FORT WORTH – In the near future, students at the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University will be able to study, check out books or download them from the cloud inside the 3,000-square-foot library space in the new medical education building.
Episode four of “On Site: Construction of the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University with Founding Dean, Stuart D. Flynn, M.D.,” details the design of the library that will occupy a portion of the second floor in the new four-story medical education building.
Brooke Ruesch, Director of Project Development at TCU, shares why the university went with a more modern library design that enhances the educational experience for medical students and incorporates more of natural lighting to create an inviting ambience in the space. The building will support 240 medical students and hundreds of faculty and staff by summer 2024.
The Office of Admissions and Outreach is seeking volunteers to engage with our medical school applicants as virtual Multiple Mini Interview (vMMI) Raters during our Applicant Visit Days. This is the earliest opportunity for you to take part in the selection of our next class of Empathetic Scholars! The vMMI is the foundation of the admissions process and your participation will help shape the Burnett School of Medicine and the lives of future physicians for years to come.
What is a vMMI? The virtual Multiple Mini Interview, or vMMI, consists of a series of short, structured interview stations that assess the non-cognitive qualities of an applicant for medical school. vMMIs take place via virtual platform so you can participate from anywhere! Prior to the beginning of each virtual mini interview rotation, applicants receive a scenario, have a brief period to prepare and then enter a virtual platform breakout room to engage with the rater regarding their scenario. The rater provides a numerical score and narrative about each applicant that our committee use to determine which individuals to admit to our program.
When are the vMMIs? Applicant Visit Days will take place on Mondays approximately twice a month beginning in August and concluding in March. vMMI Raters are required to be present virtually 12:15-3:00 p.m.
What are the requirements? NO prior training or expertise required – we will train you! vMMI Raters come from a variety of backgrounds and no prior medical or professional interviewing experience is necessary to serve; just bring your enthusiasm, compassion and desire to be a part of the Burnett School of Medicine admissions process.
We invite you to sign up for individual vMMI dates as your schedule allows.
If you are interested in joining us for individual interview day(s) this cycle, please submit your availability hereno later than July 11, 2023. We will send calendar appointments for the dates you have been selected.
Raising Joy is part of Cook Children’s Health Care System’s Joy Campaign, a communications initiative aimed at preventing youth suicides. For more information about the Joy Campaign, visit cookchildrens.org/joy.
New episodes of the Raising Joy podcast are available each Tuesday. It is currently available on all major streaming platforms including Apple,Spotify and Google Podcasts.
As part of TCU’s Sesquicentennial, TCU is highlighting notable Horned Frog leaders with a series of nationwide events and hand-painted, large-scale murals. This installation is 18 feet high and 56 feet wide, located at 1920 N Western Ave. in the Bucktown neighborhood.
“We’re honored to celebrate these four outstanding alumni in Chicago in addition to all the Horned Frogs who are making an impact as doctors, nurses, clinicians and researchers,” TCU Chancellor Victor J. Boschini, Jr. said. “Our medical school and nursing and pre-health programs lead the way for the future of health care education curriculum and training.”
TCU has a long history of educating medical and clinical professionals, and recently graduated its first class of M.D.s from the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at TCU.
“For 150 years, TCU has been developing the next generation of leaders and innovators with a focus on the greater good,” TCU President Daniel W. Pullin said. “Our leadership in health care – as evidenced by these remarkable graduates – will continue to pave the way in the medical professions, leading change in research and patient care.”
Dr. McKenna Chalman ’19, M.D. ’23
Chalman is a graduate of the inaugural class of TCU’s Burnett School of Medicine and is beginning her residency in general surgery at Rush University in Chicago. She grew up in Yorba Linda, California, and was motivated to pursue medicine by her mother, who is a registered nurse. Like all Burnett School of Medicine graduates, she was trained as an Empathetic Scholar®, a caregiver who values both medical knowledge and communication and connection with patients.
“Technology is advancing very quickly in health care, but treating patients with compassion and keeping them at the center of everything we do is just as important,” Chalman said. “Empathy is the foundation of connecting and building a relationship with others – and that allows us to provide the very best care to our patients.”
McKenna Chalman, ’19, M.D. ’23
TCU’s 150th
The mural series is part of TCU’s Sesquicentennial celebration. The first three murals in the series were unveiled in New York City, Los Angeles and Nashville and spotlighted John Devereaux ’12 of “Hamilton,” Katherine Beattie ’08, a producer/writer for “NCIS” and wheelchair athlete, and Desmond Bane ’20, an NBA player for the Memphis Grizzlies and a youth advocate. The final mural will debut in Fort Worth in fall 2023.
“This is an extraordinary time in TCU’s history,” Boschini said. “We are showing the world what Horned Frogs can do when we Lead On — together. Our innovative murals across the country give us an even greater opportunity to connect with and celebrate our powerful community of students, faculty, staff, alumni and fans. Throughout our 150th year, this campaign captures the character and tenacity of our leaders.”
FORT WORTH, Texas (May 22, 2023) – The summer 2023 issue of TCU Magazine is available and has four stories about the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University and how its medical students are making an impact in Fort Worth.
The magazine’s cover story, ‘Groundbreaking Graduates’ is the final installment of the four-part series that has followed six students from the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU’s first class of medical students that started medical school in July 2019. The story takes a look at Burnett School of Medicine alumni Quinn Losefsky, M.D., Ivette Avila, M.D., Edmundo Esparza, M.D., Jonas Kruse, M.D., Dilan Shah, M.D. and Charna Kinard, M.D., as they completed their medical school journey.
Burnett School of Medicine at TCU Founding Dean Stuart D. Flynn, M.D.; Mohanakrishnan Sathyamoorthy, M.D., Professor and Department Chair of Internal Medicine at the School of Medicine along with Sam Sayed, a third-year medical student at the School of Medicine, led the discussion on Tuesday, May 23.
Dean Flynn discussed the idea behind launching a course called, ‘Future Accelerators of Medicine and Beyond’ (FAB) for first-year students when they begin medical school. The students meet four weeks out of the year for intensive sessions that help aspiring doctors both predict advances in science and health care and discover how these advances will influence their careers and care for patients. That includes how technology can be used to improve health outcomes for patients.
“The main point of this is to make them comfortable with change and the change usually means significant advances in knowledge and technology,” Dean Flynn said.
Students also learn about biowearables, the life cycle of drug development, artificial intelligence and more. They also spend a week working in groups creating a test or product to advance screening for a disease of their choice. The students present their ideas on improving patient care to a panel of experts, similar to the hit NBC show Shark Tank.
FORT WORTH (May 13, 2023) – For some medical students in the inaugural class of the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University, the path to becoming a physician was clear. For others, their journeys were shaped along the way.
No matter which path they took, it led to a historic graduation at the Ed and Rae Schollmaier Arena at TCU on May 13.
The commencement marked the end of an eight-year educational journey for Grace Newell, M.D., who received her Doctor of Medicine degree and undergraduate degree from TCU.
“I was so excited to celebrate with all my friends and classmates but it’s also bittersweet,” Newell said. “The last eight years at TCU has really set me up for success.”
The graduating class of medical students, also known as Dorman Scholars, capped off their time at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU with a celebratory commencement that featured fireworks at the end of the ceremony for TCU’s 150th year.
“This has been such a long journey through pre-med and now medical school,” Sameer Allahabadi, M.D., graduate of Burnett School of Medicine said. “This commencement was like our one last ride, and I was so happy to celebrate with my friends and my family.”
“Our students have become innovative leaders and are prepared for the challenges and opportunities ahead of them,” TCU President Daniel W. Pullin said. “TCU has given them the life skills, education and knowledge to continue to their next step and make a difference here in Texas and beyond, in the global community. We congratulate them all and look forward to celebrating commencement weekend.”
The Burnett School of Medicine opened in July 2019 with its inaugural class of medical students. The medical school’s unique curriculum with a focus on communication and the development of Empathetic Scholars® has uniquely positioned the school to radically transform medical education and improve healthcare for generations.
Shelby Wildish, M.D., who is a graduate of Burnett School of Medicine and received a bachelor’s degree at TCU, will be heading to Tufts Medical Center in Boston as a medical resident in Obstetrics & Gynecology.
“What TCU taught me was how to care,” Dr. Wildish said. “That’s what I’m going to bring with me to Tufts. That’s what I’m going to bring into my career and that’s how I’m going to practice going forward.”
Read more about some of the Class of 2023 graduates:
Shelby Wildish, M.D.
Hometown: Saint Andrews Parish (Kingston), Jamaica
Residency Program: Tufts Medical Center – Boston
Specialty: Obstetrics-Gynecology (OB-GYN)
Saint Andrews Parish in Jamaica, which is better known to most people in the world as Kingston, is a long way from Fort Worth, Texas. For Shelby Wildish, M.D., her hometown is where her dream of being a physician started.
“My mom has this picture that they framed when I was in kindergarten that asked, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ and I drew a doctor and wrote, ‘This is me in the future,’” Wildish said.
Her path to pursue that dream was paved by her older brother. He attended TCU three years before she arrived on campus as a freshman for her undergraduate degree.
“Coming back to TCU was coming back to family,” Wildish said. “I fell in love with TCU and came back to the medical school and have another family now.”
“LIC is such a unique opportunity where we rotate through all of these different specialties and you can compare them in real time,” Wildish said.
It wasn’t until she met Beatrice Kutzler, M.D., assistant professor at Burnett School of Medicine at TCU and OB-GYN at Baylor Scott & White All Saints Medical Center-Fort Worth, that the light bulb went off.
“I saw myself in her and I saw what I aspire to be in her, and she happened to be an OB-GYN,” Wildish said. “Then, I started diving deeper into OB-GYN and the diversity it allows and the practicality of the specialty for the future I want.”
The future Wildish has always wanted has been supported by many mentors along the way, her immediate family in Jamaica and her family at TCU. It takes a village to accomplish anything in life and medical school is no different, Wildish added.
“This is my second time graduating from TCU and walking across that stage in the basketball arena, but it is a completely different sensation this time around,” Wildish said. “When I walked across the stage this time, it felt like they were all walking across that stage with me.”
Grace Newell, M.D.
Hometown: Louisville, Colorado
Residency Program: UC Health – University of Colorado School of Medicine
Specialty: Child Neurology
Match Day is a special day for medical students across the United States as they all learn simultaneously what medical residency program, they will be part of as physicians.
But the week leading up to Match Day at Burnett School of Medicine at TCU was different, according to Grace Newell, M.D.
“What’s special about our school is that we support each other and we’re not competitive among each other by any means,” Newell said. “We’ve known each other from day one and it’s a small group of us and we’ve grown close. It was a lot of hard work that led us all to that point.”
She grew up in the small town of Louisville, Colorado, which sits in between Denver and Boulder. Newell left her hometown eight years ago to attend TCU for undergraduate studies, majoring in Neuroscience. She hoped that one day she would return to her home state.
During the pivotal away rotations, where medical students spend a predefined amount of time during their fourth year of medical school at other institutions auditioning for residency spots, Newell traveled to UC Health – University of Colorado School of Medicine, hoping to make a good impression.
“It was my top choice, and I kept the faith and kept in touch with that program,” Newell said.
Newell landed a spot in UC Health’s Child Neurology Residency Program in the Department of Pediatrics. She credited The Compassion Practice® curriculum at the Burnett School of Medicine as one of the keys to helping her make a lasting impression.
The Compassionate Practice ® has ingrained empathy and treating patients with compassion in her approach to care, she added.
“Going into a field that’s going to involve a lot of hard conversations with family members about the prognosis and diagnosis of their child is something I think I’m going to be able to take with me to residency,” Newell said.
Sameer Allahabadi, M.D.
Hometown: Glendora, California
Residency Program: Baylor University Medical Center
Specialty: Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation
Sometimes there are things in life that seem like it all comes down to one moment in time. Walking across the stage during commencement inside TCU’s Schollmaier Arena as a medical school graduate is one of those moments for Sameer Allahabadi.
“It’s weird because you go through this journey and you put so much effort in it prior to going to medical school,” Allahabadi said. “It all comes down to this one moment. It’s surreal.”
Burnett School of Medicine students are introduced to Patient-Centered Inquiry Based Learning Based (PIBL) where they work in groups to find solutions to medical problems. Those were the moments where the bonds among the Class of 2023 began to form, according to Allahabadi.
“Some of my early study sessions with my classmate Will Mitchell, we kept getting destroyed by questions we didn’t really know the answers to. Working through this together are some of my most precious memories of medical school,” Allahabadi said.
Later, Allahabadi and Mitchell launched the Oncology Student Interest Group (SIG) at the medical school. Allahabadi always had an interest in the human muscular skeletal system and that was nurtured early on by his older brother who is an orthopedic surgeon.
However, he knew surgery was not the direction he would go.
“After a while, I kind of came back to physical medicine and rehab,” Allahabadi said. “Honestly, my first push into going into it was meeting the people in the specialty I felt right at home with my colleagues and future residents.”
He credits the early exposure to patients through LIC with helping him see how the things can work together.
“At some point, I was managing five to six patients on my own and it created this independence in me that’s what the school does best as well as communication skills,” Allahabadi said.
Will Mitchell, M.D.
Hometown: Kansas City, Kansas
Residency Program: University of California-Irvine Medical Center
“The bonds we created as a class are going to be my best memories at TCU,” Mitchell said. “I also was with the same LIC preceptor Dr. Craig Dearden for two and a half years and he was really instrumental in my growth as a physician, and he helped me learn how to communicate and just get better at being a doctor.”
A lot of his mentors that helped him get into medical school were anesthesiologists, he added.
“I almost came in like a teenager really angsty trying to go against the grain because it was all I had known,” Mitchell said. “I felt like there was more to medicine.”
He launched the Oncology SIG at the Burnett School of Medicine with his classmate Sameer Allahabadi as he explored other medical specialties. But as he went further along in his studies, he realized his true passion in medicine was pharmacology and physiology. Both are huge components of anesthesiology.
“I started kicking myself because for me to be the doctor that I really want to be I needed to give this a shot,” Mitchell said. “As soon as I did, I knew this was the field for me.”
Graduating from the medical school marks an end to Mitchell’s eight years at TCU that started in undergraduate studies.
“I think TCU really prides itself on training you up to be leaders in the national and global community,” Mitchell said. “It’s really exciting to be able to move on to the next step and know that TCU has prepared me to do exactly what I’m supposed to do.”
FORT WORTH – The inaugural class of medical students at the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University took the Hippocratic Oath at the medical school’s first Hooding Ceremony. Department Chairs from the medical school placed the doctoral hood over the head of each of the Class of 2023 graduates, signifying their successful completion of the M.D. degree program.
The invitation-only ceremony was held on Friday, May 12 inside TCU’s Van Cliburn Concert Hall.
“Moving forward when you are wearing your hood at another graduation and someone asks, ‘Where did you go to medical school?’ You can proudly say TCU,” said Stuart D. Flynn, M.D., Founding Dean of Burnett School of Medicine at TCU. “You all are now forever Horned Frogs and TCU graduates.”
Lillie Biggins, RN, FACHE, former president of Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth, was the keynote speaker for the event. She told the medical students how listening to their patients would be crucial in their roles as physicians.
“I have had the privilege to care for those in need. You’ll find the strongest person in the world who thinks they have it going on and when illness hits them, they are just lost,” Biggins said. “People are just people and people need physicians. They need good physicians who have a heart to care. A heart to take care of people not from where they think the patient should be but where the patient is.”
During the ceremony, Will Mitchell, a graduating student at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU, addressed the crowd as the inaugural Empathetic Scholar® award recipient after being nominated by his peers. He spoke about his experiences over the last four years at the medical school.
“We have all acted as servant leaders and Empathetic Scholars®,” Mitchell said. “I am proud to say that this statement rings true for each and every one of us as we have engaged in our medical school and the greater Fort Worth community.”
The Hooding Ceremony is a part of the annual commencement festivities. The history of the hooding ceremony dates to European universities in the 11th or 12th Century to distinguish students as they complete academic careers. Graduates of the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU wore purple gowns with black velvet. The regalia also included a Doctoral Tam, which following tradition is a soft tam.
The Doctoral Hood, worn around the neck and draping down the back, features the colors of the graduate’s university on the inside and the color of the academic discipline on the outside. For graduates of the Burnett School of Medicine, kelly green (representing medicine) adorns the hood.
“From this moment forward, you have been given the amazing honor and responsibility to care for others as a physician,” Dean Flynn said.
The Class of 2023 will make history on Saturday, May 13 during TCU’s Commencement by being the first class to graduate from the Burnett School of Medicine. The Commencement is set to take place at Schollmaier Arena as TCU celebrates its 150th year.
FORT WORTH – It’s Commencement Week! We are excited to celebrate our inaugural class as they celebrate completing their medical school journey.
As we enter a busy few days, we wanted to ensure that everyone knows where to find livestreams for our Hooding Ceremony on Friday, May 12th and TCU Commencement on Saturday, May 13th.
You can watch TCU’s Commencement Ceremony begins Saturday’s 9:00 am and can be streamed on the Texas Christian University YouTube page. Link to Saturday’s Commencement Stream: https://www.youtube.com/embed/FBXp5rpklh4
If you are planning to attend TCU Commencement in person visiting the TCU Commencement 2023 website to learn more about the event and the clear bag policy.
You can find us on the following social media channels:
We want to see your photos and videos from the festivities too! Make sure to tag our accounts and use the hashtags below so everyone can follow along! #BurnettCommencement2023 #BurnettHooding2023 #EmpatheticScholars #TCUGrad #TCU #LeadOnTCU
FORT WORTH – Second-year medical student Christopher Corona was selected into the 2023-2024 ElevateMeD Scholars Program and will receive a $16,500 scholarship.
ElevateMeD’s mission is to increase physician workforce diversity and improve cultural competence among physicians to reduce health disparities. Each Scholar will be awarded a tuition-based scholarship to alleviate their medical school debt burden for each year remaining in their medical degree in addition to physician mentorship, access to peer network support, leadership development opportunities, and financial management education. This year’s cohort features 15 new Scholars and 10 returning students from medical schools across the country. View a full list of the 2023-24 cohort here.
“We’re honored to celebrate these four outstanding alumni in Chicago in addition to all the Horned Frogs who are making an impact as doctors, nurses, clinicians and researchers,” TCU Chancellor Victor J. Boschini, Jr. said. “Our medical school and nursing and pre-health programs lead the way for the future of health care education curriculum and training.”
