FORT WORTH – For medical student Jenna Williamson, a tour of the Kimbell Art Museum helped hone her observation skills and gave her a deeper understanding of patient care.
“If you take the time to sit down, be patient, listen and watch – kind of like how we did with the artwork – you could understand so much more about a person, their motivations and how you can help,” said Williamson, a first-year medical student at the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University.
Williamson was one of several students who took part in the Burnett School of Medicine Physician Communication team’s multi-part series on the relationship between art and medicine.
For the second year, medical students, faculty and staff attended the “Introduction to Art Medicine” tour at the Kimbell Art Museum to discover how an analytical eye translates across both art history and patient care.
While it’s important for our students to learn the curriculum and sciences, it’s “also important that they take time away from the classroom and look at other parts of the world,” said Heather Hale Nguyen, Director of Humanities and Communication.
The guided tour was designed to sharpen observation skills and to encourage the aspiring physicians to slow down when caring for patients, she said.
“I think art will make me a better physician,” Williamson said. “It will help me to take my time and listen well to patients.”
While news headlines have caused concern, Dr. Bhayani says the current situation is specifically connected to the Andes virus, a South American strain known for high fatality rates and rare person-to-person transmission. Hantavirus strains typically found in the United States do not spread between humans and are instead contracted through contact with the urine, saliva, or droppings of infected rodents.
“The Gold Humanism Honor Society annually recognizes medical students, residents and faculty members who demonstrate exceptional compassion and empathy when caring for patients,” said Jo Anna Leuck, M.D., Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. “The inductees also serve as role models, mentors and leaders in medicine.”
All recipients are selected based on “demonstrated excellence in clinical care, leadership, compassion and dedication to service,” Dr. Leuck said.
The class of 2026 inductees received pins and gold cords to wear during the academic convocation. The inductees are Cortland Ewing, M.D. ’26; Moriah Carlson, M.D. ’26; Mitchel Hawley, M.D. ’26; Alison Hodge, M.D. ’26; Constance Linardo, M.D. ’26; Jessica Lipetsky, M.D. ’26; and Tianci Wang, M.D. ’26;. In addition, Kyung Park, M.D. ’26, was previously inducted in 2025.
At the luncheon, emcee Blake Dwyer, M.D. ’26, and his classmates Alison Hodge, M.D. ’26, and Mariah Drown, M.D. ’26, presented awards the students voted on.
Assistant Professor Layla Edwards, M.D., received the Faculty Excellence Award. Dr. Drown relayed several student comments about Dr. Edwards including: “She has time and time again made my path as a medical student feel like a walk in the park with her support and dedication to education and inclusivity. Watching her educate us was like watching a world-renowned artist paint.”
Financial Aid Advisor Rachel Long, MLA, received the Staff Excellence Award from the students: “She is a true advocate for students and an essential part of what makes our institution feel like home,” Dr. Hodge said.
Lauren Hui, M.D. ’26, closed the luncheon with remarks about their medical school years at TCU.
“Our class has shown grit and resilience – a ton of changes to schedules and unexpected obstacles that were never anticipated,” she said. “That’s what makes us – and I’m biased – the best class.”
FORT WORTH – Ten years ago, Phil Hartman, Ph.D., was on the committee to select the founding dean for a new TCU medical school. One of the job candidate’s statements stood out.
“I was struck by one thing he said during the interview: ‘We’re going to build a medical school that’s unlike any other medical school in the United States,’” recalled Hartman, Emeritus Dean and Professor, Louise Dilworth Davis College of Science & Engineering at Texas Christian University. “I was thinking, ‘Yeah, sure. I’m not believing this.’”
“Even though it was my name being mentioned, it was a cast of many who helped us succeed here over the decade,” Dean Flynn said.
TCU Chancellor Daniel W. Pullin, J.D., spoke at the luncheon about Dean Flynn’s leadership. “He has shaped a vision, built a culture and inspired a community.”
“You’re not simply building a medical school,” Parker said of Dean Flynn. “You’re helping shape the future of healthcare right here in Fort Worth.”
At the event, Chancellor Emeritus Victor J. Boschini, Jr. unveiled a placeholder portrait of Dean Flynn as a coach, a role he’s familiar with, having coached many youth basketball and soccer teams throughout his life.
Boschini and his wife, Megan, also received a surprise. The medical school’s fourth floor conference room was dedicated to them and will now be called the “Megan and Dr. Victor J. Boschini, Jr.” conference room. They were honored for their exceptional leadership and service in support of TCU medical students.
FORT WORTH – For first-generation medical students, graduation marks the culmination of years of hard work and something even more profound: the fulfillment of a dream built without a family roadmap to follow.
“The journey of a first-generation physician involves unique challenges,” said Anant Patel, D.O., Assistant Dean for Student Affairs at the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University. These students “navigate the complexities of medical school applications to mastering clinical environments without prior family exposure to the field.”
Creating a roadmap for first-generation students involves building student communities, supporting student well-being and contributing to their professional identity formation, which are all core parts of the Empathetic Scholar® curriculum, according to Dr. Patel.
At the Burnett School of Medicine, first-generation graduating medical students matched into competitive medical specialties and residency programs across the nation.
Angela Abarquez, M.D. ’26
Internal Medicine, Ochsner Clinic Foundation – New Orleans
For Angela Abarquez, M.D. ’26, becoming a doctor carried the weight of generations of family members. Her father and his three siblings were raised by a single mother in a hotel room in the Philippines. Her aunt dreamed of being a physician, but her family didn’t have enough money to send her to medical school.
“My parents always told me their biggest gift to me is my education,” Abarquez said. “They are super proud that I was able to make it all the way to medical school.”
She leaned on several faculty members at Burnett School of Medicine to discuss the difficulties of navigating the academic rigors of medical school.
“There were many times where I could tell my parents knew I was struggling and wanted to help, but they didn’t quite know what to say,” Abarquez said. “Luckily, our school has so many people that want to help us and I am so grateful for the relationships.”
On the day, her dad told his sister the graduation date, “she booked her flight to be here,” Abarquez said. “Hearing ‘Dr. Abarquez’ will be powerful. It represents everything my family has done to give me what they didn’t have.”
Cort Ewing, M.D. ’26
Otolaryngology, University of Oklahoma College of Medicine – Oklahoma City
His father, Kip Ewing, was a first-generation college student making Cort’s medical school journey another significant milestone in their family’s educational legacy.
“I think he’s committed and he cares about people,” Kip Ewing said about Cort. “More than anything else he’s always challenging himself to be a better doctor and to learn more.”
The Ewing family takes immense pride in what Cort has achieved.
“I’m excited to take that next step forward,” he said. “I hope to honor that dedication to make a difference in the lives of others using this blessing that I’ve had.”
Lauren Hui, M.D. ’26
Interventional Radiology, Yale – New Haven Hospital – CT
Lauren Hui, M.D. ’26, credits her success to mentors and others who have helped her along the way.
“I think being first generation also means having to seek out all the information yourself, having to find mentors and role models for yourself along the way who can help,” Hui said.
Hui matched in interventional radiology at Yale School of Medicine. She hopes to take her success in medical school and pay it forward for medical students following her.
“Being first generation means we have a unique perspective that we can share with those coming after us,” Hui said. “Paying it forward as a mentor and lifting each other up only makes us better physicians whether that’s to our patients or to our future colleagues.”
Maha Khan, M.D. ’26
General Surgery, Rush University Medical Center – Chicago
A childhood skiing accident introduced Maha Khan, M.D. ’26, to the world of health care. Observing the impact physicians had on her own recovery motivated her to provide that same reassurance to others in their most vulnerable moments. However, her path to medicine started in engineering, a profession both of her parents pursued. Kahn received her undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering and would routinely visit hospitals.
“I used to work in the lab with tools, and I used to fix machines,” Khan said.
Often, she watched doctors interact with their patients and was inspired by the relationships that developed. These interactions enheartened her to apply to medical school in 2022. Khan is the first person in her family to become a doctor.
“The Burnett School of Medicine at TCU gave me the space and resources to grow into my own path versus giving me a path and making me follow it,” Khan said. “They were so invested in mentoring and helping us grow as future physicians since day one.”
Khan matched into general surgery at Rush Medical Center in Chicago. Match Day was a full-circle moment for her.
“Because of the Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC) curriculum and opportunities the school gave me, I was able to grow into the surgeon I’ve always wanted to be,” Khan said.
Kailie McGee, M.D. ’26
Internal Medicine, Baylor University Medical Center – Dallas
For Kailie McGee, M.D. ’26, her path to being a physician began by witnessing her family’s vulnerability during a medical crisis. Her grandfather was diagnosed with stomach cancer when she was a child. She remembers her family asking physicians to do all they could for her grandfather.
“We just put all of our trust in the physicians and the team,” McGee said.
She was drawn to the Burnett School of Medicine’s Empathetic Scholar® curriculum that emphasizes human connection alongside clinical excellence.
McGee said she wanted to be that kind of physician for other people: “It made me realize that this is what I’m meant to be doing.”
FORT WORTH –June 23, 2025, is a date Mariah Drown, M.D., ’26, would like to forget, but it was also the day she discovered a level of inner strength she didn’t know she possessed.
At the time, Dr. Drown was in the final week of a high-stakes away rotation at a hospital in San Francisco. Her day began with a frustrating setback, the catalytic converter had been stolen off her friend’s car. But by that afternoon, a stolen car part was the least of her worries.
“I got calls that the apartment complex I’ve lived in for four years was catching on fire — and it was on my floor,” Dr. Drown said.
The Cooper Apartments, located in Fort Worth’s Medical Innovation District (MID), had been her home since she started at the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at TCU in 2022. On that June afternoon in 2025, the complex directly across from the medical school was engulfed in a six-alarm blaze. The fire, which originated on the roof, caused a partial collapse of building one and displaced 834 residents, including 40 medical students.
“I had to learn what it was like to have one suitcase of belongings,” Dr. Drown said. “Initially it was sad because that was home and a safe space.”
While Dr. Drown was hundreds of miles away, her classmate Angela Abarquez, M.D., ’26, was processing the same shock from an away rotation in Austin.
“It became more clear later on that people were not able to return to their units,” Dr. Abarquez said. “I was just thinking, ‘where am I going to go?’ It was very stressful.”
Two other classmates, Jonathan Bindi, M.D., ’26, and Amanda Block, M.D., ’26, also lived at The Cooper, though their units were spared from the flames.
Faced with the uncertainty of where she would live when she returned to Fort Worth, Dr. Drown made a pivotal choice. She decided to channel her stress into her work, refusing to let the chaos in Texas derail her performance in California.
“It was important to me to maintain a level of dedication and focus,” Dr. Drown said. “I was able to put it on the back burner. I wanted to perform as well as I had the week before.”
That compartmentalization paid off. While the Fort Worth and TCU c0mmunities rallied to raise money for the Student Emergency Fund, the medical students stayed focused on their goals. That resilience led to a successful Match Day for the group: Dr. Abarquez matched in internal medicine at Ochsner Clinic Foundation, Dr. Block in psychiatry at UNC Hospitals, and Dr. Bindi in ophthalmology at UC Davis Health.
Dr. Drown will head to Brooklyn, New York, to start an emergency medicine residency at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University. It’s a specialty that requires a calm mind in the middle of a crisis, a skill she proved she already possesses.
“Ultimately, it taught me a lot about adversity,” Dr. Drown said. “And how to keep going even when your world is a little shaky.”
Less than a year after a historic six-alarm fire at the Cooper Apartments left 40 students including four graduates displaced, this resilient cohort bounced back with a 100% residency match rate.
“We have worked with these graduates for four years to instill the values of empathy, compassion, and deep medical knowledge,” said Stuart D. Flynn, M.D., Founding Dean of the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU. “As newly minted doctors, we know they will embrace the challenge to stay true to those qualities throughout their careers.”
TCU Chancellor Daniel Pullin, J.D., offered poignant advice to the graduates, emphasizing the weight of their new roles.
“You are graduating with a distinctive set of skills, a deeper sense of purpose, and a lifetime commitment to caring for others,” Chancellor Pullin said. “The greatest advances in medicine come from those who refuse to accept limits.”
“You can be and will be in healing relationships with your patients whether it’s a kid with a sore throat, a surgery or listening to a son kneeling with a father with Alzheimer’s,” Dr. Chadwick said. “Starting every day with a prayer of how I can help someone heal today will be a huge success and be full of meaning.”
Reflecting on the class’s journey, Cort Ewing, M.D. ’26, a Gold Humanism Society inductee, spoke on behalf of his peers. He touched on the their trials and tribulations.
“Despite this, each of us stands here today. TCU, Fort Worth, and the people with us today have rallied to support us,” Dr. Ewing said. “Your patients and colleagues will look to you for strength and consistency just as we have looked to the people in this room.”
During the ceremony, the graduates received doctoral hoods and recited the Hippocratic Oath. These new physicians will begin prestigious residency programs across the United States this June carrying the Burnett School of Medicine’s legacy of empathy and excellence into the future of health care.
This latest cohort of Empathetic Scholars® followed a vast range of paths, from the track to the engineering lab, to reach this moment of professional transition. Here are some of their stories:
For Isabella Aguiar, M.D. ’26, the road to medicine was paved with both the quiet observations of a daughter and the cadenced stride of a distance runner.
Raised in San Diego after her family emigrated from Brazil, Dr. Aguiar’s first exposure to health care was defined by what was missing, a shared language. Watching her parents navigate doctor visits through a language barrier planted a seed of intentionality in her mind.
“It’s much harder to build a relationship when you can’t speak the same language,” Dr. Aguiar said. “Even with translators something is often lost. I’ve always kept that in mind.”
While that seed was planted early, it was athletics that first brought her to Fort Worth. A D-1 cross-country runner, Dr. Aguiar chose TCU for its community feel and a smaller environment where she could find her pace on the track and in the classroom.
Her clarity of her “calling” to pursue medicine came during a shadow day with a family medicine physician. Watching the doctor move between patients with a consistent, compassionate heart – whether she had known them for years or mere minutes – gave Dr. Aguiar a glimpse into her future.
“I fell in love with those relationships,” she said. “I realized I wanted to be that bridge for my own patients.”
As she transitioned from the track to the Burnett School of Medicine, the traits that made her a successful athlete – discipline, teamwork, and sheer endurance – became her greatest assets. In the school’s Empathetic Scholar® curriculum, she found a way to apply her competitive spirit to a new mission.
“In medicine, you’re working with so many different people across different aspects of care,” Dr. Aguiar said. “I love being able to continue that teamwork in a way that truly matters.”
Dr. Aguiar matched in Internal Medicine at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She enters residency with a clear goal, reducing the very barriers her parents once faced and centering every patient-provider relationship on clear communication.
“The curriculum at TCU focuses so heavily on communication,” she said. “That was exactly what I needed to become – the physician I always imagined I could be.”
For Oluwatoyin Duyile, M.D. ’26, the spark that ignited a career in medicine was as simple as it was profound. It began in a small clinic in Nigeria, where she accompanied her father to a routine checkup.
“After witnessing the interaction between my father and his physician, I just announced to the clinic that I wanted to be a doctor,” Dr. Duyile recalled. “Nothing else has ever come close to that feeling.”
That childhood declaration evolved into a focused drive to serve the underserved. After arriving at the University of Tennessee for her undergraduate studies, she began to see the startling parallels between the health care gaps in Nigeria and those in the United States.
“It’s almost the same in the sense that those with access and wealth receive better care than those on the other side of the class divide,” she said. “But I’ve learned that in the U.S., it’s even more nuanced. Here, there is a racial divide layered on top of that class divide.”
Seeking a medical education that prioritized these human complexities, she chose the Burnett School of Medicine. The school’s Empathetic Scholar® curriculum, which places students in clinical settings from day one, offered the exact “added value” she sought for her training.
“This career requires you to be a lifelong learner,” Dr. Duyile said. “The humility I brought into medical school has been tested through the fire. I know it will sustain me through my residency and into my practice.”
Dr. Duyile matched in Internal Medicine at Case Western Reserve University’s MetroHealth in Cleveland, Ohio, a program renowned for serving a diverse population across cultural and socioeconomic spectrums.
“It’s vital for people like us to enter medicine because we are beneath that class divide here and abroad,” Dr. Duyile said. “Just being able to impact those lives, oh my goodness, it is something that I will forever see as a privilege.”
Many consider a career in medicine a calling — a lifelong commitment to empathy, service, and leadership. For Maha Khan, M.D. ’26, that call didn’t come as a shout, but as a persistent pull toward the human side of healing.
Dr. Khan came from a lineage of engineers. She initially honored that family legacy, earning her degree in biomedical engineering with a very personal mission in mind.
“I had a skiing accident when I was 10 years old. I severed two of my fingers and I needed reconstructive surgery,” Dr. Khan recalled. “I decided to pursue biomedical engineering because I wanted to build prosthetics for patients like me.”
As an engineer, she spent her days in labs and hospitals, ensuring the machines worked perfectly. But as she repaired equipment and helped patients regain mobility, she found herself looking past the mechanics. She noticed the profound, quiet relationships physicians built with their patients — a level of connection her technical role couldn’t provide.
“I just felt this longing in my soul, like, ‘Wow, I want to be them,’ ” Dr. Khan said. “It was an accumulation of thoughts, but eventually, I realized I had a deeper purpose beyond the engineering.”
That pursuit of purpose led her to the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU. The school’s Empathetic Scholar® model and the unique Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC) curriculum, which puts students in clinical settings for all four years, offered the exact human-centered training she craved.
“I’ve had the privilege of working with doctors for years on end here,” Dr. Khan said. “I was able to build such a collegial relationship with my preceptors. Now, they treat me as a peer, even though I’m just starting my journey.”
Now, as she prepares for her residency in General Surgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Dr. Khan reflects on the career pivot that brought her to this moment with a smile.
“You don’t always know what’s in store,” she said. “But you have to trust that it’s going to be new, exciting, and exactly where you’re meant to be.”
On March 8, 2000, at Baylor University Medical Center (BUMC) in Dallas, the air went still. Dr. McGee was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, requiring the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) to step in immediately.
“They had to bring me back to life,” Dr. McGee said.
As the medical team worked to save Kailie, her mother, Melissa, was fighting her own crisis. She had suffered a Severe Obstetric Complication (SOC) and was losing blood at a life-threatening rate. The team activated a massive transfusion protocol, replacing nearly all the blood in her body to keep her there with her newborn daughter.
Kailie and her mother speak often of that day. While there were signs of her mom’s health declining leading up to the delivery, they both view their survival as a medical miracle and a profound lesson in resilience.
“My mom says it feels full circle now that I’m going to be a resident,” Dr. McGee said. “She sees both of us being alive as a miracle and it’s shifted her perspective on everything.”
Twenty-six years later, as she prepared to graduate from the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU, BUMC was the only place she wanted to be.
It wasn’t just the miracle of her birth that pulled her back it was a lifetime of care for her family. From her grandfather being cured of stomach cancer at BUMC to her grandmother receiving life-saving care after a recent stroke, the hospital has been the backdrop of her family’s most resilient moments.
“During my interview day, something just clicked,” Dr. McGee said. “I felt a deep spiritual need to give back to the specific community that has given so much to my family.”
Dr. McGee matched in Internal Medicine at BUMC. Her journey back to the hospital where she was born is especially emotional given their work alongside the medical school’s North Texas Maternal Health Accelerator (MHA) initiative. The MHA is focusing on reducing the very complications her mother survived. Dr. McGee is entering a field that directly protects the future of families like her own.
“Because of programs like MHA, we’re going to save moms and babies just like us,” Dr. McGee said. “This is the most beautiful full-circle moment I could imagine.”
In third grade, Kyung Park, M.D. ’26, was too young to comprehend what happened to his grandfather, the man who raised him, after he suffered a heart attack.
“I felt so helpless,” Dr. Park recalled. His grandfather passed away 10 years later due to cardiac health issues.
“I often say I wanted to go into medicine from a young age, but it was my grandpa who truly inspired the ‘why’ behind it.”
Raised in Dallas, Dr. Park initially pursued biology at Washington University in St. Louis. He returned home to work as a medical scribe at Children’s Health Medical Center, a role that allowed him to witness the complexities of various specialties before making a lifelong commitment to the path of healing others.
It was there that the call toward pediatric orthopedics began to resonate. He deepened his focus at a private practice in Southlake, specializing in the field. When it came time to choose a medical school, the Empathetic Scholar® mission of the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU was the only one that struck the right chord.
“I always tell people I feel like the Burnett School of Medicine found me,” Dr. Park said. “I had never spoken to a school with such a clear mission and vision. Everything just clicked. It felt like finding the perfect love.”
The school’s focus on compassionate communication, coupled with a faculty that went above and beyond even joining Zoom calls after hours to ensure he felt supported guided him toward a prestigious residency in Orthopedic Surgery at Yale–New Haven Hospital in Connecticut.
Beyond the technical skills, Dr. Park credits the school’s unique patient framing sessions, where patients share their lived experiences to provide context for medical content, with grounding his approach to patient care.
“TCU taught me to be an advocate especially for younger patients facing trauma,” Dr. Park said. “The curriculum showed me how to explain the science in detail while remaining fully present in the human moment. That is a lesson that will stay with me forever.”
In the video, Dr. Bleich discusses maternal health initiatives by the North Texas Maternal Health Accelerator (MHA) to improve maternal health outcomes in North Texas. The MHA is led by the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center’s research on iron supplements that could significantly reduce severe obstetric complications (SOCs) in pregnant women, which is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality.
TCU’s “Explained in 60 Seconds” video seriesfeatures the university’s faculty experts sharing their knowledge on popular topics. The video series was developed by Amy Peterson, Assistant Director of Social & Multimedia Strategy at TCU, and her award-winning social media team.
“I think that a global health clinical elective such as this one really helps the students appreciate their medical education in the United States,” said Hari Raja, M.D., Professor at Burnett School of Medicine at TCU.“I think this will open their eyes to a whole different world of healthcare.”
For Bhavana Sreepad, MS-4, the trip was a chance to return to where she was raised. “Coming back was a very wonderful opportunity for me,” said Sreepad, who participated in the global health away rotation with classmates Jessica Ericson, MS-4, Simar Goyal, MS-4, Joel Raj, MS-4, and Akhila Sonti, MS-4.
Sreepad still has family in Bengaluru and said helping patients in India was her way to give back to the community she grew up in.
“I was surrounded by so much love with all my people around me,” said Sreepad, who matched in anesthesiology at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “This was an incredible experience, and I think this will help me be a better doctor for my future patients.”
