Marcia-Ruth: Becoming an MD/PhD is a big commitment of time and brainpower
Marcia-Ruth Ndege came to the U.S. from her native Kenya at age 10 with her sisters, aged 12 and 9, on a long flight to New York City that included a stopover in Dubai.
“We came by ourselves,” said Ndege. In New York, the three girls were greeted by their mother whom they hadn’t seen for a couple of years as she immigrated to the U.S. via Haiti. At one point, Ndege said, the girls were told their mother may be dead, among the 36 UN workers lost in the historic Haitian earthquake of 2010 that killed 250,000 people.
Ndege attended four high schools as her mother pursued affordable rentals – 10 different homes in 14 years – and better school systems to position her daughters for college and success.
Despite the upheaval, Ndege thrived academically. After graduating from New York State University Stony Brook, she worked for three years in a surgical unit, monitoring patients’ nervous systems during surgery, before entering BU as a combined MD/PhD student.
“We all had to be resilient,” Ndege said. Pursuing the combined degree at BU has actually brought a measure of stability. “I’ve never stayed in one place for eight years,” she said.
MD/PhD is a big commitment of time and brainpower.
“I just happened to fall in love with research,” Ndege said. An undergraduate rotation at New York’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory opened her eyes to the clinical applications of research. She liked that BU sandwiched PhD research years between the academic and clinical curriculum of medical education.
In her application to medical school, she wrote that she wanted to become “a physician-scientist and leader who serves marginalized communities beyond the confines of a hospital setting.”
“I carry my own history of negative interactions with the healthcare system because of my identities,” Ndege said. “I understand a lot of the cultural and historical hesitations from people of different ethnicities and why they don’t want to interact with the healthcare system, let alone take part in clinical trials.”
She aspires to eventually have her own lab focused on stroke and spinal cord injury, but she hopes that she can make an impact beyond the lab, in the hospital and community settings.
“Working at safety net hospitals taught me physicians and institutions can play a crucial role in the welfare of the surrounding community. My observation of the discrepancies in care for marginalized communities developed into a commitment to become a premier physician who earnestly serves these communities,” Ndege said.