It has been said that obstacles breed growth. For one graduate in the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine’s (WVSOM) Class of 2023, the lack of a way to pay for higher education led to a decision that ultimately would provide her with leadership skills she never dreamed of having.
Like many first-generation students, Anne Reis, D.O., didn’t know how to pay for college. The fifth of seven children in her family, Reis’ parents urged her to spend a summer working to try to save money for tuition.
“I worked in a cabinet factory and as an assistant in a nursing home on weekends, doing a total of 70-plus hours a week,” she said. “By the end of the summer I still didn’t have enough money, so I said, ‘I’m never doing this again.’ I enlisted in the Army as a health care specialist, more commonly known as a combat medic, and started a delayed education program.”
Reis, a native of rural Wisconsin, hopped on a plane for the first time in her life in 2015 to conduct basic training at Fort Sill, Okla. She found that her undergraduate college, the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, was “pro-military,” giving her the freedom to travel for drills and advanced training when necessary.
“There was even a veterans lounge on campus,” she said of the school. “I hung out there often and made good friends. It was a great experience.”
In 2018, Reis was sent to Kuwait, where the U.S. Army was maintaining a presence following the country’s liberation from Iraq as part of Operation Spartan Shield. Expecting to work in trauma situations after having gone through specialized training with the Ryder Trauma Center in Miami, Fla. — the same preparation White House medical staff and military special forces receive — Reis instead found herself in an operations role, writing policies, developing training rosters and assisting with the military hospital’s company command, and later serving as an instructor for emergency medical technicians.
Reis felt disappointed at first, but she now sees the value her leadership experience has brought to her medical career.
“It was actually good, because I learned things I never would have thought to seek out. I didn’t have an interest in becoming a leader, but I discovered that I enjoyed teaching and mentoring, developing other people, and it also gave me insight into how a company operates,” she said.
Reis applied to multiple medical schools, but chose WVSOM after James Murray, D.O., an alumnus who was working as an OB-GYN in Kuwait, brought the school to her attention.
“I’d been attending classes he was teaching on OB-GYN emergencies, and one day at breakfast he told me, ‘You should check out this school. I think you would do well here.’ So I looked up WVSOM and saw it had a beautiful campus and that it was located in a town of about 4,000 people, the same size as the places I’d lived in Wisconsin. A week or two later, I was doing a virtual interview with WVSOM from Kuwait. I decided that regardless of what happened, this was my first choice. The fact that they created a process for my interview showed that they take care of their students. It meant so much to me,” Reis said.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Reis, who was a member of WVSOM’s Rural Health Initiative and the first-year representative (and later president) of the school’s student chapter of the Association of Military Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons, felt more prepared than most students to weather the abrupt shifts that became a necessary part of medical education during a public health crisis.
“In the military, things change quickly and you learn not to get excited easily,” Reis said. “So throughout the pandemic, when changes would happen such as returning to in-person OPP labs, some of my classmates would get worried. I’d say, ‘Guys, it’s OK. You can’t control this, so don’t waste your energy on it. Take the proper precautions, wash your hands, cover your mouth, wear what you’re supposed to wear and it will be fine. We’re all just doing the best we can in the moment.’”
Reis has now begun her next adventure. One week after WVSOM’s Commencement Ceremony in May — where she received the Statewide Campus Outstanding Student Award for the school’s South Central Region and took on the rank of Army captain — Reis and her husband moved to the Tacoma, Wash., area, where she is entering a family medicine residency at Madigan Army Medical Center. She remains grateful for the experiences the Army has given her, in a way that extends far beyond the financial assistance that allowed her to receive an education.
“I was exposed to so many things that I never would have been otherwise,” Reis said. “The military is the most diverse group of individuals you’ll ever meet, because its people come from all walks of life. It broadens your horizons and gives you a new perspective on what’s out there in the world. It gives you a well-rounded approach to a problem, or even to a conversation.”