A Legacy of Innovative Learning Through NUTIP
In the last installment of our Innovative Learning series, MUSC neurosurgeon Dr. Nathan Rowland had just agreed to work with College of Charleston Honors students in the Neurosurgery Undergraduate Training and Innovation Program – a decision inspired by his own encounter with Muhammad Ali. In this last installment, we learn how this student-led program has impacted the lives of CofC students, the surgical team at MUSC and the careers of many health care workers to come.
Above: Honors students (l–r) Kaycee Tompkins and Hannah Parris have taken on the role of the student directors for NUTIP, a pre-med training partnership with the MUSC Department of Neurosurgery. (Photos by Mike Ledford)
Abanob Hanna ’23 and Kirsten Snyder ’23 were elated when Dr. Nathan Rowland, a neurosurgeon at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), said “yes.”
Their idea for a program giving Honors College pre-med students a hands-on shadowing experience with MUSC had already been rejected by many other MUSC physicians.
“We continued to reach out to potential candidates until we came across Dr. Rowland, a physician willing to work with two unknown undergraduate students,” says Hanna, now in medical school researching infections in pediatrics with ventricular assist devices. “I’m honestly surprised that we were able to bring this program to life.”
But he and Snyder certainly succeeded at bringing the Neurosurgery Undergraduate Training and Innovation Program (NUTIP) to life – and making sure it stayed alive, too. They created the NUTIP application and set the program up in a way that future students managing NUTIP can select the applicants and manage the program throughout the year.
“They’ve created a successful, sustainable program in partnership with MUSC that will benefit students for years to come,” says Beth Meyer-Bernstein, dean of the Honors College, explaining that NUTIP gives students a competitive edge for medical school. “The benefits of the program are far reaching.”
And it certainly helped Snyder and Hanna.
Not only does Hanna have several publications in peer-reviewed journals, he was awarded the Kyle E. Rarey prize for excellence in anatomical sciences. “The world is my oyster,” he says.
Snyder, for her part, is finishing up her first year of medical school at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, where this summer she will participate in Maryland’s PRISM program, researching the etiology underlying post-traumatic epilepsy in patients with traumatic temporal lobe injuries.
“I’ve maintained an interest in neurosurgery and deep brain stimulation that was fostered by Dr. Rowland and his incredible team at MUSC. I’ve already shadowed several cases, and I attend weekly neurosurgery rounds at Shock Trauma” says Snyder. She is also on the executive board for the Neurosurgery Interest Group and the Community Health Addiction Team. “
But these two medical students are still most proud of the lasting effects they have had on undergraduate Honors College students through NUTIP.
“One of the most impressive parts of NUTIP is that it’s 100% student run,” says Meyer-Bernstein, noting that the students are even in charge of selecting NUTIP participants every year.
Most recently, that responsibility has been passed on to Kaycee Tompkins and Hannah Parris, who, after a year in the program, have taken over the role of NUTIP student directors, which was previously held by Abby Ryan ’25 who is going to med school in the fall and is grateful for the opportunities and experiences she gained with NUTIP.
Tompkins wants to become an obstetric gynecologist and dreams of opening a birthing center. She hopes that observing Rowland and asking questions of the residents will give her an advantage when she applies to med school. Rowland has already introduced her to other surgeons at MUSC and helped her get involved with Student Mentors and Mentees in Medicine (SM3), a program that guides minority students through the application process and matriculation into medical school. But she knows in the end, it’s up to her to advocate for herself.
“I lost my dad when I was in high school, and it really forced me to look at life differently,” says the sophomore biology major. “It’s not just about the academics for me; it’s about saving people’s lives.”
When recent NUTIP grad Christian Herring ’25 lost his father to a heart attack in 2024, he was also driven to save lives. He is headed to medical school this fall and plans to go into cardiology and family medicine. He feels confident about this next move, thanks to his experience with NUTIP.
“One of the things I took away from this program is the value of teamwork in the medical field,” says Herring, who was an Honors College biochemistry major. “These surgeries involved multiple doctors, surgeons, nurses and more – and successful surgery requires a high level of competency and understanding from everyone involved.
“I also learned a lot about the value of teaching from a physician standpoint,” he continues. “Seeing patients be reassured and taught by Dr. Rowland about why they were there is an extremely important aspect of the medical field. The amount of medical knowledge and training you have to know to be a neurosurgeon is undoubtedly gargantuan, but to be a truly successful physician, you have to be able to explain these things at a level understandable to anybody.”
Parris, a biology and chemistry double major, says participating in the program throughout the year has allowed her to see the full impact of patient care from start to finish.
“Dr. Rowland teaches us to see the whole patient and lets us sit in on conversations with patients so we can learn what it means, what it looks like to care for other people,” she says.
For his part, Rowland is proud of the work he has done with his NUTIP mentees.
“Any student who comes into contact with me should not be the same when they leave,” he says. “They should be changed in some positive way. That’s our goal.
“I want to leave a legacy. That’s what drives me,” he adds. “Through NUTIP, we hope that we are inspiring people to continue the legacy of mentorship and do that for others.”
