Merranda Holmes
Shannon Crook photos by James Morris/UK HealthCare
“MTSU really prepared me for medical school,” said Crook, a 2014 East Tennessee State University Quillen College of Medicine graduate now in residency at the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky. “I was very well prepared that first year. Starting with Honors biology and Honors chemistry here, that’s where I learned how to study. The surprise at med school was how quickly I had to learn and the volume of material.” Choices abound for Pre-Med students. Part of the undergraduate journey for many is figuring out whether they’re drawn to clinical work or research. For Crook, an internship after her junior year at MTSU solidified that she liked the clinical side more than the research side and that medical school would be the next step. As she got further along in medical school, courses helped light the path to her career. The
more she could dig into the details in microbiology, infectious diseases, and pathology, the better. “I loved that part,” she said.
Looking Back Crook boils down the experience of medical school with her fellow students in a few short words. “We studied,” she summed up. “That’s what you did.” Intense study, made more bearable by taking time out to enjoy “family dinners” with fellow students and hiking the gorgeous east Tennessee mountains, was how Crook described those stressful times. “Those are the friends I’ll have forever,” she said. Those friends included fellow MTSU grad Jeremy Crook, her boyfriend at the time. Shannon and Jeremy married in 2014 after both graduated ETSU medical school. (Honors College Dean John
Vile officiated at their wedding on Shannon Crook’s family farm in Murfreesboro.) Crook’s “family” at ETSU medical school also included her best friend and fellow MTSU Honors graduate, Merranda Holmes. While at MTSU, the two became known as the “twins” among Honors College staff for their striking similarities. “Both Shannon and Merranda are very goal-oriented, have great attitudes, and care about others beyond them,” Vile said. “We called them twins because they were often up for the same awards, in the same classes, in the same clubs.” The two women joke that they met as rivals. Both were finalists for an award and found out it would be split between them. “I had to ask, ‘So, who am I sharing this award with?’ ” Holmes said. “Camaraderie pushed us both, and we became really, really good friends.”
Fall 2016 47