Even though Kristian Brown, M.D., Ph.D., got the opportunity to do biomedical research in the Minority Access to Research Careers, or MARC, program as a sophomore at San Diego State University, he still thinks that he decided to be a doctor pretty late in life. “Many of my classmates in medical school were fourth-generation physicians who knew they wanted to become doctors by 5 years old,” he says. “I came into college as a music major.”
Today, Brown is both a transplant surgeon at Detroit Medical Center and an assistant adjunct professor of biomedical engineering at Wayne State University. He has co-written more than 11 scholarly papers, won numerous research awards and earned a Ph.D. in engineering.
“Surgeons and engineers both solve practical problems in three dimensions,” Brown says. “I don’t just want to be a great surgeon; I want to find better ways to do surgery.”
Dr. Scott Gruber, chief of transplant surgery for the Wayne State School of Medicine, says that “Brown has excelled on all fronts and has emerged as one of the most successful research residents in the history of our program.”
