Guest Blog Post: Amaya Caballero-Wittmaack, Third Year Medical Student and Entrepreneur on How in Retrospect, Her International Research Training Experience Made Sense

An alumnus of Stanford University and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Amaya Caballero Wittmaack is now a 3rd-year medical student at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and Co-Founder of a data science company, A/B Data Doctors (www.abdatadoctors.com). She was a participant in the 2012 Mount Sinai International Exchange Program that I direct.  I placed her to do her internship at the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit in Murcia, Spain with my colleague Dr. Juan Antonio Ortega. This is the story of how a series of international experiences and the research training that we provided led her to go to medical school and start a data services company.  ​

---

My undergraduate adviser once said to me “it is not just what you do, it is how you do it.” She certainly applied these words to her own life as a proponent of equal rights, founder of the Global Fund for Women, and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee. Her advice helped me go from an 18-year-old idealistic college student to a forward-thinking 28-year-old medical student and business owner of a data science company.
I founded A/B Data Doctors with my husband in 2018 to provide data science expertise to individuals and organizations. We have worked with companies such as Zocdoc.Com, suitX, Skye Biologics, The Khana Group, and others around the world to leverage health-related data to support the design and implementation of evidence-based approaches to improving health interventions and access to healthcare resources. Currently, our organization also provides support to other sectors including private companies conducting market research, education-related organizations, and eHealth start-ups. Our services include data analysis, biostatistics, data visualizations, survey design and dissemination, study design and ethical approval support, and other data science needs.  Our long-term vision is to develop our own projects and proposals as well as apply the concept of leveraging healthcare data to improve health systems in the developing world.
My experiences thus far have taught me a few lessons.

• Firstly, you never know what opportunities life will throw your way—when they come, use the opportunity to strengthen yourself as much as possible and live out the experience to the fullest.
• Secondly, in retrospect, everything happens for a reason. It will all make sense later.
• Thirdly, remain open to learning from supervisors, mentors, and colleagues.
• Lastly, remember that “it is not just what you do, it is how you do it”.

I will tell you how I have learned these lessons.
My roots as an entrepreneur and healthcare worker began when I was a volunteer and non-profit worker. As a premedical student at Stanford University, I spent my free time volunteering with nonprofit organizations such as TeachAIDS, where I helped develop and disseminate HIV prevention education tutorials to youth in low income countries. When I graduated, I remained committed to participating in transformative initiatives, and I was interested in gaining more research experience. I learned about the Dr. Claudio’s International Exchange Program from a classmate at Stanford and decided to submit an application. A few weeks later, I learned that I was selected as a participant for the summer of 2012 in Spain. While at the time I had hoped to be assigned to a project in a low-income country, I later realized that my assignment was an ideal personal and professional development opportunity.
As a participant, I traveled to New York City to visit the School of Medicine at Mount Sinai for the program’s orientation. I met with other like-minded students, gained mentorship from Dr. Claudio and alumni of the program, and learned more about health disparities. Then, I flew to Murcia, Spain, where I began my summer research internship at the Hospital of the Virgin of Arrixaca working in the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit. My project focused on whether maternal breastfeeding habits predicted childhood obesity indicators. I shadowed clinicians, entered data from surveys, collected survey data using phone interviews, analyzed data using SPSS, and presented my results in a manuscript and presentation to my mentor. My experiences in Spain and the opportunity provided by the program shaped my career immediately following my time in Spain and to this day. Conducting research in an international context was invaluable both in developing my professional Spanish language skills and learning how to work in a cross-cultural environment. Having the opportunity to explore Spanish culture on the weekends, completing the famous “Camino de Santiago” pilgrimage, and spending three weeks following the completion of my project traveling around Europe enriched my worldview.
Immediately following the program, I was hired by USAID-funded nonprofit organization based in Washington D.C. that promoted family planning, community health, and gender-norm transformation interventions in India, Rwanda, Uganda, and Guatemala. Due to my hands-on experience conducting research in Spain, I pursued training in data analysis and qualitative research—fortunately, Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health had numerous individuals committed to teaching in these areas. Through this position, I saw the importance of leveraging data to appeal to stakeholders, to obtain funding for critical development programs, and to support initiatives that were both effective and cost-efficient. My passion for evidence-based healthcare continued to grow. Having loved my experiences in Europe, I ultimately decided to return one year later to pursue a master’s degree.
I pursued my MS in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine to acquire skills in healthcare data analytics. Later, I applied to medical school and am currently finishing my third year as a medical student at the University of Virginia. As a medical student, I continued to pursue opportunities to serve my community. I became a community health organizer where I organized screening programs for homeless residents. I was appointed as the president of the International Medicine Club and promoted our mission to encourage our best and brightest to use their skills in regions with limited healthcare resources. Personally, I was awarded the Center for Global Health Scholars Award to do research and healthcare in a rural center in Tanzania. I also worked for two years doing clinical research, where I helped found my University’s first pregnancy cohort and traveled across the country presenting my research. During my third year of medical school, I founded A/B Data Doctors and am currently applying for the MD/MBA program at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. I aspire to utilize my expertise as a future medical doctor, researcher, and entrepreneur to develop my business into an organization that leverages healthcare data to support initiatives that are both efficacious and cost-efficient. I aim to promote this mission both within the United States and also within developing regions.
So this is how I have learned these lessons, through making sense of these experiences to create my own story.  Firstly, you never know what opportunities life will throw your way—when they come, use the opportunity to strengthen yourself as much as possible and live out the experience to the fullest. Secondly, in retrospect, everything happens for a reason. I see now how being assigned to the project in Spain with Dr. Claudio’s International Exchange Program was the perfect experience for me, ultimately leading me to pursue other research opportunities, obtain my MS in the UK, become more involved in mitigating health disparities among Spanish-speaking patients, and most likely lead me to apply my skills in founding A/B Data Doctors. Thirdly, remain open to learning from supervisors, mentors, and colleagues—not only will their connections further your long-term goals, but learning from their experiences will enrich your own. Lastly, remember that “it is not just what you do, it is how you do it”—behaving professionally, with integrity, and being well-intentioned are essential aspects to being an inspirational leader. In my experience, adopting this philosophy has helped carve a professional and personal trajectory that excites me more and more as the days go by.