COSAM News Articles 2019 January COSAM Student to Take Military Path Towards Becoming a Doctor

COSAM Student to Take Military Path Towards Becoming a Doctor

Published: 01/29/2019

Auburn University student Sam Forbes will soon go from being a college student to serving her country. The senior from Woodstock, Georgia, is studying Biomedical Sciences with a pre-med concentration through the College of Sciences and Mathematics (COSAM) and plans to join the military after graduation next year.

Both of Sam’s grandfathers and two of her uncles have served in the military, and she recently became interested.

“I just saw so much more opportunity there than just the three-step process that people look into for medical school,” Sam said, adding that she feels like she can learn many different styles of practicing medicine through the military.

“It’s ever-changing and always something new,” she said. “That’s something that really interested me. I feel like a lot of people think when you’re in military medicine you’re in a sandpit in Afghanistan, when there’s bases all over, internationally and here in the U.S. It would be cool to move around a lot and see a lot of different cultures and cities.”

While in her junior year of high school, Sam lost her grandmother to cancer. After dealing with such a devastating loss, the more Sam thought about the disease, the more the human body intrigued her. She originally decided to pursue a career as an oncologist, but then she experienced the medical opportunities a trauma center had to offer.

Sam works part-time as a scribe at Baptist Medical Center East and Baptist Medical Center South, a level two trauma center in Montgomery. Since September, she has worked 12-hour shifts, three times a week.

“It’s a lot of time out of my schedule, but it’s definitely worth it,” Sam said. “It’s super cool to see the fast-paced, learn on your feet, get it done kind of attitude that a lot of the doctors and physicians have in the emergency department.”

Sam said she is now leaning more towards a fast-paced style of medicine such as trauma, but cancer research is also something she is interested in.

“It’s really hard to meet someone in this day and age that hasn’t been affected by cancer,” Sam said. “I think if there was ever a point that I wasn’t doing something with medicine, I would definitely consider taking a couple of years to get into research – whether it be pediatric cancer research or human research in general.”

Throughout her time at Auburn, Sam has also volunteered her time with cancer fundraisers Relay for Life and Love Your Melon. She is also in the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority and is a committee chair for the sorority’s largest fundraising event Big Man on Campus, which benefits cancer education and awareness.

During her busy schedule, Sam said that she has taken the time to appreciate what it has meant to be a COSAM student.

“Just knowing that I have an incredible opportunity to learn alongside incredibly smart kids and from incredibly smart people, it’s so rewarding,” she said. “I would never want to take it for granted.”