Alumni Updates
Message from the Alumni Association President
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Alumni Association continues to advance engagement opportunities for our alumni and provide education to our students.
Taking advantage of our new virtual world, the Office of Alumni Affairs started an “Alumni Lecture Series,” during which some of our most prominent alumni shared their career trajectory and answered questions about different paths in medicine. Alumni panelists included Robert Palumbo, MD ’86, orthopaedic surgeon and team physician and consult for national sports teams; Kemi Alli, MD ’95, CEO of Henry J. Austin Health Center in Trenton; and Sukumar Nagendran, MD ’94, president of R & D at Jaguar Gene Therapy.
Many alumni also spoke to different student interest groups and developed relationships with students one-on-one through the mentorship database.
The Alumni Association hosted a virtual event on physician wellness in June, with another event planned in October. Explore our events (virtual and in person), update your contact information, sign up for mentoring students, meet the Alumni Association Board, and more on our Alumni Association page.
You are important to us!
Deborah Saez-Lacy, MD ’86
President, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Alumni Association
Interested in learning more about joining our alumni board?
Alumni Profiles
From her medical school days as a student director of HIPHOP’s Community Health Initiative and volunteer with the Promise Clinic, Dr. Jennifer Tan has had a passion for helping the underserved. Today, she oversees the Boston Health Care Homeless Program’s dermatology clinic, caring for the skin of the homeless population in that city.
Long-haired drummer, multiple sclerosis patient, life-changing neurologist. Learn how serendipitous events led Dr. William Shaffer to a fulfilling career in neurology and co-director of a Colorado-based comprehensive MS center.
Alumni News
Congratulations to the Class of 2021, who graduated in a virtual celebration held on May 21. Out of the 162 graduates who participated in the National Resident Matching Program, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School had a 95 percent match rate, higher than the national match rate!
Of those students, 21 will continue their residency training at a program based at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School or at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Forty-six percent will be pursuing a primary care field. Of the nearly two dozen specialties in which the students matched, emergency medicine, anesthesiology, and psychiatry were among the most popular.
“Our medical students have my greatest respect for the work they have accomplished these past four years, and for the exemplary way that they have conducted themselves during the pandemic,” said Interim Dean Robert L. Johnson, MD, FAAP. “Their success and resilience are evidenced by the excellent programs into which our students matched to continue their specialized education as residents.”
Please join us in welcoming this new group into the alumni community!
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