{"id":133539,"date":"2025-02-04T20:33:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T00:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/?post_type=bu-article&p=133539"},"modified":"2025-06-26T16:29:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T20:29:05","slug":"marcia-ruth-becoming-an-md-phd-is-a-big-commitment-of-time-and-brainpower","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/news-events\/articles\/2025\/marcia-ruth-becoming-an-md-phd-is-a-big-commitment-of-time-and-brainpower\/","title":{"rendered":"Marcia-Ruth: Becoming an MD\/PhD is a big commitment of time and brainpower"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\"Marcia-Ruth\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMarcia-Ruth: Becoming an MD\/PhD is a big commitment of time and brainpower.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n
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February 4, 2025<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe came by ourselves,\u201d said Ndege. In New York, the three girls were greeted by their mother whom they hadn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ndege attended four high schools as her mother pursued affordable rentals \u2013 10 different homes in 14 years \u2013 and better school systems to position her daughters for college and success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019 nervous systems during surgery, before entering BU as a combined MD\/PhD student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe all had to be resilient,\u201d Ndege said. Pursuing the combined degree at BU has actually brought a measure of stability. \u201cI\u2019ve never stayed in one place for eight years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MD\/PhD is a big commitment of time and brainpower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just happened to fall in love with research,\u201d Ndege said. An undergraduate rotation at New York\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her application to medical school, she wrote that she wanted to become \u201ca physician-scientist and leader who serves marginalized communities beyond the confines of a hospital setting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI carry my own history of negative interactions with the healthcare system because of my identities,\u201d Ndege said. \u201cI understand a lot of the cultural and historical hesitations from people of different ethnicities and why they don\u2019t want to interact with the healthcare system, let alone take part in clinical trials.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWorking 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,\u201d Ndege said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Becoming an MD\/PhD is a big commitment of time and brainpower.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":126692,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[458],"bu-publication":[367],"medicine-article-category":[],"medicine-topic":[],"news-article-category":[452],"news-topic":[],"bu_edition":[390],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/133539"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133539"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/133539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133727,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/133539\/revisions\/133727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133539"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=133539"},{"taxonomy":"medicine-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/medicine-article-category?post=133539"},{"taxonomy":"medicine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/medicine-topic?post=133539"},{"taxonomy":"news-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-article-category?post=133539"},{"taxonomy":"news-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-topic?post=133539"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=133539"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=133539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}