnership at Harvard Medical School. (Yes, we actually got to meet her and ask her anything. And yes, I am still fan-girling over this amazing woman.)

On Friday, April 6th in the early afternoon a few students were invited to Harvard Medical School (this was first come first serve upon registration) where we had the chance to hear about their graduate programs, their medical school, and how to apply to these programs. Afterwards, we took a tour of a few of the labs at the medical school. Everyone had their choice of 2 labs they wanted to see. The ones I chose were Dr. Lahav’s  and Dr. DePace’s Lab.

Dr. Lahav’s lab focuses on the signaling pathway of the tumor suppressor p53. Dr. DePace’s lab focuses on the mechanism and evolution of gene expression utilizing drosophila as a model organism.

(I just realized I could turn my experience from this conference into a novel so I’m going to try and condense it.)

The actual conference started later that evening where we had dinner and listened to a keynote speaker, Dr. Freda C. Lewis-Hall, MD, DFAPA, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Pfizer Inc. She was absolutely phenomenal. The night ended with a workshop.

The next morning, Saturday, April 7th, each student got paired with an advisor. My advisor was Dr. David Neumeyer, MD, Dean of Admissions at Tufts Medical School. At first I was a little intimated by him but he was so friendly and related that I opened up in no time. I got to ask a ton of questions that I didn’t even know I had and would otherwise never have been able to ask such a qualified person (this could a whole separate blog post on its own, let me know if your interested in reading about this!) Throughout the day we had two more keynote speakers: Dr. Jeff Leiden, MD, PhD, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer at Vertex Inc. and Dr. Michelle A. Williams ScD, Dean of the Faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and ended with two more workshops.

Now, if you’ve gotten this far I want to take some time to tell you about what I learned.

1. Be relentless in the pursuit of your goals. Many people will tell you that you can’t, and you may even doubt yourself sometimes but believe me you can!

In one of the workshops, Constructing your Career Agenda, Dr. Yvonne Gomez-Carrion, MD, FACOG  told us confidence is key and that throughout her career she had heard her fair shares of “you can’t do it” but you can only go as far as you allow yourself. So I asked “Dr. Gomez-Carrion was there ever a time that you doubted yourself?” and she answered “Of course, everyone has those days but that is why its important to surround yourself with a support group that will lift you up when you can’t.” Another panelist present, Dr. Edward A. Kravitz, PhD, also mentioned “If you get accepted into a program believe you can do it, because the people that accepted you already believe that you can.”

2.  Representation matters!

As I sat in the gigantic conference room I was overwhelmed by the talent, passion, and drive these wildly successful people exhibited (particularly, the women of color present) One of my mentors “Winny, you have some challenges ahead, not because you’re not intelligent or you can’t do it because I fully believe that you can, but because of what you represent, you are a triple minority: you are black, you are Latina, and you are a woman.” and in that room these women confirmed that this was true and that we would have to work a little harder and a little smarter but it is not impossible. I will never let my sister or any other young woman of color believe that because of the color of their skin and because they are women that they can’t do something. Too many people have shed blood, sweat, and tears for us to be where were at today and I have no intention of letting their sacrifice go to waste and keep the fight alive.

There is so so sooo much more that I learned but for the sake of keeping this blog post a reasonable length I will end here, but please by all means if you want to know more ask me!

warmest wishes,

Winny ❤️