As the new academic year begins, Joshua Moore has a lot to juggle. He's president of the Miller School student body, the student trustee on the University's Board of Trustees, and a third-year medical student working tirelessly to achieve his boyhood dream of becoming a cardiothoracic surgeon.
Moore, who has boundless energy, is obviously up to the task. After all, he's already proven his leadership and juggling skills as president of his freshman and sophomore classes.
The son of a court liaison for juvenile offenders and a college professor who grew up in Port St. Lucie, Moore stumbled into the idea of becoming a doctor in seventh grade. His science class was dissecting a frog when his teacher noticed Moore was particularly talented with a scalpel and suggested he become a surgeon.
Soon after, Moore's father underwent a quadruple coronary artery bypass and Moore found his specialty -- at a time when most of his friends were more interested in skateboarding or video games than studying.
"The idea of opening someone's chest and fixing their heart was so fascinating to me even at that age," Moore remembered. But it wasn't until his senior year at Florida State University that everything clicked. Moore was enrolled in a class that taught him how to read EKGs, the risk factors for heart disease, and how African Americans have a disproportionately higher rate for most of them.
"I figured that as a cardiothoracic surgeon I could save people like my dad who grew up eating southern, deep-fried food their entire lives,'' Moore said. "I could save lives just like the people who saved my dad's life when I was 12."
Serving in the top student government post is something Moore has aspired to since he began his medical education, and ran for his freshman class president. In his last election, he campaigned on a promise to make the Miller School more inclusive.
"I want us to feel like a family," said Moore, who looks forward to collaborating with members of the student government to increase student involvement. "I feel like I'm a leader and a people person and, if I can help our organization come together, then it's going to make a difference in our school.''
In another nod to his leadership abilities, the University's Board of Trustees selected Moore to serve as its student member this year, a position which gives him voting rights on issues facing UM's governing body, such as making the Coral Gables campus more driver-friendly while maintaining historical buildings.
Moore no longer has to work on his ultimate goal as student government president -- the creation of an M.D. and Master's of Public Health program that could be completed simultaneously. The Miller School leadership just announced last week that, beginning in 2011, students will be offered a new Public Health Physician curriculum in which they can earn M.D./M.P.H. degrees during the traditional four years of medical school. The program was created in response to a severe shortage of public health physicians.
"If the emphasis is on primary care and preventive medicine, having a Master's of Public Health will definitely prepare students to take on the challenges that lay ahead as more previously uninsured Americans enter the health care system," Moore said.
Moore's family couldn't be prouder of his devotion to primary care and public health, nor of his goal to one day open a total Heart Health Care Clinic, providing care to the medically underserved. He may, though, have to find a new place to study when he visits his parents.
"The last time I went home I couldn't get my work done,'' Moore said. "I was studying for the medical licensing exam at my mom's college and she wanted to introduce me to all of her co-workers.''
