Ernest Moore III sits upright at his desk, white coat on. Now in his first year of medical school at The Ohio State University, Moore is calm and composed—but he wasn’t always so confident.
“The thing about getting into medical school is that you don’t have to be the smartest person in the world,” Moore said. “You just have to be consistent, determined, dedicated, and get past the obstacles.”
For the former ODI Scholar (MSP and BNRC), chief among these obstacles was a lack of self-assurance. Growing up attending youth STEM programs in Detroit, Moore knew he wanted to be a doctor, but he wasn’t sure he had the ability to do so.
“I struggled from a young age with being one of the few Black males in my class because I went to PWIs. I didn’t feel like I was exactly like everyone else,” Moore explained. “That was a big part of my journey, and it bled into academics because I didn’t have a lot of confidence.”
Fortunately, ODI has resources to help pre-med students overcome challenges and succeed as future physicians. For Moore, one of the most valuable ODI resources was mentorship opportunities.
“I started to look for mentors, and a few people came from BNRC. [Former ODI Scholar] Maurice Lathan really helped me because he was pre-med as well,” Moore said. “He put me into rooms where I was able to meet Black males in the med school at that time, and he introduced me to Dr. Capers, who was in administration at the College of Medicine.”
These connections led Moore to gain confidence and stick with pre-med. After taking a few gap years to work as a patient care assistant, thoracic cancer research assistant, and medical scribe, Moore was accepted to Ohio State’s MEDPATH Program, a one-year post-baccalaureate program that guarantees admission to Ohio State’s medical school upon MCAT score improvement.
“When I got the score, I was working for Upward Bound at Ohio State as a camp counselor. All the kids started calling me Dr. Moore for the rest of the camp,” Moore commented. “When I was that age, I’d never seen any Black doctors, so for them to be able to see me doing this was the coolest thing.”
For former ODI Scholar (MSP and LSAMP) Ami Kanu, the path to medical school at Ohio State looked a bit different. A spring 2024 graduate, Kanu came to the university in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the LSAMP community helped her through that isolating period.
“LSAMP was definitely the most influential part of my undergraduate education as far as my academic, professional, and social life,” the Cincinnati native noted. “My LSAMP friends became my best friends, and I experienced the best times of my undergrad with people from LSAMP.”
Not only did LSAMP fund Kanu’s research—a paper that she was the lead author on that investigated responses to an antipsychotic drug—but it also inspired her to co-found the Minority Collegiate Outreach and Support Team (MCOST).
MCOST is a mentorship program that connects Ohio State students with youth in the greater Columbus area to promote self-advocacy, college preparation, and STEAM exploration, and the organization had a profound impact on Kanu’s professional goals.
“I am passionate about mentorship and influencing young people’s lives,” Kanu explained. “Everybody has goals and aspirations they want to reach in life, and I love being able to help people reach their goals and fulfill their greatest potential. Doctors are directly connected to that because people can’t fulfill their goals if their body and mind are not healthy.”
Both Kanu and Moore recently attended their cohort’s White Coat Ceremony at Ohio State’s College of Medicine. As they train to be physicians, the students also hope to be role models, encouraging current pre-med students to take advantage of ODI’s resources.
“Nobody knows everything,” Moore said. “The wisest people are the ones that can pull from different resources and admit when they don’t have the answer to everything.”