Karmen Berquist '10

Karmen Bergquist felt lost. She had applied to 13 post-baccalaureate medical programs but struggled to decide where to enroll. What helped make up her mind was a phone call from Dominican University’s Premedical Program Director, Dr. Louis Scannicchio.

“He told me why Dominican was a good fit for me. It seemed like a tangible next step,” she said. “I thought, ‘ this is how I’m going to get the knowledge I need to get into med school.’”

Bergquist liked Dominican’s close proximity to Chicago and Baraboo, Wisconsin, where her family lives. She also liked the small class sizes and personal attention from the faculty.

She earned her undergraduate degree in Italian from University of Colorado at Boulder, which has an enrollment close to 30,000. She has a love for languages and Europe, so she chose to major in Italian and studied in Florence, Italy for a semester. But, when it came time to look for a job after graduation she turned her attention to the field of medicine.

“My entire family works in the sciences,” she said. “My mom is a nurse practitioner and my dad is a geologist and my step dad is a soil scientist, so I thought I would eventually go into a science field as well, but I didn’t want to launch into it right away. I wanted to explore some of my other interests first.”

Because the University of Colorado was such a big school, Bergquist was looking for a small premedical program.

“At CU-Boulder my classes were huge. I wanted the opposite of that for my post-bac degree,” she said. “Dominican is all about one-on-one interaction with the faculty, and I totally embraced that. I was also looking for a more advanced curriculum. I had already taken the basics, so when I saw that Dominican’s program included classes like biochemistry, cellular biology and physiology, I was so excited.”

Fast-forward two years, and Bergquist is now at Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine. She says her classes at Dominican prepared her well for Midwestern.

“I did really well on my first physiology exam,” she says, “and I think it was all because of my physiology courses at Dominican.”

Bergquist remains in touch with her Dominican instructors and has even returned to campus to speak to current students in the program.

“The Dominican faculty were so supportive,” she says. “I don’t think I could have gotten through this process without them.”