By Stephanie Smaglo
In the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sarah Parks found clarity.
Jobs were scarce when the University of Utah graduate set out for a high school teaching position in August 2020, but one place was hiring — the Salt Lake City emergency department.
A bachelor’s in biology with a focus in anatomy and physiology made Parks the perfect candidate for an opening as an electrocardiogram (EKG) technician. Accepting the job challenged Parks’ previous thinking, and she began to envision a career in healthcare.
“I didn't believe I was smart enough,” she said, “because I always kind of put doctors on this pedestal. I think when you start working in a hospital, you get to see the doctors as humans. Having that opportunity was really impactful for me.”
Parks flourished in the hospital setting and knew she had found her calling working alongside physicians, nursing staff and patients. But when she received an unexpected call from home that her dad was in the emergency room, she knew she had to return to the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
“My parents were sitting in this ER and saying [the doctors] can't do the tests they want to do, and how understaffed they are, and how they don't have enough nurses and how long he was going to have to wait,” she said. “And it really showed me how those little barriers that exist in a lot of rural and underserved communities really add up.”
Parks moved back to Virginia in 2022 and began working as a medical laboratory technician at Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital in Onancock. It was there that she had the opportunity to shadow Laura Kerbin, MD (MD '94, Internal Medicine Residency '97), an oncologist who also is from a small Eastern Shore community.
Dr. Kerbin’s unique understanding of her patients’ needs and her drive to give back to her community are what ultimately led Parks to pursue a degree in from Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences EVMS School of Health Professions at Ƶ.
“She understood where her patients were coming from,” said Parks. “You could see her patients actually calm down when they talked to her, when they knew that she understood what it meant to be on the shore. She had an investment in the success of the community, and I think she got that from EVMS — so that got me thinking this may be the place that I want to be.”
ճ master’s program is a springboard for students like Parks aiming to eventually go to medical school. Students learn side-by-side with MD students in an immersive one- or two-year curriculum designed to make medical school applications more competitive. In recent years, the program has helped more than 85% of its students matriculate into more than 60 medical schools across the country.
“I wanted to do this program not only to prove to medical schools, and myself, that I could handle the academic rigor,” said Parks, “but then also there's a lot of personal growth that comes in a program like this. I learned how to study, but I also learned how to ‘manage the panic.’”
Managing the panic, she explained, means letting go of the idea that you need to be perfect. One way she does this is by reminding herself why she chose this path.
“It's because of the people, at the end of the day,” she said. “The most important thing for me as a future physician is to actually be involved in my community, understand what my patients have access to — and what they don't have access to — how that affects their treatment and what will be the best treatment for them.”
Parks will graduate from the program in May and has already been accepted to medical school. She will join Eastern Virginia Medical School’s MD Class of 2029 in the fall.