Kamaria Lee

Kamaria Lee
Kamaria Lee, '16
M.D. Candidate, Washington University School of Medicine
St. Louis
Ann Arbor, MI
Research Assistant, University of Michigan Cancer Surveillance and Outcomes Research Team and Harvard University Department of Sociology

 

During freshman year, I fell in love with sociology and, at the same time, was committed to entering the field of medicine. However, I realized that the connections between the two fields were numerous—especially when considering the skills needed for public health work, another passion of mine.

After graduation, I traveled to El Salvador to continue research on women’s reproductive health issues with a sociology professor. Through conducting interviews, I learned more about how bettering global health requires a thorough understanding of the opinions and knowledge of the community that one wishes to help.

Once I returned from the trip, I began to work as a research assistant for the University of Michigan’s Cancer Surveillance and Outcomes Research Team. The research skills that I gained in my sociology courses (e.g., survey development, interviewing, and qualitative coding) gave me many opportunities, as these skills are less common in the medical field. Specifically, I was able to publish my first paper, which is about breast cancer survivors’ perceptions of their risk of systemic breast cancer recurrence.

I am now a medical student at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and hope to also obtain an MPH. My experiences in Harvard’s sociology department are what have given me the foundation to build a medical career that integrates the basic and social sciences, and through this I will be able to serve populations both in the U.S. and abroad in a more in-depth and informed manner.