Daniel Oh

Daniel Oh has wanted to be a doctor ever since middle school. As a child, Oh had asthma and allergies to an abundance of foods and animals, so he was at the doctor’s office a lot. He said he would not have the same success today had it not been for the doctors: “I’m here today because of medicine, and I just want to pay that forward in order to help other people who are not as fortunate as me and who are struggling to be able to reach their full potential.”

Oh has been involved in various programs involving medicine, including volunteering at Advocate Condell Medical Center, the Penwasciz program at Condell, shadowing doctors and researching at Rosalind Franklin University. “Each of these things strengthened my passion for medicine and made me realize how much I love working for people and how much I’m just passionate about this,” he said.

Oh decided to go into the six-year program rather than college and medical school because he knew that getting into medical school “was an incredibly stressful process, so I just wanted to take that out of the picture, and if I could get into medical school now straight out of high school, I wouldn’t have to worry about that.”

In the fall, Oh will be attending the University of Missouri-Kansas City. At the end of his six years there, he will have a bachelor’s degree and a medical degree. However, getting into UMKC was not easy. First, each applicant needed to submit an application, including six letters of recommendation. About 1,000 high school students applied, but only 250 were taken to UMKC for the chemistry placement test and the interview process, where each applicant was given 10 situations to respond to. From there, about 100 students were chosen, Oh being one of them.

Oh applied to several programs and eventually decided on UMKC because it gave him a guaranteed spot in the medical school.

At UMKC, Oh said, “you are able to be in a hospital treating patients and helping people out in your first week of class, which I was very shocked and pretty excited to be a part of.”