Two degrees, one vision

Before medical school, Serena Bidwell worked as a health services researcher at Stanford University.

“My boss there — I credit her a lot — she told me I could spend 10% of my time working on anything of interest to me as long as it was productive,” Bidwell says.

Bidwell used that freedom to develop a collaboration between Stanford and SMASH, an Oakland, California-based nonprofit that offers summer STEM programs to high schoolers.

When it was time for her to choose a medical school, she wanted a place that, like her boss at Stanford, would give her the support to pursue her passion. She was particularly interested in Doctors of  Tomorrow, a pipeline program that prepares Detroit-area high school students for careers in health care.

“Doctors of  Tomorrow is a huge reason I decided to come to Michigan,” she says.

Since she arrived at U-M in 2019, Bidwell has worked with Doctors of  Tomorrow, stepping into leadership roles and helping the program transition to a virtual plat­form during the pandemic. She’s had to think deeply about the different experiences of the students she’s been working for. “If we do something virtual, will they all be able to access it?” she asked herself. “Do they have internet? Will they have enough time in their schedule to participate if they have additional responsibilities at home?”

Bidwell is pursuing two degrees at U-M — an M.D. and an MBA — with a focus on nonprofit development. Her desire to give back to underserved communities was inspired by her parents:

“A lot of it stems from my parents’ backgrounds. My dad grew up on a farm. He milked cows before school, and he was the only one of his brothers to go to college. For him, education was a means of elevating his career. He ended up being a high school math teacher and administrator. My mom was the daughter of two immigrants from Taiwan. She grew up in poverty and got through medical school on Pell grants. Now, she is a surgeon-scientist with an NIH-funded research lab. Both of them have had education as a core value. Both have struggled in the sense that they came from very little and were able to persevere. I was given two parents who excelled because of their education. Now, I’m trying to give back to the next generation.”