How has JAMP helped you as you strive to achieve your goal of becoming a doctor? JAMP has given me the opportunity to go to medical school and become a doctor by not only assisting me academically and emotionally, but also financially. The help that JAMP provides prior to medical school is invaluable. The summer internships allowed me to have a glimpse of what medical school would be like. It allowed me to build relationships with faculty and medical students and gave me reassurance that I was on the right track.

What advice would you like to offer current or future JAMP students?
My advice would be to work hard and don’t let the fact that you have guaranteed medical admission prevent you from doing so. Medical school is hard and you have to work hard everyday in order to do well. Strive to give your best effort now as it will pay off in medical school and further on.   

What aspect of JAMP has been most beneficial to you?
I would say the summer internships have been the most beneficial to me. The fact that you get taught by actual medical school faculty and get to know them before medical school starts is priceless. I did my first internship in Lubbock, where I had to take anatomy and was exposed to cadavers after my sophomore year of college. When I took anatomy my first year of medical school, I already had an idea of what anatomy lab would be like, what it would be like to work with cadavers. This is the kind of experience that JAMP allows you to have and that no one else has at such an early time in their career.

About Grecia:
I grew up in Honduras and moved to Texas when I was 14. I went to high school in Houston, where I applied to be in a program that would allow me to volunteer at Memorial Hermann Hospital in the medical center. This was my first time getting exposed to the medical field. I went to Texas A&M University and it was at the end of my freshman year when I learned about JAMP. I decided to apply that summer and it was the spring semester of my sophomore year when I was accepted to it. I did my first internship at Texas Tech in Lubbock and my second one at UTMB in Galveston. I graduated from Texas A&M with a degree in Nutrition. I go to medical school in San Antonio. As far as my future goals, I’m still undecided as to what kind of doctor I want to be, but I’m hoping that changes in my third and fourth years of medical school. I’m also working on my Masters in Public Health and I’m hoping to incorporate my medical and public health knowledge in order to become a better physician.