Physician Spotlight: Dr. Mark Williams
Physician Spotlight: Dr. Mark Williams
What experiences at Miami University best prepared you on your path to medical school?
I had a really great advisor. At the time there was no Mallory-Wilson Center, but my academic advisor really helped me to stay on track. I tried to take a broad base of classes outside of the medical school prerequisites. I took extra history, philosophy, and even English classes. I wanted to try and have a broad experience as an undergrad knowing that I would be focused on science for the rest of my life, to try and learn more than just science out of undergrad. I had good research opportunities sophomore and junior year in Dr. Allen Spock’s lab and had good volunteer experiences in some of the local nursing homes in Oxford.
How do you feel about helping MW Center students now that you’re a practicing physician?
I really have enjoyed being on the board and having students shadow me. I think that shadowing experience is very important because it gives the student a chance to see what a physician’s day-to-day life is really like if they’ve never seen it before. I’ve really enjoyed it and I think that students have been able to get a lot out of those experiences as well. It’s also an opportunity to get to know these students, so when medical school applications roll around it helps in writing references. I often get asked for references and am then able to write on behalf of some of these students. The MW Center is so much more than what was there when I was in school, there was nothing like that when I was there. The ability to have somebody look at your application, personal statements, and go over many of the prerequisite classes you take on the way to medical school. I feel that it’s a huge step up as far as understanding what students need to do to get into medical school, so I would take advantage of every opportunity that I could through MW Center.
How did you become interested in specializing in family medicine?
By the time I got there (Miami) I had already pretty much made the decision that was where I was going to land. I was very inspired by my family doctor who delivered my mom, my sister and me. He was the old general practitioner who performed surgery, took people’s appendix out, he did internal medicine, obstetrics and other things. I just wanted a profession where I could have 1) long term relationships with people and 2) have a broad depth of knowledge, not more narrowly focused like a sub-specialty.
What was one of your fondest memories at Miami?
For me, basketball was huge at Miami when I was there. Going to basketball games with some of my friends were some of my best memories. The team was very good. Ron Harper was there, so we had a great team that was very competitive. That’s probably some of my best memories around the campus. Going uptown I used to love going to this place called Lottie Moon’s, which is no longer there. I still meet some of my classmates when we all get into Oxford. Going uptown and having some Bruno’s, that was always a great thing.
