Schechter Stories Fall/Winter 2023-2024

An Interview with Gabriella Smith ’14

Student Council President at Schechter.

Volunteer for Gateways: Access to Jewish Education while at Newton South High School.

Summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Washington University with a B.A. in Biochemistry and a Minor in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Recipient of the Harriet K. Switzer Leadership Award and the Shepley Outstanding Senior Award.

Speaker of the Student Union Senate and undergraduate representative to the Washington University Board of Trustees.

Research Assistant at Washington University School of Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and Lurie Children’s Hospital.

First-year student at Stanford School of Medicine. Yes, there’s more.

One of a handful of medical students admitted to the ultra prestigious Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program at Stanford, which includes belonging to a cohort of students in different schools at the university who benefit from professional leadership development, interdisciplinary collaboration and a full scholarship for the entirety of their study.

Gaby’s star power is consistent and palpable with a wow factor list of impressive accomplishments and recognition. Her medical school journey may have just begun, but Gaby acknowledges the inspirations that have long guided her, both knowingly and in retrospect. In her affable, straightforward way, she recalls, “I was interested in medicine early on. I knew I liked science. I knew I liked working with people and my dad's a doctor, so I got to see firsthand the impact a physician can have on patients and the community. I went into high school and ultimately college with this interest, but I don't think it was until I got into clinical settings through volunteering and shadowing, started doing research in a lab, advocating for students through student government, and working as a teaching assistant for some biology courses, that I realized medicine was truly the best way for me to combine all my interests in clinical medicine, research, teaching and advocacy.”

The culmination of Gaby’s interests and determination posit her right where she should be. “Medicine is the way that I will be able to advocate for people’s physical health, their mental health, and social circumstances, all of which reaffirms for me, quite organically, that medicine is the right path.” Gaby is preliminarily focused on pediatrics, though she remains open to the avenues that will unfold before her throughout medical school and eventual clinical rotations. “Ideally, I will go into a pediatric subspecialty or surgical field and make an impact through clinical medicine, research, and advocacy work for issues I care about like gun violence prevention, gender affirming care for LGBTQ+ children and health equity.” As a Knight Hennessy scholar, Gaby engages in trailblazing, next-level professional development. “I’m excited to be working with the other students in the program to address issues that we think are important in society and to form interdisciplinary solutions.”

Gaby is introspective about the roots of her abiding affinity for advocacy. She draws on her natural skill for coalescing information and analyzing a particular group’s needs and desires in order to problem solve and help, and points to early opportunities to speak up and speak out when she was at Schechter.

“I learned that leadership and advocacy are not about being the smartest person in the room or the person who has all the answers,” says Gaby. “It’s about being the person who is willing to work through a complicated issue that might cause disagreement and to try to find a solution or the best way forward. As Student Council President at Schechter, my peers would come to me with concerns and things that they wanted. I would go to the administration as a representative and work towards possible compromises and results. It was the first time I realized that I could take ideas from a group of constituents and bring them to people who were high up in an organization. I came away from Schechter with public speaking skills and leadership experiences that I have used in many other places.”

Gaby also turns to the unique sophistication and intricacy of Jewish thought that begins on day one at Schechter. She marvels at the depth of this learning and its enduring significance for her. "I think about how much knowledge I have of the Tanakh. It comes up quite often. From the beginning at Schechter, we are talking about ethical frameworks. We are learning a story and then hearing different rabbis’ opinions through the Talmud. Then as a child, we give our opinion on topics we might not otherwise even be considering, let alone be asked to share our feelings about.” There is a good dose of gratitude in Gaby’s voice when she says, “I didn’t realize the level of critical thinking at the time—I was too young—but I do now.”

Like so many students of this era, Gaby’s college years were marked by the advent and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even back at home in Chestnut Hill in the spring of 2020, Gaby wielded her trademark productivity and initiative to jump into action on behalf of the student body. “We looked at everything from how students would retrieve their belongings from dorms to how testing would work in the fall. We wanted to address the impact of the extreme stress and isolation on students, as well as the barriers students faced in accessing resources.”

Ascending the ranks of student government throughout her four years at WashU, Gaby devoted much of her time to understanding what students needed and to working with administrators and students to find the best solutions to improve the student experience.” As the Speaker of the Student Government Senate and, later on, as one of just two undergraduate representatives to WashU’s Board of Trustees, Gaby was typically methodical, results-oriented and incisive. She and her co-representative attended all of the trustees’ meetings, engendering critical relationships with them. “We presented on issues and were able to bring the student voice into major decisions on the board.”

As part of the Student Senate, Gaby was behind the founding of the Student Union Mental Health Fund at WashU, using resources from the student government budget. “Our main focus was mental health, racial and socioeconomic equity, and overall student wellbeing and school culture. The fund offers financial support for students who might not otherwise be able to afford mental health care, services and testing. We were concerned about socioeconomic equity and making sure that students who come from low income backgrounds had the resources they needed not just to attend school, but to thrive and be a part of the community, participate in student activities and social events. We secured nearly $500,000 in funding and streamlined the infrastructure, allowing us to balance financial need, the amount of funding and students’ access. Our goal was to develop a fund to support students for years to come.”

Alongside Gaby’s efforts on behalf of the student body, she worked in a cardiology lab at WashU School of Medicine during which she crafted her senior thesis. She was also involved in clinical research in the Pediatric Emergency Department at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. “We implemented two clinical research studies that my team and I designed which considered different parts of the patient and family experience in the emergency department. We designed surveys for parents, looking into rates of parental consent to pediatric emergency medicine and research studies, and also parental anxiety levels in the emergency department. We had a really high rate of parents who were interested.” Gaby notes that the study considered parents’ travel time to the emergency department, the length of stay and demographic factors.

After graduation, Gaby spent the year prior to medical school engaged in research at Chicago’s Lurie Children's Hospital in pediatric infectious diseases and neonatology. “The next logical step in my research trajectory was a really hands-on role in pediatrics, so I would come out of the year having gained new research skills.” Her involvement in research has at once piqued and propelled her interests in the psychosocial aspects of children’s health.

During this year, Gaby helped construct the Chicago Perinatal Origins of Disease Cohort and the Founder’s 400 Study, an ongoing longitudinal study at Northwestern. Devised to follow pregnant people during gestation and through the child’s first two years of life, the study examines different environmental, social and biological factors that impact the pregnancy as well as the baby's health. Variables include environmental exposures in the home, social factors and other components to see how it all affects children’s health during the first two years.

“Beyond just treating patients in the clinic, it’s critical to understand the factors to which they return at home,” Gaby explains. As a Clinical Research Coordinator, she helped winnow the goals of the data collection from the ground up to ensure it would yield robust information. “I loved having the chance to see how a clinical research study is built as well as enrolling patients for other studies and examining the findings,” Gaby shares. Being a principal player in fashioning the infrastructure of the study, and selecting effective surveys, revealed the complexity of the process to Gaby.

“We were able to launch enrollment in the study, and I’m excited to keep in touch from afar while at Stanford. It’s going to be a very large repository of data that includes biological specimens, electronic medical record data, and social and other health data. We are also gathering environmental specimens that relate to water quality and dust and chemicals in the home environment, for instance, so we can use the data to test additional hypotheses about maternal and pediatric outcomes,” she continues. “The study aims to enroll a significant number of Black and Brown families to address historical exclusion of those communities from research. This opportunity showed me how research can be a tool to rectify historical inequities and to study populations that might have been excluded in the past by medicine and research or faced racism at the hands of the medical institution. This can be a huge barrier. Researchers need to work to build trust to address these historical atrocities.”

Gaby’s accomplishments are manifold and surely represent a body of work that will grow exponentially in the future if the present is any indication. Embedded deeply within her is an assiduous, wholehearted approach towards school, towards her own professional development and career. Gaby radiates a gentle, steady self-confidence, and an unwavering belief in her capacity to help people, to do the hard work of figuring out what they need, and to extract the critical essence of a situation or problem. Gaby’s intended career will leverage all that she loves doing to the benefit of so many, a much-needed salve for a complicated world.