Graduation only beginning for Clovis native

After three years, he’s just getting warmed up.

John Tranchida donned his cap and gown Saturday, knowing full well he will be back in a classroom in the fall.

While other college graduates are writing their resumes and making decisions on where to live and work, the 21-year-old Clovis native is still torn on what he wants to be when he grows up. Or, more specifically, what kind of medicine he will practice.

In 2006, Tranchida was one of two area students, the other being Nicole Harris of Texico, who competed against 140 high school seniors in the state to be one of 25 to earn a slot in a then-new state program geared toward educating, and keeping medical school graduates in New Mexico.

Harris is a year behind Tranchida, and though Tranchida is the first Clovis student to finish his undergraduate degree in the program, he said there are, including Harris, four other area students enrolled.

“Clovis is well represented (in the program),” he said proudly.

The University of New Mexico’s combined BA/MD program pays the full costs of student’s undergraduate degree in a program designed to prepare them for their medical degree.

The trade off is students must have a commitment to pursue a medical career in New Mexico. The goal is to stop the drain of medical professionals from the state.

Boosted by college credits he earned in advance placement classes at Clovis High School, Tranchida shaved off a year of studies and quickly earned a bachelor of science degree in biology.

He now begins his medical studies and four years from now, he expects to be in a residency program, which will take another four to eight years depending on what he chooses as a specialty.

Tranchida said he hasn’t decided whether he will pursue a career in surgery, or practice general medicine.

Orthopedic surgery or general surgery, which is what he’s leaning towards, would be an outlet for his bent towards mechanics and spatial logic. It also would require an eight-year residency.

However as a family practice doctor — which would mean the shortest residency time at four years —Tranchida is enamored with the thought of having an opportunity to forge long-term relationships with patients.

Either way, Tranchida, a child of military parents who retired in Clovis, wants to return home.

It’s where he wants to live and make a career in the hopes of bringing medical stability to his hometown.

“The (doctors) that we do have (in Clovis) will stay for a couple of years, fulfill their agreement and leave,” he said.

“I think it’s important to build relationships. If you stay there, I think it really improves the health of the community.”

For now, however, Tranchida is preparing for the challenges ahead.

“The main thing I’m worried about is just being so young. I think I’m the youngest person up there,” he said, describing his classmates in the medical degree program as being in their late 20’s to 30’s, many with families of their own.

He is also trying to figure out how he will fund the remainder of his education and is trying to decide between taking out loans or entering into state student loan forgiveness programs that would require him to work for a non-profit hospital.

But those are decisions that can wait a little while.

This summer he’s planning to “check out” for a little while because he has been told he can kiss his personal life good-bye when medical school gets into full swing.

“This summer I think I’m going to go to a roller coaster park and I’m going to go white water rafting and I am going to take a (hot air) balloon ride,” he said laughing.

“I’m going to try to take my mind off of school for a while.”

For more information about the UNM BAMD program, visit: http://hsc.unm.edu/som/combinedbamd/