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‘Empathy goes far’

  • Isabella Michal

    ‘Empathy goes far’

    DVM student Isabella Michal raising awareness for neurodiversity among health professional students

    Third-year DVM student Isabella Michal

While she’s currently enrolled in the DVM Program at the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM), Isabella Michal’s career pursuits started in human healthcare. 

As an undergraduate, she was fascinated with neuroscience. It’s a subject Michal has a personal connection to as someone who identifies as neurodivergent and has family members diagnosed with ADHD and autism spectrum disorder.

When preparing for a career in human medicine as a biology major with a pre-med emphasis, Michal also took classes focused on animals—particularly marine life. Through these courses and discussions with her thesis advisor, something sparked and Michal found her true passion at the intersection of human and animal health, shifting her career ambitions to include attending veterinary school. 

Now a third-year student at CVM, one topic that Michal has learned about is the importance of veterinarian-client communication and methods for facilitating successful conversations. One thing she noticed missing from these discussions was approaches for neurodivergent clients. She also acknowledged the lack of awareness of neurodiversity in health professional programs.

Michal brought her observations to Vesna Hampel-Kozar, CVM director of student wellbeing and success, who moved forward with organizing an event to promote acceptance. This October, Michal was invited to speak at a lunch and learn panel titled, “Strategies for Neurodivergent Learners”. The panel included faculty Dr. Erin Burton and third-year veterinary student Olivia Fremling. The panelists answered questions submitted by veterinary students on study strategies, task organization, and mental well-being by connecting to their own lived experiences. 

This November, she presented on “Neurodivergence in Health Professions” at the Center for Health Interprofessional Programs’ eighth annual Health Professional Student Leadership Conference. 

Michal has been a member of the CHIP Student Executive Council for two years, currently serving as one of its co-chairs. The organization is a natural fit for her. 

“I was really excited to be part of CHIP because I had historically been with a lot of pre-med and nursing students. Plus, my mom is a nurse, and my aunt is a pharmacist, so I've already been in an inter-professional household,” she says. “And public health is very interdisciplinary, so I thought I would be an interesting representative from the College of Veterinary Medicine who could connect with people from other programs because of my unique background.”

The conference theme this year, “Leading Social Change: Understanding Your Role in Transformative Healthcare,” pushed students to explore and advocate for health equity.

At the conference, organizers aimed to equip students with the skills and knowledge necessary to be leaders in transformative healthcare—bringing about improvements in delivery, outcomes, and accessibility.

As part of her presentation, Michal and fellow DVM student Huanxin Yan gave an overview of what neurodivergence means, how it can present, and the benefits of neurodiversity in professional environments as well as highlighted their personal experiences — Michal as a neurodivergent person and Yan as an ally. They also used a case study to encourage attendees to work through and learn from a situation involving a neurodivergent peer. 

Michal hopes the conference session helped raise awareness about neurodiversity in education and employment settings. Additionally, she hopes it has encouraged students to transform healthcare professions through advocacy and support. Michal noted that both a medical student and a physical therapy student approached her afterward to discuss further how they could advocate for neurodiversity.

“There's a lot of work that can be done from a policy standpoint, but I think that empathy goes far,” Michal says. “We can't change everything, especially regarding neurodiversity and the unique needs of all individuals. There's not really a way to make it standardized for everybody, but not making assumptions and judgments and just talking to each other can be very powerful.”

Michal is commissioned with the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps and will be joining it full-time after graduation. In the Army, she’ll be working alongside other medical professionals representing fields such as human medicine, dentistry, and nursing.