09/14/2025
I figured my 100th post should be celebratory! Thank you all for following me along my career journey! I’m excited to continue to grow and expand my knowledge in my beloved field of dermatology where my passion for both art and medicine collide.
I have always been creative & artistic. I danced for 8 years as a child. I also loved cake decorating and sewing when I was quite young. But my love for oil painting, particularly portraiture, took off my freshman year of high school. I remember combining oil paints & my own makeup on canvas to give my faces depth and glow that I could not achieve with my paints alone. I continued with different media ranging from graphite to pastels, watercolor, and ceramics, but oil on canvas remains my favorite.
I can remember sitting in my high school chemistry class and thinking that I could see myself doing “science” for a career. My only concern was whether or not I would be able to explore and expand my creative side, being that science is so rigid and dogmatic. I captained my cheerleading squad in high school to keep my dance & creative appetite fed.
I explored my career options as science classes turned into biology classes, then pre-medical education. In college, I rowed crew, pledged sorority, joined honor societies, went on a medical mission to Costa Rica and Panama, studied abroad for a semester in Madrid, Spain, & finished with a double major in Spanish & Biology with a pre-med concentration & my senior thesis studying the inflammatory process of acne.
Fresh out of college, I took a summer internship with the National Institutes of Health at the National Institute on Aging working in a fruit fly lab studying the effects of nutrition on aging and longevity. I won the poster contest that summer, which granted me a fellowship to work there for another year. I got 3 journal publications out of that research job, learned so much about running scientific studies, and made so many friends along the way.
I completed a Biomedical Sciences program at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and subsequently matriculated into the physician assistant program there, graduated in 2011, and I’ve been in dermatology ever since!💖
