Robyn Smith, Former Penn State Undergraduate, is Graduate of Penn State Medical School

	Credit: John Biondo/Creative Visual Resources (Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center)

8 June 2004--Robyn Monet Smith, of Somerset, New Jersey, is among the new spring graduates of Penn State's College of Medicine at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Smith earlier had received her bachelor's degree from Penn State in 1999 in biochemistry and molecular biology at the University Park campus.

Smith says she knew she wanted to be a doctor since she worked at Stanford University's School of Medicine during the summer before her junior year at Penn State. That summer, she worked for three months in the dermatology department researching blistering skin disorders, but it wasn't until she and other students in the program visited the clinic at their laboratory that she decided she would rather practice medicine than perform research as a career. "At the clinic, we met some of the patients that we were doing research for," she said. "Once I could put a face on a disease, I realized I wanted to be a doctor more than I wanted to go into research. I wanted to have more interaction with people."

During her junior year, she visited the Medical Center with several other Penn State undergraduates who were interested in attending medical school. Henry McCoullum, coordinator of minority affairs for Penn State's Eberly College of Science, arranged the visit and accompanied the students as they toured the facilities and met some of the doctors. Smith said, "I really liked the Medical Center and I decided I wanted to go there."

Though she was excited when she found out she had been accepted to the College of Medicine, it meant that she had to choose between two careers. Smith had been dancing competitively since she was very young, and she was the first minority student to be a member--and captain, during her junior year--of the Penn State Dance Team. She said giving up dancing-something she loved her entire life--was a tough decision, and one that she sometimes questioned during her years in medical school. "Every time I thought I couldn't make it through medical school, I wondered if I had made the wrong choice," she said. "Now I know I made the right one, and I also learned how to fit dancing into my schedule, although I only have time now to do it for pleasure and not competitively."

She said the first week of medical school is the most difficult. "It's a huge transition. I worked really hard with my science classes in college, but the workload and magnitude of excellence expected in medical school is far beyond anything I experienced as an undergraduate," she said. But looking back on the whole experience, she appreciates everything she had to do and to learn. "Once I started working with actual patients, I saw things differently. Seeing a sick patient makes me appreciate what I've learned because I know that I can make them better," she said.

During difficult times, she turned to her spirituality. "Maintaining my Christianity and my belief in God has been a challenge I've faced in this field," she said. "But actually, attending medical school has strengthened my Christianity, because at those points where I didn't think I would make it, I called on God, which is one thing I have always been able to trust."

As a part of the Dance Team at Penn State, Smith was involved in Penn State's annual student-run dance marathon during all four years she was an undergraduate. Every year, "Thon" participants raise millions of dollars that they donate to the Medical Center's Four Diamonds Fund to help treat children who have cancer. Smith said participating in Thon made her want to work with children after becoming a doctor. "For four years, I saw how much money Thon donates every year to the Medical Center for kids with cancer," she said. "When I came to visit Hershey, I got to see the kids, and it touched my heart. I wanted to be able to enrich their lives and be a part of their cure."

On July 1, Smith will begin a three-year residency in pediatrics at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She said, "I'm looking forward to it because I'm finally starting my career, but I'm also a little anxious because it will be such a big responsibility." After her residency, she hopes to continue working in pediatrics and eventually to return to academia by either working in a teaching hospital or teaching at a medical school. She also is interested in youth outreach programs, and she hopes to one day be able to open her own dance studio in her spare time.

Smith, a graduate of Franklin High School in New Jersey, will be accompanied to the commencement by her mother, Sylvia Smith; her father, Lamont Smith; her grandmother, Gwendolyn Jones; and by Jason Alvarez, the pastor of her church, Love of Jesus Family Church in Orange, New Jersey, which Smith has been attending since she was six years old.

[KN/BKK]

CONTACT: Robyn Monet Smith, rms204@psu.edu

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