Admissions representatives from more than seventy health professions programs across Oregon and the United States will travel to Oregon State to meet with students at the Health Professions Fair.

April 23, 2024
10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
OSU Dixon Recreation Center Lower Gym.

According to U.S. News and other surveys, healthcare is one of the fastest-growing industries. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that employment growth in this sector will be much quicker than the average for all jobs by 2026.

Students interested in this industry can connect with professional schools and graduate programs with specializations in the health-care industry while also learning about graduate education and careers. The Fair hosts schools representing health professions programs in medicine, osteopathy, dentistry, pharmacy, chiropractic medicine, nursing, physical therapy, public health, health management and administration, biomedical sciences and several others. More than 500 students attend the Health Professions Fair each year.

Students are welcome to stop by anytime during the Health Professions Fair, which is free and open to all majors. Volunteers will be on hand with a list of participating schools and a map of their table locations. Students can visit a school’s table to pick up information materials and speak with admission representatives.

Something for everyone

The health fair is open to all undergraduates and alumni.

First and second year students can explore health professions options, build networks and get tips from admission representatives on undergraduate preparation and co-curricular activities.

Juniors, seniors and alumni will have opportunities

• to learn about specific programs from admissions representatives of various universities,
• collect application materials and obtain financial aid information, and
• get tips on writing a personal statement, application, and letters of reference.

Preparing for the Fair

Students can connect with representatives of graduate health programs from schools such as Oregon Health and Science University, University of Southern California, Tufts University, Pacific University, Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine and many more.

See a list of participating schools

Prioritize your list of schools and brainstorm questions for admissions representatives to make the most of your Fair time. Here are a few ideas to get started:

• What is unique about program X at your university?
• What types of courses would I take in program X?
• What hands on components does program X offer (internships, rotations, etc.)?
• What does your admissions committee look for in an applicant?
• I read about X on your website. Can you tell me more about that?

For more information, please visit the Health Professions Fair event page.

The College of Science gathered on Feb. 29 to recognize and celebrate our high achieving faculty and staff at the 2024 Combined Awards Ceremony. The evening celebrated the very best in the College, from teaching, advising and research to inclusive excellence, administration and service.

The following faculty and staff received awards in the categories of teaching and advising.

Congratulations to all the awardees!

The future Dr. Kendra Yasui began her medical education during her early years working in her family's orchard near Hood River, Oregon.

"I grew up picking and sorting cherries, and my coworkers and I all spoke in Spanish," said Yasui, who graduated this spring from OSU. "It was very interesting to hear all their different life stories."

Yet she worried about the other workers.

"I've seen a lot of folks who haven't been able to access health-care providers who speak their language or understand their culture, so my hope is to be able to provide health care for those folks in Spanish," Yasui said.

She graduated with two bachelor’s degrees through the OSU Honors College. One is in biohealth sciences with a minor in chemistry, an option in pre-medicine and a certificate in medical humanities. Her other degree is in Spanish.

"I'm most interested in emergency medicine," Yasui said. "That's an area where being able to speak to someone in their first language is particularly useful. I'm also interested in primary care or internal medicine."

Yasui has begun applying for medical school. If she's accepted, she will start next summer. In the meantime, she is moving to Worcester, Massachusetts, to live with her sister.

She said she wants to obtain a medical degree while simultaneously earning a master's degree in public health. One of her academic choices is the University of California at Davis. "I would be excited to get in anywhere," she said.

However, she added she would also love to return to Oregon.

"If I do emergency medicine, I think Oregon Health & Science University would be super-interesting," Yasui said. "They get a lot of interesting cases. If I end up in the primary care or internal medicine side, perhaps I would go closer to Hood River."

Communicating the pandemic

Although she was born in Pendleton, the Hood River Valley has been her home most of her life. Her mother, a former English-as-a-second-language teacher, is the principal of Mid-Valley Elementary School in Hood River. Her father is a paramedic.

Yasui graduated from Hood River Valley High School and came to OSU in 2019.

"It was cheaper than the other options," she said. "I also really liked the campus. It's quite pretty out here. I thought I could be close to home, at least for a little while. I drove through Corvallis one time and thought, 'Yes, I could do that.'"

She was president of the OSU Blood Drive Association in 2022-2023 and the secretary the previous year. She was also a member of the OSU Bioethics Society.

The Blood Drive Association organizes one blood drive on campus per term. Students in the association recruit volunteers and donors and staff the event as well. The first five or six weeks of the term are spent getting set up, reaching out to classes and doing presentations. The drive lasts a full week.

Members of the Bioethics Society meet once a week for most of the term. They pick a topic or a case study and learn about it before discussing it through the lenses of biology, biotechnology, genetics, medicine, philosophy, politics, law and other relevant disciplines.

"It's very informal, but the ethical concerns we discuss are interesting, like allocation of resources or balancing patient autonomy," Yasui said.

Like most university students at this moment in history, Yasui's education was significantly affected by the pandemic.

She was working as a medication technician at Corvallis Caring Place, an assisted living facility, when the pandemic started. She put in excruciating hours for a year and a half, but that was only part of her work during the crisis.

"I've heard everything from vaccines being full of mercury to we're trying to put computer chips in people. I've heard all of that. My role is a lot of correcting misinformation, a lot of saying, 'Here's the science that I have. Here's what I can offer."

She also began working for the Oregon Health Authority through the OSU Center for Health Innovation in 2021. The university and the state agency created what they called the Surge Bench Team to provide direct COVID assistance.

"I've had some extraordinarily unique opportunities to see chaos in motion and also some teamwork on these massive projects," Yasui said of her ongoing efforts with the program.

"For the first six months, I did case investigations," she said. "I would call folks who tested positive for COVID and ask them questions, identifying who their contacts might have been, offering wrap-around resources, that sort of thing."

She also helped people gain access to vaccines if they had mobility issues and other barriers.

Her work took her to Umatilla County to take part in a rapid community assessment project through the Centers for Disease Control. "That was going door-to-door, just seeing if we could get people to answer some survey questions about their opinions about vaccines," she said.

In all, Yasui worked on four projects during her first six months. For the past year and a half, she's been assigned to the COVID Feedback Team. The team answers people's COVID questions via voicemail, email and plain old-fashioned mail.

Yasui said she seldom worried about contracting COVID herself. "I was less worried about myself than I was in my ability to transmit it to others," she said.

"Everyone I was with was very supportive of the work I was doing, but I also didn't go home for the first year and a half," she added. "I was in the dorms, basically on my own for the first several months. I didn't see anyone for a long time."

Yasui has spent much of the past three years combatting misinformation. "I've heard everything from vaccines being full of mercury to we're trying to put computer chips in people," she said. "I've heard all of that. My role is a lot of correcting misinformation, a lot of saying, 'Here's the science that I have. Here's what I can offer."

Although she's not concerned about her own safety, Yasui said she remains concerned about other people's safety even as the pandemic winds down.

"I wear my mask everywhere," she said. "I'm just now at the point where, if I'm at the library at 7:30 in the morning on a Friday or Saturday morning when there's no one there, I may take my mask off. I wear my mask everywhere. There's still enough of COVID circulating.

"I've gotten used to being one of the only people in a classroom who is masked," she added.

For all the horrors of COVID, Yasui said it has been amazing to be actively involved in history. "I feel like I ended up with a much different experience than I would have gotten three and a half, four years ago," she said.

Yasui will stay in Corvallis a bit longer. For the next month or so, she will be defending her Honors College thesis on using community voices to build public trust. Much of it is based on the feedback she's received while working for the Oregon Health Authority, she said.

"If anything, I'm more excited to do more with more education"

That work will also continue through a Health Authority project to reassess people for Medicare, Medicaid and the Oregon Health Plan as the worst of the pandemic dissipates.

For all the work she has put in through the rigors of her undergraduate education – especially in the grip of a health crisis of historic proportions – Yasui said she's eager to keep going.

"If anything, I'm more excited to do more with more education," she said.

Jessica Lopez, who graduated from Oregon State this spring with a bachelor's degree in biohealth sciences, spent the worst of the pandemic watching hundreds of people die.

For many of them, the last thing they felt was Lopez's hands clasping theirs.

"Hugging them and holding their hands provided peace for some folks while they were passing," Lopez recalled.

A lot of overwhelmed health-care providers burned out and quit during the pandemic. After commuting the 80 miles between OSU and Pacific Health & Rehabilitation in Portland from June 2020 to June 2021, Lopez said she knows how they felt.

"It affected my mental health," she recalled. "I kept seeing all these awful things — people on tubes, people being intubated, people in comas. A lot of these patients weren't able to see their families as they were passing."

At least 300 people died from COVID-19 at the facility during the year she worked there as a certified nursing assistant, said Lopez.

However, the experience didn't weaken her resolve to be a health-care provider. It confirmed it. "It gave me a deeper look into health care, how at times it's going to be a personal sacrifice," she said.

"I lost a lot of friends because a lot of them disagreed with me working in this industry," she added.

"They said they didn't feel safe around me," she said. "That really hurt because I really wanted friends to hear me out about my experiences, but not everyone is going to understand health care -- the hours, the relationships, just the everything."

What kept her going, she said, was how patients' faces lit up when she entered the room. "It warmed my heart," said Lopez. "I decided to keep commuting and try my best to keep going. It sparked more interest in a career in health care."

"At first, I did it for the money because I needed to pay off my tuition," she added. “I owed OSU a lot of money at the time. However, the longer I stayed, the more I wanted to stay for the patients and give them the care they needed."

Her family has never shied away in the face of adversity. "I grew up with a single mom, and through her and my grandma, I grew up with two strong women," she said. "They taught me to pursue my career and education. They encouraged me to go to college and pursue science."

A love for helping others

Lopez, 24, was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Portland. Her family was from El Salvador.

"They had to flee the country and come to the United States," she said. "Their story really touched me. It made me more dedicated to go to school, get a college degree and hopefully a master's degree or doctorate."

She vividly recalls her mother telling her about the day she skipped school.

"Unfortunately, that was the day many students were killed at the university because of the civil war," Lopez said. "My mother wasn't able to continue her education, and that's when they had to flee El Salvador. That story made me realize that not everyone has this opportunity to get an education.

"My family, my culture and their history has definitely formed who I am and why I want to pursue my education and go even higher," she added. "I am hoping to get into some kind of physician's assistance program, medical school or a master's program. I'm not sure quite yet."

Her mother worked in a nursing home in Portland and often took her to work, Lopez said.

"Growing up, I would always go to the nursing home and meet the elderly residents," she recalled. "I would volunteer and try to help out. Through that, I developed my love for medicine and just helping others."

She started volunteering at Kaiser Permanente in high school in the post- anesthesia care unit. "That was so cool," she said. "I loved it. I never got to see any surgeries, but I liked seeing people feeling so much better after their surgeries. I thought, 'Wow! I could make this into a career! This is really cool!'"

After graduating from Rex Putnam High School in Milwaukie, Oregon, in 2017, Lopez applied at OSU. "I initially chose Oregon State because all my friends were going there," she said. "I was very lost after high school. I didn't know where to go, so I just followed the flow."

"I'm very grateful I went to Oregon State and I am going to graduate from here, because my journey here has been so crazy."

When she was registering for her freshman classes, she joined the Educational Opportunities Program. Founded in 1969, the program supports the academic, personal and professional development of students who have traditionally been denied equal access to higher education.

"From there, I created my own path," Lopez said.

"I'm very grateful I went to Oregon State and I am going to graduate from here, because my journey here has been so crazy," she said. "People tell me I've literally tried everything here, and it's true. I wanted to get the full experience."

Stepping out of the comfort zone

During her first two years, she participated in Air Force ROTC. In her third year, she switched to Army ROTC.

"Even though I didn't complete ROTC, I'm very grateful for the experience," Lopez said. "It was very hard. I'm not going to lie. Waking up at 4 or 5 a.m., working out, it was a little hard initially, but after a little bit, I learned time management and how to work with others."

ROTC also helped Lopez find her voice. "I was very timid at the time," she said. "Slowly but surely, they began to give me more leadership positions."

Eventually, she addressed an entire battalion. "That was frightening at first because I hate public speaking," Lopez said. "Even though it was the most random part of my life, it was a really good experience."

Lopez was also able to go to Dyess Air Force Base in Texas for a summer internship. She's still in touch with some of her ROTC comrades, some of whom are now second or first lieutenants. "It was a really nice connection," she said.

She also pursued undergraduate research with the College of Veterinary Medicine through the STEM Leaders Program between 2017 and 2019.

The STEM Leaders Program is a collaboration between the College of Science, College of Forestry and College of Agricultural Sciences to increase the number of under-represented groups able to have hands-on learning experiences their first years at Oregon State.

"That was extremely fun too because I had no idea what I was doing -- doing titrations and these crazy things that at the time I thought were super complicated," she said. "Now, looking back, I think, 'Oh, that's just PCR [polymerase chain reaction]. I know how to do that now."

Lopez said her undergraduate years were certainly eclectic.

"In those sorts of experiences, I literally stepped out of my comfort zone and did random fun things that I normally wouldn't do," she said. "I'm also very grateful because I was able to create all these great connections."

Lopez also worked at ASOSU SafeRide, but that experience ended with the pandemic. After the service was suspended, her mother told her about a COVID unit that needed certified nursing assistants.

"I have a drive to help others. I hope I can relieve some pain."

"It was the hardest year, trying to do school and trying to commute to Portland while literally trying to save as many lives as possible," Lopez said. "It was the wildest thing because a lot of the people there were either new graduates who were nurses or new certified nursing assistants."

The commute itself was surreal, she remembered.

"COVID was very strong," she said. "It really hit the older population. There were about 300 or so folks who passed away. That was very hard to witness while, at the same time, going to where everyone was like, 'OK, everything's fine.'"

Lopez's diploma reflects the diversity of her education. Her specific degree is in biohealth sciences and Spanish with a minor in psychology and a medical humanities certificate.

Her immediate plans after graduation include continuing her work as a certified nursing assistant in the ambulatory surgical unit at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis. She hopes to get a lab position at the hospital as well.

"I'm going to take the opportunity to shadow as many surgeons as possible, while at the same time, work in a lab," she said. "I still want to get as many patient-care hours as possible."

She may become a physician's assistant, attend medical school, become a medical laboratory scientist or pursue a master's degree in medical lab science.

"I definitely want to explore as many options as possible before settling on one career," she said.

One of Lopez's over-arching goals is helping her family.

"I want to be financially stable and be in a place where I can help out my family because I really appreciate everything they've done and all the sacrifices," she said. "I hope I can give them some kind of financial stability. I want them to be able to rest."

In fact, she wants everyone to feel better.

"I have a drive to help others," she said. "I hope I can relieve some pain."

Ebunoluwa Morakinyo is a scientist. She is also a home chef, writer, director and actress. Despite initial discomfort with theater, she embraced roles as personal challenges.

Oregon State University's African Student Association hosts Africa Night annually, celebrating the diversity of Africa through dance, music and cuisine.

In 2022 the theme was, “What I am is greater than what I was.”

Morakinyo scripted, gathered actors and performed in a play, telling the story of a fictional Nigerian art gallery owner facing self-doubt and familial pressure. Collaborating with Brandon Ndungu, a civil engineering student, she brought the story to life.

Participating in ASA events is important to Morakinyo because she is passionate about showing the Oregon State community what it means to be African.

“There’s more than the sadness or negative news,” she said. “There’s also stories of creativity and innovation and beautiful culture. There’s a reason why we love being African and I wanted to share that with others.”

Being a Beaver has stretched her to develop her passions inside and outside of the lab. A senior honors biochemistry and molecular biology student at Oregon State, her time on campus has included celebrating her culture while looking forward to a career dedicated to helping others.

Morakinyo will be taking a gap year before pursuing a career as a physician-scientist. In the upcoming year she will be working with Dr. Carsten Bonnemann in his National Institutes of Health lab under the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The Bonnemann lab investigates childhood neuromuscular and neurogenic disorders, developing cutting-edge gene therapies for these diseases.

Lice: creepy, crawly, but to a young Amelia Noall, fascinating.

Memories of getting lice in elementary school aren’t usually fond ones, but after she was gifted a microscope by her mother, the experience became an early sign of Noall’s eventual major.

“There was an outbreak at my school, and of course I got it. But I started looking at the bugs through my microscope and thinking, ‘Wow, these are so interesting!’” she recalled. Her natural desire to explore paired well with the smaller, unseen parts of the world around her. As she followed her curiosity, picking leaves from the ground and examining their hidden structures through the microscope lens, she unknowingly paved the way toward her time as a microbiology major — and now senior — at Oregon State.

Exploring the little things

Leaving Portland, Oregon to start her first year of college, Noall decided to major in biohealth sciences, set on pursuing forensic anthropology. But she later felt drawn to naturopathic medicine, and after that, realized she didn’t have a particular goal in mind.

“Being here exposed me to a lot more than I had ever really seen,” Noall said. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I wanted to keep exploring.”

She began diving head first into science at Oregon State, fitting as many clubs and classes as she could into her schedule, and eventually stumbled upon the microbiology major. Just as the shapes and forms of small organisms had captivated her as a child, microbiology caught her attention for a similar reason.

“I actually chose microbiology because I think that microbes are cute,” Noall said, laughing. This unassuming interest appealed to her enough that she decided to commit. With a final switch of her major to microbiology, she soon found herself appreciating microbes for much more than how they looked.

"Bacteria live on us, in us. We’re about as much microbe as we are human.”

You may not see microbes as often as you would birds hopping between tree branches or squirrels darting across sidewalks, but they exist nonetheless in a subtler way throughout all habitats, too small to be seen by the naked eye. Despite their tiny stature, the importance they carry is immense.

“The amount that microbes could make or break our future is incredible,” said Noall. “Microbes are what we think of as the most simple organisms, but they are so complex and amazing at what they do. Bacteria and phytoplankton and zooplankton could help us a lot with climate change. If your gut microbiome is off, it can cause you to have new food allergies. Microbes are something so small that you can’t see them, yet they can affect not only the environment but us too.”

Before studying microbiology, Noall’s view of microbes was much narrower. “I definitely thought before that bacteria were just something you kill with antibiotics, but they help us a lot more than they hurt us,” she said. “Bacteria live on us, in us. We’re about as much microbe as we are human.”

She decided that the major would never be boring and always give her a new question to ask, and chose to continue studying it through college. “I started for the appearance of the microbes and how cool they seemed, and I think I stuck with it for how interesting they are and how in-depth microbiology goes,” she said.

To speak the language

As time has gone on, Noall has developed more passions outside of microbiology. She has often felt pulled in many directions, which was amplified by the vast spread of opportunities available on a campus as large as Oregon State.

“It’s a big school and there’s so much to do, and I wanted to fulfill all those desires in me to learn all I possibly could,” she said.

One of those desires would weave together nicely with her love of language. Beyond the facts and figures of science, Noall carved out a slice of her time to dedicate wholeheartedly to studying French. The language had long been a cherished hobby of hers, but she never intended to continue learning it in college.

“It wasn’t originally my plan to have a language component, but I took the language test before I came here and I ended up speaking to one of the French professors before school started my first year,” she explained. She learned that she would only need two years of French classes in order to minor in it thanks to her having studied French through all of high school. The decision to commit to the minor nearly made itself, but Noall had more reason than simply adding another point to her resume.

"My experience with it has been so great. Maybe that’s the reason I fell in love with language.”

“It wasn’t about getting the minor for me,” she said. “One big reason behind it was my French classes were really small, maybe 14 to 16 people, and I liked having a smaller community within a bigger community. All of the French professors are also so kind and amazing, and I guess that’s why I chose to stay in it.”

To Noall, the professors she has had in her time learning French have been the main force shaping her relationship with the language. “I think that a teacher can make a class. I feel like a lot of the classes that I’ve fallen in love with were because of the teacher, and maybe that’s why I love French so much — because my experience with it has been so great. Maybe that’s the reason I fell in love with language,” she said.

At the Health Professions Fair, students can connect with professional schools and programs with specializations in the healthcare industry. The Fair is a wonderful opportunity to learn about graduate education and careers in health care. Admissions representatives from more than 60 health professions schools in Oregon and across the country will be on campus to answer your questions. The Health Professions Fair will take place on April 25, 2023, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Memorial Union Ballroom.

These schools represent health professions programs in medicine, osteopathy, dentistry, pharmacy, chiropractic medicine, nursing, physical therapy, public health, health management and administration, biomedical sciences and several others. More than 500 students attend the Health Professions Fair each year.

Students are welcome to stop by anytime during the health fair, which is free and open to all majors. Volunteers will be available to hand out a list of participating schools and a map of their table locations. Students can visit a school’s table and pick up information materials and speak with admission representatives.

Something for everyone

The health fair is open to all undergraduates and alumni.

First and second year students can explore health profession options, build networks and get tips from admission representatives on undergraduate preparation and co-curricular activities.

Juniors, seniors and alumni will have an opportunity:

• to learn about specific programs from admissions representatives of various universities
• collect application materials and obtain financial aid information,
• get tips on writing a personal statement, the application process, and letters of reference.

Preparing for the Fair

Students can interact with representatives of graduate health programs from schools such as Oregon Health and Science University, Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine, University of Utah College of Pharmacy, Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California, Keck Graduate Institute of Claremont, California and many more. See a list of participating schools.

Students are encouraged to prioritize their list of schools to make effective use of their time at the fair. They can brainstorm questions they might ask admissions representatives. Here are a few ideas to get started:

• What is unique about program X at your university?
• What types of courses would I take in program X?
• What experiential components does program X offer (internships, rotations, etc.)?
• What does your admissions committee look for in an applicant?
• I read about XYZ on your website. Can you tell me more about that?

According to U.S. News and other surveys, healthcare is one of the fastest-growing industries. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that employment growth in this sector will be much quicker than the average for all jobs by 2026.

For more information, please visit: http://www.science.oregonstate.edu/health-professions-fair

The Giovannoni lab works with OSU's SMILE (Science and Math Investigative Learning Experiences) Program to enhance science education for elementary through high school students. The SMILE Program targets schools serving minority, low-income, historically underrepresented, and other educationally underserved populations. SMILE uses an experience-based learning model to engage and inspire students with the ultimate goal of increasing success in higher education and participation in STEM careers.

Our lab developed a SMILE instructional unit, Carbon Cycling by Marine Microorganisms, to introduce students to the importance of marine systems in the global carbon cycle. This unit includes a hands-on laboratory activity designed to study the impacts of nutrient limitation by stimulating a phytoplankton "Bloom in a Bottle." Students must use scientific methods, from making an initial observation to the development of testable hypothesis to find a solution. Following this exercise, they use smartphone-aided observations of their experiments to make conclusions and generate additional hypotheses. This active learning model is intended to inspire curiosity of the natural world, and to demonstrate how science is largely based on investigation. The Bloom in a Bottle exercise, as well as additional associated instruction material (handouts, lectures) are available on the SMILE Program website.

New this year, graduate student Quinn Washburn has developed an instructional board game called Oligotrophic. Oligotrophs are organisms that thrive in an environment that offers very low levels of nutrients. They are characterized by slow growth, low rates of metabolism, and generally low population density. Oligotrophic environments include deep oceanic sediments, caves, glacial and polar ice, deep subsurface soil, aquifers, ocean waters, and leached soils as well as subtropical ocean gyres that cover a substantial portion of the Earth's surface. Marine microbes in these environments form the basis of life in the ocean and perform 50 percent of Earth's primary production.

Cody Fretwell found the BioHealth Sciences (BHS) major by accident. “I signed up for the biology major during orientation, but when it came time to register for classes, I somehow ended up with all the BHS kids,” he said.

At that point, his career goal was to become a physician’s assistant (PA), and he saw that BHS had the Pre-PA academic option. This option is designed to meet most or all of the requirements for admission to PA programs across the U.S. and includes the opportunity to interact with medical and industry professionals to gain hands-on experience and skills and to explore potential career paths through job shadowing.

Fretwell decided to switch majors from biology to biohealth sciences with the pre-PA option. Four years later, Fretwell is happy with his decision. “I’ve enjoyed a lot of the classes specific to my major, focusing more on the human aspects of biology.”

While BHS gave him a great foundation for a career in healthcare, Fretwell decided to drop the Pre-PA option in the fall of his junior year when he discovered a greater career dream: medical device sales.

A foundational commitment to healthcare

Early on, a significant event in his family put Fretwell on the path to healthcare. When he was going into 8^th grade, Fretwell’s twin sister was struck by a car while walking on a sidewalk with a friend. She was life-flighted [airlifted] to Oregon Health and Science University Hospital (OHSU) for emergency brain surgery. Hardworking medical professionals saved her life and changed Fretwell’s, too.

“She had to get a part of her skull removed to help with the swelling,” he said. “When they put it back on, they added a metal plate. A family friend of ours in the room at the time actually worked for the company that sells that metal plate.”

Although it would be a few years before Fretwell considered medical device sales as a career, his commitment to healthcare was solidified in that moment.

“Learning how my sister’s brain worked, how the surgery would affect her long and short term, and what we could do to help her recover best, it sparked something in me,” he said. “The neurosurgeons in the ICU and the rehabilitation people were all so intelligent and kind. I aspired to be like them.”

Thanks to their hard work and the support of her family, Fretwell’s twin sister made an amazing recovery and graduated from college this spring. “If you looked at her or talked to her, you would have no clue it ever happened,” he said.