High School to Hospital: Students who plan to go into the medical field and what they plan to study

Sitting in a dentist chair under anesthesia for three hours, senior Morghan Golloher saw a glimpse into her future. She was getting her wisdom teeth out, and she realized the amount of care she was receiving from her dentist— he was taking care of her amidst a pandemic where he could be protecting his family. This was the final bit of encouragement for her to go all-in on the medical field.

Golloher, like several East students, were inspired by healthcare workers throughout the pandemic to pursue a career in medicine. This fall, Golloher will attend Baylor University where she’ll study medical humanities on a pre-dental track, then go into periodontics.

“Medicine was something that I always wanted to do, but for some reason there was something that was holding me back,” Golloher said. “I felt that I needed to continue to explore before I decided which track to go into.”

She knew she wanted to foster interpersonal relationships with patients, and this passion heightened during the pandemic after taking humanities ethics classes, which taught her more about the avenue of medicine she wanted to go into.

“I believe that COVID has changed my career path for the better, in the sense that when the pandemic started, I was able to take nine credit hours through the university I plan on attending this fall,” Golloher said.

Following college, Golloher plans on owning her own dentistry or periodontal office, along with helping people in her career. 

Golloher currently works in in Ward’s Periodontist, a dental office. She’s learned aspects of the dentist field such as cleaning tactics, identifying each dental tool and different types of oral diseases that people can have and hope to prevent. She mainly cleans and works the computers at the front desk, but she has gotten to see first hand what it’s like to work in this field. 

Golloher recognized the care and caution dentists put into patients teeth, even with the threat of COVID-19. She realized that if her dentist was putting his family on the line to take care of her and her teeth, then she could do the same.

According to East Nurse Stephanie Ptacek, COVID-19 there is a projected shortage of people in the medical field, especially as the population ages.

Ptacek says that once someone enters the medical field, there can always be a change of course. The amount of job opportunities the health industry provides allows flexibility with different jobs and people can always switch roles based on where they are in stages of life. 

“There are many jobs available in healthcare,” Ptacek said. “Don’t just look at being a nurse or a doctor, there is a medical technology lab, some you work with patients some you don’t, so if you are interested in medicine there is really something for everybody.”

Golloher wants to emulate the ladies she works with at Ward’s Periodontist in preventing oral disease, which can which can involve different surgeries and treatments for periodontal disease. In her undergraduate, she’ll be studying basic principles such as biochemistry and organic chemistry as well as humanities which will all be preparation for taking the dental admission test. 

Golloher also plans on going to dental school for four years and possibly med school to study maxillofacial training — which requires a four year graduate degree in dentistry and the completion of a minimum four year hospital surgical residency program.

Senior Emmett Liljergren also plans on following the medical path, but he’s pursuing pediatrics. As someone who loves science, helping people and kids — pediatrics was the ideal mix of all three.

Liljegren will major in biochemistry at University of Southern California where he was offered a full-tuition scholarship into medical school. The scholarship encouraged him to join the medical force and work alongside patients even more.

Seeing people struggle with the virus and medical care being inaccessible motivated Liljegren to want to get more involved in the medical field.

“[COVID-19] made me want to help people more, it definitely encouraged me to want to become a doctor, so I can help when stuff [like the pandemic] happens,” Liljegren said. “I also want to work with kids and help them be happy and that is my main goal — to work with people and make them healthy,”