It all starts with a dream.
John Soto grew up in the boroughs with one dream—to become a physician, just like members of his family before him. John credits Lehman’s Student Mentoring Assistance for the Recruitment of Tomorrow’s MDs, or SMART MD program—a donor-funded initiative founded in 2018, designed to increase the acceptance rate of underrepresented minority students into medical schools—with giving him not only the education he needed but also an abundance of confidence. John’s one of the many students who have benefited from the program, which has resulted in a 186% increase in Black students applying to medical schools, a 333% increase for Latinx students, making Lehman among the top schools in the nation for Latinx and Black medical school applicants.
Fast-forward to today, and John has twice published research, with another paper on the way, and has taken on the mantle of helping the next generation of aspiring health professionals as a full-time lecturer for Lehman’s nursing program while he continues his medical degree pursuits.
