Member Spotlight: Dylan Gould
Dylan Gould is currently in his senior year here at Baylor, and is the current President of AED. He is responsible for overseeing many facets of AED, like planning meetings, and finding resources for current members, although he says that “most importantly, [he] is responsible for upholding the mission of AED of cultivating community, excellence, and leadership in healthcare”.
Dylan’s time as President has been serving him well, and he has “loved every second”. With everything that Dylan has for AED, he has always done it with “the intention of supporting our community”. It is apparent that Dylan truly believes that it would not be possible without the members who have “supported [him] and loved on [him]”. Even with the online changes due to COVID-19, AED has transitioned smoothly under his leadership.
When asked about the highlight of the past year, Dylan mentioned “the growth we have seen in AED”. Some new adaptions to AED include “the creation of new Officer positions, the new website, the new Enzyme/Substrate process, the new service opportunities, to the Global Health Series, to the complete revolution of Pre-Health Symposium, the closeness of the community”, and it is evident that AED has adapted well. Part of the reason why was the tremendous flexibility that the Executive Board shown, and their ability to turn setbacks into opportunities. Not only the Executive Board took part, but “the Officer’s going above and beyond their responsibilities” and ideas from “the General Members speaking” their mind have also improved AED immensely.
“When I look back on what made my AED experience so amazing, it was never the big things, but the little things. It’s been when everyone is laughing so hard at something a member said during New Member Auction that we are all crying. It’s been the texts from AED members the day before my MCAT wishing me luck. It’s been the members all encouraging after our class’s New Member Service Project got cancelled for the fourth time. It’s been my enzyme getting me uncooked pasta as a snack instead of candy like everyone else at our Enzyme-Substrate reveal. It’s been the members giving each other beard growing advice and how to maintain a healthy beard. It’s been everyone laughing the day before Pre-Health Symposium because we overloaded all of the outlets in the BSB Atrium from ironing the table cloths. It’s been all of the pictures of the dogs in the GroupMe. It’s been when a member said that for the first time, they felt like they truly belonged in AED because of me. It’s these little moments from my AED experience that I will forever cherish. It’s been these little moments that made AED home.”
For over two years, Dylan has been researching under his PI, Dr. Justin Feinstein, at Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, OK. They study “apnea-induced anxiety”, which theorizes that “an anxiety is caused by an overstimulation of the amygdala, which then causes an unconscious halt in breathing due to the amygdala’s GABAergic connections with the respiratory center in the brainstem, which leads to an increase in CO2, which then causes an anxiogenic response due to the amygdala’s pH sensitive chemoreceptors”. They hypothesize that this causes “multiple unconscious halts in breathing, or apneas” in a person’s day, which leads to “being much more chronically anxious than health individuals”. Dylan’s main role is to plan and trial run “a pilot study to test our theory” with the use of “portable, respiration monitors that track the participant’s respiration patterns as they go about their normal day”. In addition to his research, Dylan has assisted in writing two manuscripts. One is about “role of amygdala nuclei volume in CO2-induced fear as the first author” and the other is about “apnea-induced anxiety theory as a co-author for a special addition journal entry on the neuroscience of respiration in Biological Psychiatry”.
With graduation nearby, Dylan has been “currently applying to get [his] Masters in Public Health before [he] ultimately [applies] to medical school”. COVID-19 has influenced his perspective on healthcare, and he believes the if he wants to care for his patients holistically, he “[needs] to be able to also heal the broken parts of our healthcare system that were hurting them”. A Masters in Public Health (MPH) would allow him to receive the “extra education and training [he needs] to effectively establish new programs, new policies, and conduct new research to create solutions for these inequities that plague our healthcare system”. A proponent of gap years, Dylan insists that “if done correctly, they are only advantageous to you”! Taking a gap year opens opportunities like applying “for a masters or post-bacc program to increase a lack luster undergraduate GPA”, spending “a year or two working in a research lab to increase your research experience”, or working “as a scribe and volunteer to address low clinical or volunteering hours”. Not only can taking a gap year improve your medical school application, it also opens an opportunity to improve “personal growth and maintaining mental health”. Dylan states his main reason for taking a gap year and pursuing a MPH was taking “time away from the all-consuming experiences of undergrad to learn new life skills, travel, establish healthy work-life balances, and so on”!
Lastly, when asked if he could give advice to current members of AED, Dylan encouraged members to “enjoy the time you have in our great organization”. Although he is “ready to say goodbye to Baylor, [he is] still not ready to say goodbye to AED”. Baylor AED wishes Dylan the best for his current and future endeavors, and thanks him for being such a personification of AED leadership.