SOM class speaker Racquel Wells takes a nontraditional path to medical school

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	Racquel Wells with her mother, Noreen Wells, at the White Coat ceremony in 2012

Racquel Wells freely admits that when she first applied to medical school—and was rejected—she wasn’t a great candidate. She hadn’t quite figured out what she wanted in life and she said that was evident in her application. But in the ensuing years Wells learned a lot about herself and why she wanted to study medicine. When she takes the stage at Commencement Sunday as the Class of 2016 School of Medicine speaker, she will urge her fellow graduates to also remember why they came to medical school.

“I don’t let setbacks get in the way,” Wells said. With support from her family, and especially her mother, she set about becoming “a more complete package,” as she put it.

Wells majored in chemistry at Boston College, but decided against a career in a lab. She was looking for something less solitary and medicine seemed like a good choice because it involved lots of interaction with people and combined her love of science and stories.

In preparation for reapplying to medical school, she earned a Master of Arts in medical sciences from Boston University School of Medicine and did a lot of volunteering, including work as the refugee clinic coordinator at Boston Medical Center. She also worked for Mass. General Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as a research coordinator. And she spent time at Genzyme helping to manage clinical trials. When she decided to apply to UMass Medical School in 2011, she was ready.

Once Wells began medical school in 2012, she took advantage of as many opportunities outside the classroom as she could and developed valuable relationships with a number of mentors who provided support and helped her define her path. Among her earliest mentors at UMMS was Joyce Rosenfeld, MD, then a learning community mentor for Blackstone House.

“She saw a light in me that I didn’t see,” said Wells of Dr. Rosenfeld.

She became involved in organized medicine early on and it gave her a new perspective on the impact doctors could have on health care reform. Wells counts Alice Coombs, MD, as one of her most influential mentors. Dr. Coombs is the first black woman president of the Massachusetts Medical Society.

“She showed me the role I could play in medicine,” she said. Through her involvement with MMS, Wells has had the privilege of representing medical students to legislators and plans to continue as a patient advocate in her medical career. She was recently chosen as one of four 2016 MMS scholars representing UMMS.

Wells also credits David Clive, MD, professor of medicine, for influencing her decision to apply for residency at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine School, where he is an alum. “I admire Dr. Clive, his personality and his perspective so much and I figured if I could emulate him in any way, I'd be on the right path for me.” When Wells visited there, she felt at home. “There was a real sense of comradery,” she said.

Wells will be specializing in internal medicine. “When I began working with adult populations, I enjoyed the medicine and the pathology and the one-on-one with patients,” she said. “I realized I had found ‘my people.’”

Wells was chosen by her classmates and mentors to be inducted into the UMMS chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society, an organization that recognizes students, residents and faculty who practice patient-centered care by modeling the qualities of integrity, excellence, compassion, altruism, respect and empathy. Earlier this year, Wells organized a retreat for her fellow GHHS classmates. “It was an opportunity to for us to reflect on our time here and to remind ourselves of the great privilege and responsibility we have when patients entrust themselves to us,” Wells said.

She said she embarks on her career as a doctor firmly committed to those ideals. “I want to not only practice medicine, but to change medicine,” Wells said.

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