Student spotlight: Justina Warnick

Justina Warnick grew up in a Geisinger family and was cared for by Geisinger doctors since her birth. Her father is a mechanic at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center and her brother is an orthopaedic surgical resident at Geisinger Medical Center. Despite these close ties to healthcare, Warnick said her parents didn’t apply any special pressure when it came to her choice of career. Instead, a novel project in high school served as her inspiration to pursue medicine.

“In ninth-grade algebra, I was required to compete an interdisciplinary project. I made a roller coaster called ‘Murder She Rode’ that reflected a parabolic equation and was surrounded by intricately detailed rooms of a crime. I had to use science and math, but also art,” she said. “I enjoyed the project because of the breadth of expertise it required in several disciplines, and I realized medicine was the same — scientific knowledge is critical, but so are communication, empathy and compassion.”

As a pre-med student at Dickinson College, she decided primary care was her passion. “During a course called ‘Spanish for the Health Professions,’ I completed service learning at a migrant healthcare clinic. I served as an interpreter and almost felt like I was a doctor, because I spoke directly to the patients. The patients were so grateful and the information we provided had so much impact. I felt that this is what I wanted to do with my career,” she said.

Her decision to focus on primary care made Geisinger Commonwealth and its Abigail Geisinger Scholars Program the obvious choice for medical school. As a medical student, Warnick has continued to be an advocate of underserved communities. She was elected president of the Pediatric Outreach Group for Students (POGS). Among her accomplishments in this leadership role was organizing a vaccine clinic where POGS members taught 73 fellow Geisinger Commonwealth medical students how to administer vaccines, understand the pediatric vaccine schedule and combinations, navigate vaccine hesitancy conversations, and manage vaccinations in immune-compromised patients. She also pioneered several events to reach different groups of children in the area including a clothing and book drive at St. Joseph’s Center, a Pinwheels for Child Abuse Prevention Garden, Giving Tree for the Children’s Advocacy Center, and a t-shirt sale to raise money for the local Ronald McDonald House.