Success After Solebury School

Phil Walker '11
Morehouse College 2016
Wright State University M.D./Ph.D. Candidate

“An important lesson I learned from my Solebury School experience is that in order to grow, I must continue to learn more, experience more and explore new things. The only way to do that is to constantly challenge myself to step outside of my comfort zone.” —Phil

Suffice it to say, Phil is challenging himself. Always has. He credits Solebury School, where he took multiple AP courses, with pushing him academically. “Solebury School is where I learned good study habits. I started to understand that everything I was doing in school was preparing me for my future,” he told Wright State’s NEWSRoom.

Phil graduated from Morehouse College in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in Biology. He’s currently studying neuroscience and completing a dual-degree program at Wright State University’s Boonshoft School of Medicine, and he is president of the class of 2020. “The opportunity to participate in an M.D./Ph.D. program is something I’ve dreamt about,” he has said. “While the seven years it will take to complete the program may sound daunting to others, I don’t view it as such. I treat it as an investment in the care of my future patients and those who will be impacted by my research.”

In March 2017, Phil spent his spring break in Kampala, Uganda, where he studied neurosurgery with a team from Duke University that included doctors, nurses, scientists, technicians and biomedical engineers. It was the 10th anniversary of the collaboration between Duke and Mulago Hospital/Makerere University College of Health Sciences. There, the Duke team performed about 20 neurosurgical cases that Phil was able to observe. “[It] was an absolutely phenomenal introduction into a field of medicine and research that I am passionate about. I certainly gained a much fuller perspective on how social, behavioral and environmental factors influence neurosurgical needs.”

—Summer 2017

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