email : Webview : The Catalyst: April MIDP Newsletter

MIDP's New Director, Dr. Ryan Buckley

An exciting change happened for MIDP over the summer! Dr. Ryan Buckley will assume a new leadership role as director of the MIDP. This position has been formerly held by Dr. Reed Omary. Dr Omary’s passion for starting a medical education program that encouraged healthcare innovation in medicine was a visionary step in the world of traditional medical education. Under his leadership, we have seen students placed to work in amazing industry sites like GE and the FDA. It was his unique perspective that asked medical students to participate in customer discovery and pull down the barriers between hospital care and industry. His unique pedigree of radiological science and biomedical engineering naturally trained his eye to look to the future.

Dr. Ryan Buckley has been an active member of the MIDP leadership team for 2 years and teaches MIDP’s celebrated IDEA Lab class. Apart from writing curriculum and serving on the MIDP admissions committee, Dr. Buckley has applied his Six Sigma Green Belt to enthusiastically teaching customer discovery and how to get a business model off the ground in IDEA Lab. Medical students winning pitch contests and startup capital for their burgeoning business models are unparalleled accomplishments for medical school classes that spring from his creativity.

This natural transfer of leadership comes at a time when the MIDP is growing and changing and increasing its collaboration with the medical school. We are so pleased to embrace our core values and move forward with confidence.

Introducing Our First Year Students

We are excited to share with our VUSM community the 2022/2023 class of first year students. Having five remarkable individuals joining our ranks means great things for the Medical Innovators Development Program (MIDP) and we are excited for the coming years.

Darryl Delsoin is a graduate of Berry College and the founder of a non-profit called Resinab. At a 2021 entrepreneurship competition at Berry, Delsoin proposed a nonprofit model to fund purchase of biomethanation plants to help Haitian families. Students presented ideas to a panel of judges who then awarded grant money to start initiatives. Delsoin’s nonprofit, Resinab, earned $10,000.

Lok Lee comes to Vanderbilt from Oxford, where he received his PhD in female imaging. With a strong resume of research and time in the finance world, Lok brings a unique perspective to our program.

Anish Sarma finished his PhD at the California Institute of Technology. While there he worked with BrainGate where he developed technologies to help people with ALS and other speech-limiting conditions.

Sameer Sundrani joins the first year class from Stanford, where he spent time in the Biodesign program as well as some time at Genentech. We were delighted when Sameer was elected president of the first year class.

Emma Ye attended UCLA, Berkley before being admitted to Vanderbilt University's Medical School. She is the founder of Real Graphene, USA where she maintains her position as CEO.

What an outstanding group of innovators and students! It is going to be an amazing year. The below candid is from our orientation where all of our first year students met each other for the first time.

Photography by Dr. Trent Rosenbloom

Associate Director of the MIDP, Dr. Trent Rosenbloom, travels to Wisconsin each summer to work as the camp doctor for 100s of young campers. Dr. Rosenbloom attended this camp as a child and has the opportunity to go back each summer and serve.

Our header photograph is a stunning photograph that he took on his travels to Wisconsin. This month's footer photograph was taken by Dr. Rosenbloom at Nashville's Parthenon.