Fort Worth Medical Students Compete in Spelling Bee as part of THRIVE Wellness Program

FORT WORTH – The third annual TCU School of Medicine Spelling Bee competition ended with a familiar winner in mid-February.

Arman Fijany, a third-year medical student at TCU School of Medicine, hung on to win an intense spelling bee duel between him and a dozen of his classmates.

“MJ won three in a row. Kobe won three. I just wanted to win three because those guys are my idols,” said Fijany, referring to NBA legends Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.

The School of Medicine (SOM) Cup is a year-long competition in which the SOM Learning Communities compete for bragging rights and the SOM Cup trophy. The houses, which spell out the acronym THRIVE, are Timu, Honoris, Resilire, Inovasi, Virtud and Empatheia. THRIVE is the longitudinal, integrated and collaborative system of instruction, learning and support for School of Medicine students focusing on their well-being. The desired outcome of this curriculum is the continuance and/or development of knowledge, skills and attitudes about wellness.

The competition runs each academic year from August 1 until April 30. Each year, 60 incoming medical students are placed into groups of 10 and welcomed into one of six SOM houses and partnered with two Physician Development Coaches, along with additional student team members from previous years.

This innovative and unique student experience is designed to foster a coaching relationship, separate from their academics, that will contribute toward student professional identity formation while providing an additional layer of support toward the student’s academic success.

Stacy Vanvliet, M.D., an assistant professor and Physician Development Coach at TCU School of Medicine, helps lead the house of Virtud.

“We have various fun initiatives throughout the year that build team and fun and a little friendly competition between the houses within THRIVE all geared towards promoting well-being at the school of medicine,” Dr. Vanvliet said.

There are many events for students to attend throughout the year like student development programs and initiatives that encourage growth in emotional, spiritual and physical wellness. During those events students can earn points for their respective house. The majority of the points are be attainable throughout the entirety of the school year through events that follow the THRIVE Well-Being framework.

But, at the end of each academic year the Office of Student Affairs holds a week-long SOM Cup series of events, resulting in more opportunities for points to be awarded.

The Spelling Bee is one of the bigger events before the final week’s SOM Cup series events. The dozen spellers that compete can receive two points to add toward their houses’ yearly point total for each word they spell correctly during the competition. The winner will receive an extra 50 points that can be added to their house’s point total in the race for the SOM Cup.

“There are 87 words in total for this year’s event and the words were selected by the Office of Student Affairs and the Physician Development Coaches,” said Dr. Vanvliet. “I think this year’s event will be a little bit different because it is in person. In the past when we’ve had it on Zoom, we’ve had the audience turn off their cameras and mute their mics to minimize distractions.”

This year’s in-person audience of about 80 students were ready to cheer on their housemates making the atmosphere more tense and electrifying.

“Some of my peers in the upper class or the lower class have totally different schedules so these are more like unifying events for us,” said Matthew Pagano, a second-year medical student. “We get the opportunity to spend time together and catch up and just celebrate being students at the school.”

Fijany said he felt the intensity. From the sighs of every misspelled word to the thunderous claps and cheers for nailing the spelling of a difficult word.

“The energy from everyone was great. It’s a little different this time because we’re not on Zoom,” Fijany said. “I had never really participated in a spelling bee before these events so I didn’t want to really count my first two victories until I win one in person.”

Fijany is a part of house Virtud and was the two-time reigning SOM Cup Spelling Bee champion going into the third annual competition. However, he faced a few classmates that were ready to end his run during the friendly competition. Helena Kons, a third-year medical student, made it into the final three with Fijany before misspelling her final word.

“I was excited but every time it got back to my row I got a little bit more nervous.” Kons said. “This was my second time competing against him (Arman) and he’s fantastic and really smart. It’s always fun to compete against him or watch him compete.”

Sereena Jivraj, a second-year medical student, made it into final round where her an Arman dueled it out. They spelled medical terms such as Carbamazepine and Chlorpromazine at a frantic pace. Until she tripped up on her final word, Propylthiouracil.

“I was confident at first and I decided to not write it out in the air to myself and then I lost it,” Jivraj said. “We’re all secretly or not so secretly competitive so it’s just a fun way to get to know each other a little bit better.”

Fijany took home his third consecutive spelling bee victory by spelling, Coccidioidomycosis, which is also known as Valley Fever an infection caused by the fungus Coccidioides. The fungus is known to live in the soil in the southwestern United States and parts of Mexico and Central and South America.

“Actually I was familiar with it through my studies here,” Fijany said. “I’m feeling good right now with my three rings I may just retire from the spelling bee competition and ride off into the sunset.”