Dr. Lauran Dea ’18

 

My name is Lauren Dea, CUSP Class of 2018. I’m currently finishing my PGY-1 pharmacy residency and will start my PGY-2 residency in Infectious Diseases in July 2019. I enjoy playing fantasy basketball with my fellow CUSP alumni. We started our league during our P1 year and have been playing ever since. I would like to take this moment to remind any of the guys in our league that I won our second year. Also, I enjoy gardening.

 Career

  • After graduation, I was a PGY-1 resident at a long-term acute care hospital called Kindred Hospital. By the nature of our facility, antimicrobial resistance was one of our most pressing issues. I became heavily involved with our antimicrobial stewardship program throughout the year and had the most amazing ID stewardship pharmacist who took me under her wing. My ID pharmacist, Dr. Christie Gamble, was instrumental in driving my passion for pursuing ID. As cheesy as it may sound, I felt like learning ID from her was just like learning a new hobby. It didn’t feel like work. I applied for PGY-2 residency in Infectious Diseases and was fortunate to match with my top choice for PGY-2 ID at the VA in San Diego (where Christie did her PGY-2!). I couldn’t be more excited for all the opportunities at VA SD and I feel incredibly lucky to be chasing what I love.

Goals as Alumni Advisory Board Member

  • I hope our alumni can connect with the current and future students at CUSP and be a resource. Coming from the inaugural class of 2018, we didn’t have any alumni who could offer advice or perspective on some of the unique challenges we may face as students at CUSP. I hope our alumni board can make it easier for alumni and current students to make connections and bond over shared experiences.

Memories at CUSP

  • I loved being active with our student organizations at CUSP. I was able to start the CUSP CSHP/ASHP student chapter with some of my closest friends at CUSP and am so proud of what we built together. Our faculty advisors, Drs. Lam, Tsu, and Won were (and still are) the most incredible mentors to me and I’ll always look up to them. As a P3, I was Class President and had such a fun time in that role. My favorite memory was our Senior Awards Banquet. All of the speeches were so funny and sentimental. Our MC’s Jackson Tran, Michael Sayer, and Michael Phan could be stand up comedians as side-jobs. I was practically crying from laughing so hard during their speeches.

Messages to CUSP Alumni and Students

  • Being the founding cohorts at CUSP, we’ll always have that special connection and I hope we can all take pride in what we helped build. During every residency interview I was always questioned why I chose CUSP instead of a more established school. But my answer was always the same. I chose CUSP (and would still choose CUSP again if I had to do it all over) because of the incredible people and unique opportunities. I was mentored by the most supportive faculty, met the most amazing friends, and had the most diverse set of experiences because of CUSP. I will never stop being grateful for what CUSP has done for me and I’ll always give back however I can.