Senior Kai Seely will be going to Duke University School of Medicine after graduation to participate in Duke’s Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) program. Seely, a biology major with minors in Chemistry and Neuroscience, says he chose Duke medical school over Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) and Albany Medical College after being offered a full merit scholarship at Duke.
“I wanted to do medical school for a while,” Seely said. “I didn’t even consider Duke until I started applying. I’m from Oregon and OHSU was always the dream. I did well on the entrance test and I’ve done well at UP, so I had the opportunity to apply to some of the best schools in the country, like Duke.”
Seely contributes his success to taking his UP classes seriously and studying for the MCAT (the medical school entrance exam) full-time for six weeks.
“It starts with the biology classes at UP,” Seely said. “Paying attention, doing your work, investing yourself in the class, and learning the material to actually learn the material, rather than just for the test, that was really helpful for me. A lot of the material I learned in my classes here at UP, especially genetics, physiology, anatomy, those were on the MCAT and will be covered in medical school, too. It’s nice to get that base here at UP.”
While at UP, Seely participated in three years of genetics research with biology Professor Ahern-Rindell. This work brought him to Mallorca, Spain the summer after his junior year, where he spent several months working on an archaeological excavation. Seely’s senior thesis has been preparing to do a DNA study on the bones he excavated there.
He also studied abroad on a World War I tour of Western Europe during his freshman year.
Seely advises other students who hope to go to medical school after college to take time to learn the material in their classes and participate in research outside of the classroom. However, Seely thinks that students should first make sure they’re going to medical school for the right reasons.
“Ultimately, people who are trying to make the choice about what to do after school or the choice between medical schools, make that choice for yourself, based on what you want to do, not what other people want you to do,” Seely said. “Choose what you want to do whether that’s medical school or research or something outside of the sciences. It’s a really big decision.”
