Welcome to the WMed Student Stories page, where we spotlight the voices, achievements, and experiences of our future healthcare leaders. Keep reading to learn how our students are shaping the future of medicine, one story at a time.
For a full list of our latest updates, visit WMed News and connect with WMed on social media.
- A Day in the Life: Marina Cox, Class of 2027
Marina Cox Marina Cox has always known she wanted to pursue a career in medicine.
It’s a passion that only grew stronger growing up in Kalamazoo, so when she learned she had been accepted into WMed, she knew, “this is where I’m meant to be.”
Now in her second year at the medical school, a typical day for Marina begins at 6:30 a.m. She wakes up, has some coffee, eats breakfast, packs her lunch and is out the door by 7:30 a.m., embarking on her 20-minute commute to the W.E. Upjohn M.D. Campus for morning lectures.
Students have the option to watch lectures remotely from home, but Marina prefers to attend in-person, admitting it’s much easier to focus and it’s great to be among friends.
- A Day in the Life: Carlynn Gasser, MD, Class of 2025
Carlynn Gasser What’s life like for a fourth-year medical student (M4) at WMed?
If you had asked Carlynn Gasser, MD, that question in early February 2025 as she was finishing up her final clerkship for medical school – Advanced Emergency Medicine – she would have told you her day begins right about the time most everyone else might be making dinner or – at the very least – dinner plans.
Around 5 p.m., she rolls out of bed at her Kalamazoo apartment and starts her “morning” with a cup of coffee. She has a little less than six hours before she’s to report for her shift in the emergency room at Bronson Methodist Hospital.
On the menu is breakfast which, given the time of day, might be your normal breakfast fare or sometimes it’s take-out or leftovers from the day before. She takes time to study at home, a task she likes to complete because the clerkship – a four-week rotation for fourth-year students – doesn’t always lend itself to much downtime during the eight-hour shift.
- M4 David Richter fueled by desire for exploration as he takes on ample research activity at WMed
David Richter David Richter much prefers actively working to understand a new subject as opposed to sitting passively in a lecture.
It’s this exact attitude that has drawn Richter to pursue and participate in several research activities at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine (WMed), co-authoring more than 10 journal articles while assisting with research projects across several departments, including emergency medicine, biomedical sciences and surgical sciences.
Richter, now entering his final year of studies at WMed, plans to pursue a general surgery residency. His research interests include trauma, foregut surgery, regenerative medicine, and medical education.
- WMed, Kalamazoo Gospel Ministries unveil student-run clinic dedicated to serving the unhoused, underprivileged in downtown Kalamazoo
WMed Dean Robert G. Sawyer, right, and Pastor John Simpson, chief operations officer for Kalamazoo Gospel Ministries, cut the ceremonial ribbon during the Firehouse Clinic grand opening on March 14, 2025. Years of hard work and collaboration between Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine (WMed) and Kalamazoo Gospel Ministries (KGM) culminated in a joyous celebration on Friday, March 14, 2025, with the grand opening of the student-run Firehouse Clinic.
The clinic, located at 526 N. Burdick St. inside the city’s former Fire House No. 4, launched in August through a partnership between students in the medical school’s Community Health Interest Group (CHIG) and KGM.
Staffed by medical student volunteers on the first and third Friday of every month, the clinic is dedicated to serving the unhoused and economically underprivileged population of Kalamazoo, offering a comprehensive range of healthcare services tailored to meet the needs of the unhoused.
“Medical students, under the supervision of our faculty, are able to offer physical exams, management of chronic conditions, and preventative care to the unhoused and underserved in this space,” WMed Dean Robert G. Sawyer said. “By providing regular health screenings and medical services on-site, this clinic will reduce barriers to healthcare access, allow KGM to focus on essential services, connect people with sustainable community resources, and lead to better health outcomes in Southwest Michigan.” - Students from the MD Class of 2025 celebrate Match Day as they learn where they will be headed for residency training
Ninety-eight percent of the students in the Class of 2025 matched to a residency slot as part of a nationwide process that is increasingly competitive. In the moments before the clock struck noon on Friday, March 21, students from the MD Class of 2025 sat nervously with their families and friends. In each of their hands, or laying nearby, were their Match Day envelopes waiting to be unsealed.
And then, when the time finally came, the ballroom at the Delta Hotels by Marriott Kalamazoo Conference Center filled with cheers and shouts of elation as the aspiring physicians learned where they will complete their residency training after their time at WMed concludes in May.
“You belong here,” M4 Tierra Jolly told her classmates during her remarks at the Match Day festivities. “I need those of you who have ever questioned it to hear that. I need you to know it in your bones."Match Day is a time-honored tradition, a moment each year when students at WMed join other fourth-year students from medical schools across the country to learn where they will spend the next three or more years as resident physicians. The festivities are a culmination of the nearly four years they have spent in Kalamazoo learning about the science and art behind medicine.
- Four students from the MD Class of 2025 learn where they will be headed for residency training after a successful Military Match
The four students from the MD Class of 2025 who took part in the Military Match were, from left to right, Campbell Brown, Logan Spooner, Greg Olsen, and Niko Nickson. When the call came on the afternoon of December 11, a smile stretched across M4 Campbell Brown’s face as he gathered his family near him so they could hear the voice – and the news – on the other end of the line.
And then, after he learned where he would be headed for his residency training with the U.S. Army, Brown and his girlfriend, Britney Ratliff, embraced and smiles and the sounds of cheers filled the café at the W.E. Upjohn M.D. Campus.
“My heart skipped a beat,” said Brown, who was one of four students from the MD Class of 2025 to take part in the Military Match on December 11, 2024. “Every emotion that could have gone through me happened in that instant. It was a cool experience.”
Brown, along with his classmates Niko Nickson, Greg Olsen, and Logan Spooner, participated in the Military Match on December 11. The four students represent the largest cohort from any WMed class to be a part of the Military Match, which is held a whole three months before the traditional Match Day for other fourth-year medical students.
- Medical first responder training allows first-year medical student to help woman in emergency
Megan Westphal First-year medical student Megan Westphal has been a competitive figure skater for nearly two decades.
A recent competition, though, will perhaps be better remembered for what happened off the ice.
Westphal had just finished competing in the Kalamazoo Kick-Off Classic on Saturday, November 23, at Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo as a member of Western Michigan University’s collegiate team. She was sitting in the stands when her teammates informed her of a medical emergency.
An elderly woman had fallen on the concourse at the arena, resulting in multiple cuts to her face and a dislocated shoulder. Westphal, equipped with weeks of Medical First Responder (MFR) training as part of her first-year curriculum at WMed, jumped into action.
- M2 Anjana Krishnan is living out a dream that began in middle school when she attended WMed's grand opening
Anjana Krishnan Anjana Krishnan was a young middle schooler when medical school leaders and the community celebrated the grand opening of the W.E. Upjohn M.D. Campus on September 18, 2014.
She tagged along to the event with her father that day and was enamored with the newly renovated facility, especially the Simulation Center on the ground floor and the hands-on technology it boasted for learners at WMU Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine (WMed).
“It was so fascinating to me,” Krishnan said. The manikins blinked and talked, I couldn’t believe how realistic it was.”
It was in that moment, Krishnan says, she knew she wanted to be a doctor, to fulfill a dream that took root for her on her third birthday when her parents gave her a toy doctor’s kit as a gift.
- M1 Nicholas Deleon ‘fell in love with science even more’ through Science Research Enrichment Program
Nicholas Deleon From an early age, Nicholas Deleon knew he wanted to be a doctor.
So, when Deleon learned he could gain hands-on laboratory research experience at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine (WMed) during the summer between his freshman and sophomore year at Michigan State University, he jumped at the opportunity.
“It just made me fall in love with the science even more,” Deleon, now a first-year medical student at WMed, said of the eight weeks spent in the Science Research Enrichment Program at the medical school in the summer of 2022. “Being able to understand and work with the fundamental basics of the clinical sciences that eventually lead to the patients made me feel like this is what's right for me.”
The Science Research Enrichment Program is a pathway program that pairs rising second-year, third-year, and senior-year college students with a WMed scientist and their research team. The program provides direct, hands-on laboratory research experience with a focus on learners who have not had an opportunity for a deep dive into top-level research in their previous coursework or job experiences.
- ‘A moment of transformation’: MD Class of 2029 officially welcomed into the medical profession during the White Coat Ceremony
Students from the MD Class of 2029 were officially welcomed into the medical profession during the White Coat Ceremony on Friday, September 5, 2025, at WMU's Miller Auditorium.
Looking out at the medical school’s newest students as they anticipated receiving their first white coats, Neil Hughes, MD, was reminded of the day a decade before when he sat in the same seats at the White Coat Ceremony for the MD Class of 2019 at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine (WMed).
Neil Hughes, MD “When I think back to sitting where you are now, I remember feeling like I had just finished a 27.2-mile marathon only to find myself standing at the starting line of another race,” said Dr. Hughes, the medical school’s assistant dean for Simulation and assistant professor in the Department of Medicine. “It reminds me of the words Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke to the troops before D-Day in 1944: ‘You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you.’
“The eyes of the world are upon you, too,” he added. “From this moment forward, people will be watching you, looking up to you, depending on you, hoping you’ll be the one who can help. You will be their lifeline in moments of fear and uncertainty.”
Dr. Hughes served as the keynote speaker for the Class of 2029 White Coat Ceremony, which was held on Friday, September 5, 2025, at WMU’s Miller Auditorium. The event was also livestreamed, allowing family members and friends who could not attend in-person to tune in to the festivities.
- Students from the MD Class of 2029 put Medical First Responder skills to the test during capstone event
WMed students responded to a variety of complex medical emergency cases during the MFR capstone event at the Kalamazoo Regional Public Safety Training Center. The medical school’s newest students wrapped up their Medical First Responder (MFR) training course in early October, putting their skills to the test during a capstone event at the Kalamazoo Regional Public Safety Training Center.
The all-day event was held on Thursday, October 2, 2025, and consisted of several emergency scenarios, including a mass-casualty incident, a vehicle extrication, responding to a half dozen complex medical emergency cases, and rappelling down an elevator shaft.
“As first-year students, a lot of our time is dedicated to studying,” M1 Yashmeet Kaur said. “With MFR, it’s been nice to gain hands-on clinical experience working on these cases. Getting to apply that knowledge during capstone, you could really see everyone coming together and for us now, responding to an emergency has really become second nature.
“EMS is all about working with what you have, being able to adapt and do whatever is needed in the situation,” Kaur added. “It feels like a lot when you’re going through the course, but I have gained so much from this experience.”