Maria Pita

I’m a 4th year pre-med student pursuing an interdepartmental major in Cultural Anthropology and Neuroscience, with a minor in Chemistry. I am fascinated by the individual as the product of its environment. Cultural anthropology as a discipline grounds itself in its goal to make the unfamiliar, familiar and vice versa. It pushes us to reconsider the things we take for granted by revealing the extraordinary ways in which they reveal the meaning and impetus behind our attitudes and traditions. Neuroscience is a microcosm for an analogous mode of study in the brain, it reveals the ways in which the taken-for-granted elements of our anatomy control the plasticity of our cognition, the ways we interact with our environment, and how this impacts how we develop and construct our realities. Nothing has impacted my conception of reality more than my experiences abroad. Last year in Brazil and once again in Greece, I had the chance to exercise my anthropologist muscles as I made myself a humble student of the world for the first, but definitely not the last, time. Emboldened by the kindness with which I’d been embraced abroad, I set out to nurture meaningful connections at Duke. This thirst for community introduced me to the Ethics and Global Justice Living-Learning community, an interdisciplinary living group dedicated to promoting, moral reflection and commitment, that I later co-led as Vice-president. All this while serving as Co-Instructor of our Ethics house course, where we had powerful discussions about healthcare and human rights. It was the confidence I developed from the unconditional support of my communities at Duke and at home that pushed me to pursue a more hands-on experience in medicine. Upon returning from Greece, I shadowed a Neurosurgeon. During that time, I was able to observe several surgeries, including a cervical laminectomy and a lumbar spinal fusion. It was mind-blowing to see the power of technology at work in the repair and re-integration of our bodies. More than anything, I enjoyed practicing the cultural humility my anthropological training had ingrained in me while building meaningful connections with the patients whose care I’d witnessed.