How has JAMP helped you strive to achieve your goal of becoming a doctor?

JAMP is excellent at providing resources and opportunities to gain exposure within the medical field. The summer programs not only provide classes to expand your medical knowledge, they also pair you with a physician that you can follow in clinic for the whole month. With this JAMP helped me solidify the notion that this is what I want to do. Going into the hospitals and clinics and seeing patient encounters was a wonderful experience. I want to go out into my community and treat those that need it the most. These summer programs also offer insight into the life of a medical student and allow for networking opportunities. It never hurts to know a couple of the people that attend and work at medical schools.

 

What advice would you like to offer current or future JAMP students?

The one advice I can give is to take advantage of the program to the fullest. JAMP is a wonderful opportunity and there are not a whole lot of programs like it out there if any. I encourage you to go out there and learn the most that you can, get to know your colleagues and mentors, and definitely push yourself. The learning opportunities provided by the program are unique. You get to learn from professors that teach medical students. In some cases, you will be taking some of the same coursework that medical students take in their first year. You should use this time to not only learn some new material but to also see if this is really something you want to do. Remember, those around you are going through some of the same struggles as you and some of them will end up being lifelong friends. In my case, I now attend medical school with at least four people that I attended summer programs with and I met my current roommate during my first summer program. Your mentors throughout the program have great insight into the whole premedical process. Don't forget that they were once in your shoes and believe it or not, they usually have some good pointers that may help you out in the long run. It is also a good idea to have friends in a lot of different places. You should always strive to push yourself out of your comfort zone. Those moments when you are faced with new challenges are great opportunities to grow in many different aspects. For some of you, JAMP will provide your first experiences being away from home for extended periods of time. You will be taken to a place you may not have been before and put alongside another handful of people that you don't know. These experiences tend to be very interesting and rewarding.

 

What aspect of JAMP has been most beneficial to you?

The most helpful thing for me was the opportunity to meet others that share the same goal I do. It allowed me to form a support group before I even entered medical school. You will find that during your years at medical school your support group plays an enormous role in helping you succeed. You need friends to help you get through medical school. Every now and then you just need to wind down and not think about medicine for a while. In these instances, it is important to have a couple of friends to distract you. JAMP offered me the opportunity to find some of these people. Some of my closest friends in medical school were my closest friends during the summer programs.

About Daniel:

I was born in Cd. Juarez, Mexico and was raised in the border town of El Paso. I did my undergraduate degree at The University of Texas at El Paso in Biology. I was lucky enough to graduate early and spent a year and a half working as a scribe at a local ER center. I now attend McGovern Medical School in Houston and I am currently starting my third year. For a long time I had wanted to become a surgeon, but now that I am doing my rotations I find that maybe there is more to medicine than surgery. Maybe my plans will change. What I do know is that I want to partake in some aspects of academic medicine and help train medical students and residents.