VCOM 2024 Annual Report

Leading the Future of Medicine

Hagar Uses Her Experience as a Cancer Survivor to Be a More Empathetic Physician B rooke Hager, DO, VCOM-Carolinas Class of 2020, spoke at the inaugural homecoming for VCOM-Carolinas in June 2024. As a breast cancer survivor, Hager emphasizes preventative care and advocates for women’s health. She is involved in community cancer prevention efforts and shares her testimony from a unique perspective of provider and patient. “I feel like [surviving cancer] makes me a more empathetic doctor because I understand to some degree what it is like to be a patient and to go through something as difficult as this,” Hager shared. “Every cancer is different but on some level, I feel like I bond with my patients based on similar struggles. I want to be the one encouraging my patients to stay strong and provide them with resources that are faith-based and centered around support.” Hager recently completed her family medicine residency at Atrium Health CMC. She is currently working for Conway Medical Center at an outpatient practice in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

VCOM-Virginia Alumni Are Paying It Forward A mar Mukhtar, DO, and Sonul Gulati, DO, are both first-generation medical students whose families hail from different parts of the globe: Mukhtar’s family is from Sudan, and Gulati’s family is from India. VCOM’s commitment to international outreach was a key part of their experience as students, and now they are paying that commitment forward through their MedDreams Foundation. Both attended international outreach trips as students. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gulati reached out to Mukhtar and asked him to go on another trip through VCOM, but the trips were so popular that there was a waiting list to attend. That inspired them to think about how they might offer additional opportunities for physicians and students—from VCOM and other medical schools—to participate in international outreach. Thus, the MedDreams Foundation was born. “Seeing VCOM put together these impactful trips in Central America gave us the confidence to say, ‘Hey, we think we can make an impact here as well,’” says Mukhtar. Their first trip—to Monterrey, Mexico—took place in summer 2024. Both acknowledge that if they didn’t have the blueprint from VCOM, they wouldn’t be sure they could make these trips happen. They say there is nothing quite like the feeling of helping others on international trips. “You learn so much about other people in the world,” Mukhtar observes. “And you learn to have an open mind when you see something that you’re not used to.”

Learn more and watch a video at: www.meddreamsfoundation.org

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