Kaya Pleiss knew she wanted to work in healthcare. She attended a big university, but it wasn’t a good fit. She tried nursing school, but that wasn’t right either.
Then, she started as a certified nursing assistant in an emergency room. That’s when Kaya realized she wanted to be a doctor.
Kaya learned about College of Saint Mary and its human biology major after talking with her mother, who earned her master’s degree from the University.
“I knew the smaller class sizes would be better for me,” she said. “I came on a tour and liked it.”
CSM’s human biology major provides a human-focused program of study for pre-health students. The program gives students an understanding of anatomy, physiology, genetics, immunology, biochemistry, microbiology, and pathophysiology.
“My favorite part of the classes was when we were doing applications to clinical case studies or clinical lab results,” said Kaya, now a senior. “I was able to see myself learning in human biology classes and see how it would tie into medical school.”
The classes were also relevant to the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), Kaya added.
Kaya’s professors offered encouragement as she studied for her classes and the MCAT before applying to medical school.
“I’ve felt unwavering support from all my professors at CSM,” she said. “They all 100% tell me, ‘Yes, I can see you doing this. I can see you succeeding in this.’ That was important, but they were also willing to answer my curious questions outside class.”
Kaya’s professors also gave her opportunities to help her strengthen her resume for her application to medical school.
For the past two years, Kaya has been an INBRE Scholar. Established in 2001, the INBRE Scholars Program was created to expose students to professional biomedical research and build a statewide biomedical research infrastructure between undergraduate and graduate institutions. It’s a two-year comprehensive training program to prepare students for graduate school.
Kaya has been conducting research in the pulmonary division at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
“Our lab is looking at traditional cigarettes versus electronic cigarettes and analyzing the degree of lung injury caused by each of those,” she said.
While she is currently writing a paper on her research, Kaya hopes to continue working with the lab throughout medical school.
After participating in their early decision program, Kaya was recently accepted into medical school at UNMC. “Usually, you don’t hear back until the spring,” she said. “I heard back at the end of September that I was accepted.”
Though she hasn’t yet decided on a specialty, Kaya said she could see herself as an emergency room physician after working in the emergency department at CHI Health Lakeside Hospital.
“I like the variety, the pace and the diversity of patients that I get to work with,” she said. “I’ve also done a lot of shadowing in oncology and anesthesiology, which are interesting to me, too. I’m excited to try out all those specialties in med school and learn about the different options.”
Kaya will graduate from CSM in May.
