Oxford commas, enzymes and futures in medicine
NEW HAVEN — An argument broke out on the Yale women’s basketball team the other day. Matters got a little tense.
“Our team captain Megan Gorman was so passionate and angry about the Oxford comma, its usage and the irrelevance of it,” coach Allison Guth said. “Some people were fighting for it. Some against it.
“I’m thinking, ‘Only at Yale will we be on a bus trip fighting over the Oxford comma.’ ”
And only with a few college basketball programs would you find four premed students, including two of its three leading scorers. There are some college coaches who’d be worried sick about time management if just one of their players was premed.
Yet here they are, part of a strong Yale team that entered Thursday night’s game against Mercer with a 93 record, including a recent victory at North Carolina. Roxy Barahman is the firstteam AllIvy
League senior point guard thinking about a career in dermatology. Sophomore Camilla Emsbo, whose twin sister Kira plays at Princeton, is an ESPN fivestar recruit and Colorado Gatorade Player of the Year. Sophomore Robin Gallagher wants to be a veterinary surgeon like her dad. Firstyear Kara Astram is fascinated by the intense dynamics of the hospital emergency room.
And in case you think this is some sort of anomaly, consider that two years ago all three seniors on the Bulldogs were premed.
“To be straight forward, our recruitment starts with the basketball talent and then as we cultivate a relationship with that student and her family we find out their passions for study,” said Guth, in her fifth year as head coach. “We get excited when we hear it’s something like medicine.”
Guth has stats at the ready.
“The national average of graduates from their premed programs is 42 percent getting into their first choice of medical school,” she said. “Here at Yale it is 87 percent. Astounding. When you talk about what all we offer at Yale, my job (in recruiting) is probably one of the easiest sides of that because of the academic excellence and reputation.”
Barahman’s dad is in finance, her mom banking.
Roxy chose her path of premed after she arrived at Yale.
“The class structure and to be able to learn from upper classmen who were on the team before me who were premed really helped guide me,” said Barahman, from Calabasas, Calif. “I’ve got the MCAT to take. Going forward, if not a doctor, then drug development. Dermatology interests me a lot.”
Guth said Jen Berkowitz, 2018 Yale Female Athlete of the Year and firstteam AllIvy League, has a goal of becoming a plastic surgeon. Mary Santucci, who has had an interest in dermatology, “crushed the MCAT,” and according to Guth is in the process of applying to medical schools. Tamara Simpson, the 2017 and 2018 Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year, also is working on her MCAT.
“To see people accomplish their goals ahead of you sends a message to the next and the next,” Guth said. “This is a very focused place. You are a basketball player and get to be a student excelling as an intellect figuring out what you will do with your life.
“When you get a chance to lead young women like this, it’s your responsibility to own the balance of what this opportunity is and at Yale the opportunity is a holistic development. You really do walk the walk of student first and as a human you want them to grow socially.”
The workload is substantial for Division I athletes. At Yale, it can be overwhelming. When Guth was an assistant at Yale, she lived in a campus residence. She got a firsthand look at the student experience.
“As a head coach, the only time I can control is the time they commit to basketball,” Guth said. “If I can be flexible, in the Ivy League I think you have to work really smart, utilize the hours in a shorter amount of time to get what you need to get done and allow them to get back to labs and so forth.”
How flexible?
“We don’t make our practice schedule until we get the players’ lab schedule,” Guth said. “Around finals time it can get a little intense emotionally. Having healthy relationships with your players really helps.”
“Our seniors are saying, ‘We finally figured out college,’ ” said the 6foot5 Emsbo, an ESPN Top 50 recruit nationally in 2018. “I think it’s being able to adapt and take the hits as they come because there are a lot of hits at a school like Yale. It’s all about time management. It’s about saying maybe I’m not going to hang out with my friends today and I’ll sit down, lock in on school. Those choices can be tough, but hopefully it’ll be rewarding in the end.”
When asked, why Yale? All four answered to be challenged athletically and academically.
“There are a lot of schools I knew would be playing at a high level, but felt Yale could not only match that on the court but in the classroom,” Emsbo said.
They expected to be challenged by brilliant professors. They expected to be challenged by the coaches. Something they hadn’t fully considered was how bright their teammates would be and the intense sisterly bond they’d form.
Thus, the Oxford comma.
“I respect my teammates so much,” Barahman said. “Megan Gorman just got into the Phi Beta Kappa Society. I look up to her, even though we’re in the same grade.”
“I had a Bioethics And Law course last year with some of my teammates,” Emsbo said. “It was one of the highlights of my freshman year. We’d come together for lunch right after and continue the discussion from that class. That doesn’t happen often at other schools and with other teams, discussions that shape your college years.”
Ethics and medicine? Wow.
“Yeah, you learn a lot about your teammates in discussions like that,” Emsbo said.
“I knew the professors would be brilliant and the other students would be smart,” Astrom said. “But entering my team, I’m like, ‘I’m surrounded by such brilliant people.’ The discussions, looking at their essays and grades, it’s incredible. They are so wellspoken. I sound stupid around them.”
Gallagher, from Cary, N.C., interned at her dad’s hospital. She watched him in surgery.
“It amazed me,” said Gallagher, who has two dogs, two cats and three goldfish at home. “I’m like, this is what I want to do with my life.”
Gallagher, whose interest is in treating smaller animals like dogs and cats, takes the same premed courses. Classes like animal nutrition will be taken online and, although there is a Vet Club at Yale, she will need to go elsewhere to get a degree in veterinary medicine.
Gallagher, whose parents went to Cornell, said her teammates and other classmates will bring up topics that make her think, “I never would have talked about this if I was somewhere else. It’s good because nobody really agrees fully. So you always have that kind of conflict that brings about great thinking.”
“You got to Yale and you’re surrounded by people thinking on another level,” Emsbo said. “Obviously there are people who are smart and can think in different ways at every school. People at Yale enjoy that, enjoy challenging each other, enjoy pushing each other and helping everybody grow.”
Astrom spent last summer backpacking through 11 European countries with her best friend. She stayed with family in Sweden, went as far south as Greece.
After graduating from Yale she wants to spend a year traveling. Clearly, she loves traveling. She loves basketball, biology and chemistry, too. Her mom is in finance, her dad an engineer, the kid from Menlo Park, Calif., is full of curiosity, full of life.
“I like highpressure situations,” Astrom said. “I feel like I thrive in them. Hospital emergency rooms, where it’s really life and death, would be incredible.”
“I just had a random conversation the other night about why I want to go into medicine,” said Emsbo, who is considering pediatric surgery. “My biggest priority in life is helping people and making people feel good. Going into the medical field is the best opportunity to do that. It’s going to be a rough road along the way, but if I can make it there I think that it would be really fulfilling.”
Guth said she starts every practice with a “positive circle.” Everyone has an opportunity to share something that’s great in their day. Often, it’s about a discussion they had. Recently, Emsbo created an animation of an enzyme for her organic chemistry class — Guth laughed and said don’t hold her to the specifics. It definitely was an animation and she wanted to show her teammates.
“That’s what excites them,” their coach said. “You think about it. It’s pretty cool.”