VCOM View Magazine Vol. 12 | No. 1

Student Spotlight

E very year, each VCOM campus chooses a student to represent the student body as the Student Doctor of the Year (SDOY). A selection committee evaluates nominated students based on their leadership, commitment to community service, dedication to the osteopathic profession, professionalism and the embodiment of the osteopathic philosophy. Unsurprisingly, the individuals chosen for this award are excellent representations of the kind of students who study at VCOM. VCOM Recognizes Student Doctors of the Year

Lana Maniakhina VCOM-Carolinas Class of 2024

Stephanie Koplitz VCOM-Louisiana Class of 2024

Lana Maniakhina displays profound

Third-year student Stephanie Koplitz is a member of VCOM-Louisiana’s inaugural class. As such, she had the unique opportunity to be part of founding a chapter of the campus’s largest student

determination, a commitment to excellence and true grit and is an exemplary medical student.

An immigrant to the U.S. from Russia, Lana supported herself since the age of 17 and throughout her undergraduate education. Now at VCOM, she maintains a high GPA while also volunteering on a frequent basis. She aspires to become a neurosurgeon. She leads the Sigma Sigma Phi (SSP) Honor Society as President and participates in multiple research projects. Under her leadership, SSP received a service grant from the SSP National Board in 2021 to provide care packages for the local NICU at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center. Through her work in SSP, she has initiated a number of opportunities for peer mentorship, tutoring and collaboration. She received the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM) Gold Award through the Translating Osteopathic Understanding into Community Health (TOUCH) program for her community service in 2020 2021. She also serves as an education and technology intern in the VCOM-Carolinas Simulation Center, working with VCOM’s staff and her fellow interns to develop technological and educational tools that advance medical education. Lana has also worked tirelessly on research during medical school, and is known for her academic achievement and service to her fellow classmates and community throughout her time at VCOM. She is as devoted to her own academic success as she is to that of her classmates.

organization, the Student Osteopathic Medical Association (SOMA). She has translated her work for VCOM-Louisiana’s SOMA chapter into leadership at the national level, where she is currently a Region II trustee on the National SOMA Board of Trustees and was recently elected as the next national SOMA vice president and speaker of the house. Stephanie is incredibly driven but acknowledges the difficulty of balancing her personal life with dedication to her career. “There is often a culture in medicine that we are not human, and our personal lives should be placed on hold, particularly for women,” she observes. “I have had to make a great deal of sacrifices in medical school, but there were some I was not willing to make. I am expecting my first child and have been able to keep up with my leadership roles and academics. I won’t say that it’s been easy, but I will say that if you want something bad enough anything is possible.” Like many VCOM students, Stephanie is the first member of her family to attend medical school and she was sometimes told that she didn’t understand the sacrifices she would be required to make to be successful. Unwilling to accept that, she fought for her dreams and is a committed advocate for herself as well as her future patients, community, osteopathic medicine and osteopathic medical students.

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