Brianna Gapsis '09 Medical Student, University of Central Florida

While at W&L, I pursued many incomparable opportunities through the English department, including studying Irish Literature in the Emerald Isle itself and receiving a R.E. Lee Research grant to study performance poetry in the field, research that supported my subsequent senior honors thesis. I'm now in my fourth year of medical school, and I continue to write as I am learning to heal, following the great tradition of those such as William Osler, William Carlos Williams, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Oliver St. John Gogarty. My broad background in literature has heightened my appreciation for patients' perspectives, enables me to translate jargon into lay parlance, particularly in the context of research, and I now participate in a book club, an outlet that helps me keep balance between the world of medicine and life outside of the hospital.