Kristen Kova isn’t even sure how she was selected. But when she got the chance to attend the Congress of Future Medical Leaders convention in Washington, D.C., the 15-year-old didn’t look back.
The Land O’ Lakes teenager traveled by car with her mother Jennie, and her brother Ryan, to the conference, over the weekend of Nov. 14, and found a packed agenda at the conference.
“They had a lot of cool speakers that were very influential,” said Kova, a sophomore at Land O’ Lakes High School.
Kova has had an interest in medicine since he was quite young, but found a documentary showed at the convention — “Code Black”— to be “really eye-opening.” It depicts the challenges faced by Los Angeles County Hospital trying to provide care, where patients waited for hours by a staff buried in bureaucracy. Some patients had to go to work, so they left the hospital without being seen, while others died.
Kova said her interest in medicine probably stems from being around her father’s medical challenges. Rex Kova is disabled and has a variety of medical issues, including deafness in one ear and blindness in one eye.
“I spend a lot of time being there for him and taking care for him,” she said. “I think that’s something God wants me to do.”
Initially, Kova thought she wanted to pursue a career as a surgeon. But now she’s reconsidering, and instead may direct her energies into becoming a nurse or a physician assistant.
She wants to be involved in medicine, but Kova also would like a family, she explained. So she’s not sure she wants to commit so much of her life to pursue that goal.
Despite that shift, Kova’s glad she was selected to attend the conference.
“It was pretty motivational,” she said.
One of the speakers was Jack Andraka, who helped develop a new diagnostic test for pancreatic cancer when he was just 15.
“He was amazing,” Kova said, adding that unlike how other kids would enjoy the summer, Andraka spent his time researching proteins online.
Kova couldn’t stay for the third day of the conference because she had classes back home.
“I couldn’t miss school because I had an AP psyche test,” she said.
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