Doctor of Medicine | MD Program
Jessica Briscoe MD Class of 2020 Jessica Briscoe, a member of Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine’s Class of 2020, has spent the past two years delving into the secrets of the human brain at Harvard Medical School. She was awarded a second year to continue this work as a fellow in the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s (HHMI) Medical Research Fellows Program. Jessica is working with Emery Brown, MD, PhD, Harvard’s Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anesthesia, on research that studies unconsciousness, especially as induced by various type of anesthetics. “Surprisingly, this has not been done before — trying to understand what different drugs do to the brain,” she said. “Understanding how each anesthetic affects neural dynamics will greatly inform neuroscience and medicine.” The previous year, she worked with Emad Eskander, MD, researching diagnostic approaches of neuropathology, which resulted in a presentation on techniques of epilepsy diagnosis and a paper, “Structural and Functional Network Dysfunction in Parkinson Disease,” published in the December 2017 edition of the journal Radiology. Multiple papers based on the work she has done with Dr. Brown, studying how the brain recovers from general anesthesia, are pending. Jessica, who hopes to become a neurosurgeon, said summer research after her first year of medical school sparked her interest in the lab. “I was part of the Summer Research Immersion Program at Geisinger Commonwealth with Ying-Ju Sung, PhD. It was such a great experience, so enriching — but it was over too soon! I wanted to do more,” Jessica said. “That’s when I began to research programs and found Howard Hughes.” What intrigued Jessica about the HHMI program was its mentorship aspect. “HHMI encourages applicants to find a mentor they want to emulate. I identified Dr. Eskander and just ‘cold-emailed’ him. And he responded!” she said. “He encouraged me to come up with a project, write a proposal and develop a timeline about how the project and mentorship would help me. I got the fellowship and since that time, I’ve met so many different people who’ve helped guide me, including Dr. Brown. It’s been such a rewarding experience.”
Photo © Stanley Rowin stanstudio.com
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