Robert Wood Johnson Medicine • Fall 2017 • 3-D Printed Skull Page 14

12 Robert WoodJohnson

MEDICINE

much time to devote to poetry, she says, "I hope that I can
continue writing and never give it up."

Grace Ibitamuno Obienu, novelist

ost of us are busy--and then there is second-year stu-
dent Grace Ibitamuno Obienu's level of busy. She

decided to go to medical school two years ago while pregnant
with her first child.

"I was a technical writer for a contract research organiza-

tion," she says. "For me it was supposed to be the best of
both worlds, combining science and writing." Yet it wasn't
enough. "I wanted to actually directly impact people."

Grace enrolled in the demanding MD/PhD program at

Rutgers. While rearing her toddler with her husband, and tak-
ing classes, she is writing a follow-up to her debut 2016 novel,
Not Yet Beautiful, about a young survivor of years of sex traf-
ficking. Her next book also follows her protagonist, Lola. "I
feel like there is a lot more to her story, and I feel I need to do
a little more to give her a proper ending," she says.

"Being a writer, for me, was one of the more natural child-

hood dreams," Grace says one evening after putting her son to
bed. "From around 5 or 6, I can remember typing out stories
on our family computer and imagining them one day becoming
movies, without too much information on becoming a writer.

Becoming a doctor, that one came with more education, more
information, more influence from the people around me, and it
has become a second-wave kind of dream."

Like Dr. Uzumcu, Grace's family bridges another country

and culture. She spent her first seven years in Wisconsin
before her family returned home to Nigeria. She moved back
to the States for her undergraduate degree at Marymount
University in Virginia. When considering medical school,
Grace knew, "I wanted the opportunity to do a nontradition-
al MD/PhD program, and not a lot of programs allow you to
do that. And because Robert Wood is part of Rutgers, I was
given that opportunity."

Grace's goal is to specialize in epidemiology, "something

global, and health-related. That is the bigger picture," she
says. This summer, she was working on both of her passions,
as she took classes in public health and continued writing.
She sees a clear connection between the two disciplines.

"For me it is all about helping people," Grace says. "I had

the opportunity to teach a workshop at the medical school in
fiction writing. With writing, the idea for me is to make your
reader feel something. My first book, about human trafficking,
was how do I shine a light on this issue? For me being a doctor
is the same motivation: how can I do something that at the end
of the day I feel I made a difference?"

or me it is all about

helping people," says
Grace Ibitamuno Obienu.

"With writing, the idea for

me is to make your reader
feel something. For me
being a doctor is the same
motivation: how can I
do something that at
the end of the day I feel
I made a difference?"

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