On track for more than a decade
Distinction Tracks at the Brody School of Medicine offer students an outlet for their passions and an edge come Match Day
When Kamryn Henderson came to the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University last summer, she brought with her the discipline and poise of a track and field athlete from a Big Ten school. She also carried a lot of experiences at the training table, memories of hurt and healing.
“I spent a lot of time around the sports medicine department watching them help student-athletes in a very precarious, very vulnerable situation,” Henderson said. “The fact they were able to bring these students back from what they thought were career-ending injuries … I knew that was something I wanted to do.”
Today, Henderson is one of three Brody Scholars in the Class of 2028, recipients of the school’s most prestigious award — nearly $120,000 covering tuition, living costs and travel. And she’s participating in the Summer Scholars Research Program, one of the immersion courses that precede Distinction Tracks.
Begun more than a decade ago, Distinction Tracks is a unique paracurricular program at the Brody School of Medicine. Its five tracks in leadership, research, medical education and teaching, service-learning and medical humanities and ethics offer students a self-directed, longitudinal learning path done in addition to required coursework.
Following the summer experience, Henderson and her cohort of nearly three dozen students plan to engage in a mentored education that runs the remaining three years of medical school. The journey culminates in a month-long capstone experience and a final, scholarly presentation.
For Henderson, the target is publication in a scholarly journal of a study she performs of cultural representation in artificial intelligence models used in medical technology.
“AI is the future of medicine,” she said. “I want to make sure it’s equitable, that many different backgrounds are represented in the models, because certain populations will be harmed otherwise.”
In a little more than two years, Henderson will begin applying for residency, and she wants her evaluators to believe that she took every opportunity offered to expand her understanding not of human systems alone but also the academic and commercial ones that support it. As one alumnae put it, competitive residency positions are looking for students who have shown initiative in areas other than medical education.
But it’s the Distinction Tracks program itself that drew fellow second-year student Olivia Joyner to the Brody School of Medicine.
“The Distinction Tracks are one of the main reasons I applied to Brody,” said Joyner, who has chosen the service-learning path. “My goal was never to be a physician, period. It is to be a physician who works with a certain population and who advocates for XYZ.”
Leadership in Every Track
Dr. Taj Nasser, a Texas physician who is the official ophthalmologist of the Texas Rangers baseball team, was part of the inaugural Leaders in INnovative Care (LINC) cohort.
Nupur Jain, bottom center, poses with seven of her fellow LINC finishers in April. What she carries away from her experiences is “the ability to look at whole systems, to see care from a financial, policy and social lens. That’s not something most medical students get.”
In 2015, ECU’s medical school was one of only 11 nationwide to be awarded a five-year, $1 million grant from the American Medical Association and its Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative. AMA leadership visited the school, praising it for being a leader in transforming medical education, and the nascent Distinction Tracks were called out for credit. In a banner news photo from the event, Nasser, the fourth-year medical school student, can be seen in his white coat.
This spring, he returned to Greenville on the 10th anniversary of the grant and that photo to deliver the keynote address at the ceremony recognizing the 2025 finishers.
“Whether it was residency, fellowship, or even in my current day to day, I have a QI (quality improvement) mindset,” Nasser said. “That was fostered when I was at East Carolina University.”
The first two Distinction Tracks were LINC and research. The following year, service-learning along with medical education and teaching were added. This year, there’s a fifth — medical humanities and ethics.
Among those listening to Nasser’s speech was fellow LINC finisher Nupur Jain, now in an OB-GYN residency, who credits her track experience with expanding her vision of health systems.
“The biggest thing I got from Distinction Tracks was the ability to look at whole systems, to see care from a financial, policy and social lens,” Jain said. “That’s not something most medical students get.”
Second-year student has chosen LINC as well.
“Being able to navigate the circular path of bureaucracy and hierarchy in a health system will pay dividends,” he said. “The extra burden of the workload of Distinction Tracks is by far worth it.”
Networking and Connection
For many students, the most enduring legacy of the program isn’t just the knowledge or the research — it’s the relationships.
“The Brody School of Medicine is culture-based and family-oriented,” Nasser said. “Distinction Tracks take that further.”
Ryan Dickerson, a classmate of Jain’s, chose the medical education and teaching track because he hopes to be a faculty member at a medical school himself one day. The track explores academic medicine through the application of learning theory and instructional strategies. But Dickerson, now a surgical resident, found in it both professional development and deep personal connections.
“We have a lot of time invested in one another,” Dickerson said. “In Distinction Track, that’s even more true. These are the colleagues I’ll be following for years to come.”
Jain and Dickerson were classmates who started medical school during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I didn’t know a single person,” Jain recalled. “Everything was online.”
But the summer before the second year, when Distinction Tracks held an in-person immersion program, everything changed.
“My fondest memory of LINC was being able to make friends,” Jain said. “That was my first real set of friends in medical school.”
Conducting, Then Communicating Research
Of all the Distinction Tracks, the research track is the most competitive. More than 20 students take part in the Summer Scholars Research Program — a proving ground for just 10 coveted spots.
Hayley Behm plans to carry her research on hearing and aerodigestive issues in children into her otolaryngology residency, and she credits Distinction Tracks for it. “I’d never done any real research before medical school. I didn’t know what a p-value was, but we had great mentors who pushed us and made us feel safe to grow.”
Those selected carry their projects from that summer through the next three years. They formulate research questions, gather and analyze data, submit Institutional Review Board proposals, present posters and submit publications. They also learn the crucial skill of translating complex science to their future patients.
Hayley Behm, now an otolaryngology resident at Wake Forest, credits the track with preparing her for that challenge.
“I’d never done any real research before medical school. I didn’t know what a p-value was!” she said. “But we had great mentors who pushed us and made us feel safe to grow.”
She’s continuing her research on hearing and aerodigestive issues in children. “There’s always something to improve,” she said, “whether it’s cochlear implant technology or understanding.”
Dr. Jason Higginson, executive dean of the Brody School of Medicine, said communication presents a critical trust gap in medicine today. He told a group at orientation that Brody-trained physicians must be a bridge between the science and their patients.
“We’re at an interesting time. Expertise is not as esteemed as it used to be,” he said. “Some of that is our fault — we’re not projecting out. So I encourage you to think of this as an opportunity to be very thoughtful about how you’re going to be a leader.”
Joshua Marks, a first-year student and Summer Scholar candidate, is moved by this challenge.
“We have a huge body of research, thousands of years of science,” he said. “But it’s vital that clinicians know how to communicate it. The mRNA vaccine technology was fantastic — but explaining it? That’s where we fell short. I want to be part of the solution.”
Building the Model into the Future
Ten years on, Brody’s Distinction Tracks model is not only thriving, it’s spreading.
Dr. Tim Reeder, a faculty leader in the Department of Emergency Medicine, helped launch the LINC program. He says it’s become a trailblazer.
Dr. Tim Reeder is a physician and faculty leader in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the medical school who helped launch the LINC program. He says “Other schools have copied this program. That’s the legacy — that our students take what they’ve learned and bring it with them, wherever they go.”
“Other schools have copied this program,” Reeder said. “That’s the legacy — that our students take what they’ve learned and bring it with them, wherever they go.”
Dr. Brigham Willis, associate dean for medical education, agrees. “Distinction Tracks are a critical part of our curriculum,” he said. “They allow students to distinguish themselves not just at Brody but on the national stage.”
Willis says in the next few years he expects to see the addition of new tracks. He suggested nutrition, exercise and Spanish.
“We want to help students pursue their passions and deepen their knowledge,” he said. “And leadership is key. Every physician, whether they want to be or not, is a leader — in their community, in their system, in their profession. We train for that.”
“To see the influence they’ve had,” Reeder said, “in their residencies, in our communities — it’s just incredible.”
“We have an amazing group of students,” Willis agreed. “Yes, they’re going to work hard in medical school, but they want to do things to help their community, help their school and the world at large. So, Distinction Tracks help them do all that but are downstream from their convictions, too.”
Dr. Brigham Willis, center, is the associate dean for medical education at the Brody School of Medicine. He was joined at Distinction Tracks orientation last month by Kacie Lord, director for the Medical Education and Teaching track, and Dr. Jennifer Crotty, who directs the Service-Learning track.