by Juliet Farmer
SDN Staff Writer

Julianne H. Worst, SDN user name Julianne, is a 32-year-old first-year student pharmacist and pharmacy intern. She is currently a member of the class of 2011 at Auburn University’s Harrison School of Pharmacy. Worst, who spent her childhood in both Savannah, Georgia, and Montgomery, Alabama, did her undergrad work at Bevill State Community College in Alabama. She has been married for almost 15 years and has one seven-year-old son.

Choosing pharmacy as a specialty was almost a fluke for Worst. “I actually stumbled on the profession after my son, Ezekiel, was born prematurely back in April of 2000. At that time, I was working about 50 or 60 hours a week (in retail management) and while I enjoyed the work, I could no longer adhere to that type of schedule. Read the full story

by Sean Parrish
SDN Staff Writer

SDN contributor Tim Shea (Therapist4Chnge) is currently in his fourth year of a PsyD in Clinical Psychology and his second year of a MS in Clinical Psychopharmacology at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Tim received a BA in Psychology from Goucher College in Baltimore, MD and an MS in Clinical Psychology from Nova Southeastern University. When not dividing his time between his studies, providing mentoring to the SDN community or indulging in his love of piano and photography, Tim also hosts a website – Struggling With Food (www.strugglingwithfood.com) – that provides information about eating disorders.

In a recent interview, Tim spoke about his life, the challenges of clinical psychology, and the need for education about eating disorders. Read the full story

By Juliet Farmer

Amy B. Fought, SDN user name Amy B, was a freelance photographer before attending medical school. Born in Chicago and raised predominantly in Rich Creek, Virginia, Fought is currently finishing her MSIII year in medical school with the goal of becoming a DO.

At the age of 41, Fought says that in her free time, she still enjoys photography, as well as spending time with her family. For now, her days are spent doing rotations at various locations from about 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., though she says it all depends on what rotation she’s on.

“For Internal Medicine, I started at 6 a.m. and sometimes didn’t get done until 7 p.m.,” Fought notes. “Just depends on where you are, what you are doing, how many patients you have and what your preceptor is like to work with.” Read the full story

By Juliet Farmer
Staff Writer

Quinn Holzheimer, D.O., is a 30-year-old attending physician at Georgetown University/Washington Hospital Center Emergency Medicine Residency Program (Sonul Mehta, class of 2007), as well as a moderator on the Emergency Medicine forums.

Holzheimer grew up in the D.C. suburbs of Prince George’s County, Maryland, before attending James Madison University, where he graduated in 1999 with a bachelor’s degree in health science and a minor in biology, public health, and pre-med.

From there, he went to Nova Southeastern University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, in 1999. Read the full story

By Juliet Farmer

Roxie Twedt, SDN user name oxeye, is set to join the ranks of medical students at the University of Nevada School of Medicine come fall 2007. In the meantime, the San Francisco Bay Area native, who spent three years early on living in Tokyo, Japan, is helping the Student Doctor Network as the Assistant Mentor Coordinator, a moderator position in the Mentor Forum.

“I supervise the Promotion and Recruitment Assistants in the Mentoring Forum, and manage the mentors in the forum,” she explains of her role. “I maintain several tables of contents in the forum to make the threads easier for students to navigate and also cut down on some of the repetitive questions that mentors receive.”

Read the full story

QofQuimica is currently a second-year allopathic medical student. After college, she went to graduate school and earned her M.S. in medicinal chemistry. She then worked as a lab tech and in a doctor’s office before returning to school to earn her PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry.

In August 2004, Q took the MCAT and scored a 43S. She began giving MCAT advice on SDN when she joined as a member in October 2004. Q joined the SDN staff in June 2005 as an advisor for the MCAT Study Questions subforum and later became MCAT forum moderator. She now oversees all of the SDN premedical forums. Recently, SDN spoke with Q to get her input on preparing for and taking the MCAT. 

Read the full story

Dave Swafford, a second year medical student at the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) in Kansas City, attended the University of Kansas for his undergrad degree, where he studied biology.

Although he had an interest in the biomedical field, Swafford says he was not sure whether to go into research. After working for the KUMC Department of Pharmacology, Swafford says he realized he didn’t like it quite as much as clinical work (he was also volunteering at an emergency room doing clinical work at the time).

Currently, Swafford has his eye on an emergency room specialty. Read the full story

There was a time when Kimberli S. Cox, M.D., never thought she’d be volunteering for the Student Doctor Network. Then again, there was a time she never thought she’d be a doctor.

After being dissuaded (for such reasons as not having any family in medicine and not being extremely wealthy) by her high school counselor when the discussion of medical school came up, Cox instead pursued what she figured was as close as she’d ever get, a degree in psychology.

Then, while Cox was in graduate school studying psychology, she lived with residents, and everything changed. Read the full story