Meghma and Sophie

Only a few days into quarantine, senior Sophie Sun nervously stared at the highly-anticipated unopened email from University of Missouri-Kansas City. This was a moment that was months coming.

Sun has dreamed of being a part of UMKC’s six-year medical program since elementary school. Having two uncles who had completed the program, the pressure was high to get in.

Senior Meghma Pal had the same dreams of working in the medical field, and she just so happened to grow up with Sun.

“We’ve been friends for — I think it’s coming up on 14 years now,” Pal said. 

And although having a partner to ride along the dream path made high school easier, it made the application and acceptance process a little more sentimental. When the decision letters were released, some of the nerves were rooted in the fate of the other friend’s acceptance.

“Fifteen minutes after I figured out I got in, I texted and asked [Meghma] if she had checked her email yet, and she said ‘No,’ and I said ‘Go check,’” Sun said. “Then she FaceTimed me and we were both screaming and crying and she told me she got in.”

The six year program differs from other med schools because it squeezes eight years into six. Freshman year, the future doctors will get all of the same breaks that a normal college student would, but during the summer they will continue to take classes. After their first year, they will have one week off every couple of months. The students also get to work in a ‘Docent Team,’ allowing clinical experience as soon as three weeks into their freshman year.

“The six-year aspect of it is pretty cool in the sense that it does get you to your profession quicker,” Pal said. “Outside of that, also being able to interact with patients so early on — the location is also a really good thing.”

But the acceptance letter didn’t come easily. UMKC has around 1,500 applicants, and in the end, they’ll only accept about 100.

“The application was due Nov. 1,” Sun said. “I submitted it Oct. 30, so that I could have one day, if something went wrong, to fix it.”

While the girls haven’t pinpointed what exact area of the field they’ll be going into, the world of medicine was introduced to the pair long before senior year.

Starting her freshman year, Pal worked in her parents’ stem-cell research lab at University of Kansas Medical Center. Outside of that, she’s worked with polycystic kidney disease, shadowed an oncologist at KU med and co-wrote a research paper that went on to be published. 

Sun’s laundry list is no less impressive, volunteering at St. Luke’s Hospital, doing research at KU Med and joining the Shawnee Mission School District’s biotechnology program.

Although the original June initiation has moved to a virtual one, the girls plan to start their new lifestyles in the fall, continuing their best-friend-ship as roommates.