The Explorers
Walk along with us and explore the steps University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences students take on their journey to discovering their education, careers and themselves.
Dancing through
medical school
Dancing Through Medical School
“One of the reasons that I chose to come to Pitt Med was that I think that they valued the fact that I had this nontraditional background and saw even what I might not have been able to see myself: how I can apply those skills and the experiences that I had to myself as a physician.”
Maya Muenzer
Meet Maya Muenzer. She grew up in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Pittsburgh. After majoring in biology and dance at Oberlin College in Ohio, she moved to Boulder, where she trained, taught and performed professionally as an aerial dancer for three years before coming to medical school. A 2023 School of Medicine graduate, she is now doing her residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
The First Step:
Take a break
“I came in older than most of my fellow students, and I think that I still thrived in medical school,” said Muenzer. “I was ready to learn again rather than just diving right in after grinding really hard for four years in undergrad. And that made me excited to be in the classroom again and then excited that every year of medical school was different. Taking the time in between isn’t something that took away from my experience or took away from who I’m going to become as a physician.”
The Second Step:
Lean on your skill set
Aerial dance and medicine both require a lot of discipline, planning and teamwork, Muenzer noted.
“You know, when your hands are holding up someone’s body, it’s high stakes. It’s very adrenaline-filled, but you learn how to work under pressure,” she said. As a dance teacher, “I was constantly having to work with people who have different expectations, different understandings of their body, of what’s going on in the air, different ways that they like to learn, whether that’s kinesthetic, visual, auditory there are so many different ways to learn. That will really apply to when I’m a resident teaching a medical student, or an attending teaching a resident, or when I’m working with families and teaching about a new diagnosis, or trying to explain to a 7-year-old what’s going on with their body and why they feel the way that they do.”
The Third Step:
Study your interests
“One of the reasons that I chose to come to Pitt Med was that I think that they valued the fact that I had this nontraditional background and saw even what I might not have been able to see myself: how I can apply those skills and the experiences that I had to myself as a physician,” Muenzer said.
Because of her work in dance, Muenzer focused her research on physical activity in children with specific body function impairmentsm, including difficulty with swallowing, eating or breathing.
“We know that physical activity participation is associated with lots of benefits, like improved health outcomes, greater quality of life, along with a plethora of other things,” Muenzer said. “And so, my findings broadly show that this population is at greater risk for having lower physical activity participation. By focusing in on those children, we can make sure to not leave them behind.”
The Next Steps
“I’m really interested in medical education,” Muenzer said. “I found myself just really thriving off of being able to pass on knowledge and helping people find out how they learn best, and to challenge themselves into problem-solving together. And so that’s something that I think started with aerial and then I found this transitioned really well into medicine,” she said.
“I’m really looking forward to residency where I’m going to continue to have constant opportunities to be teaching not only medical students and shadows but also patients and their families. It’s a huge aspect of pediatrics,” she said. “It also intersects with my passion for working with people with disabilities and advocating for them. Teaching trainees with medical disabilities is actually a workshop that I developed with a few other medical students here at Pitt during the medical education elective in my fourth year, and we were invited to give that workshop to the Department of Internal Medicine here and then the curriculum committee as well. And we’re hoping to continue working with this material to present it at conferences.”
About the School of Medicine
The School of Medicine’s mission is to improve the health and well-being of individuals, communities and populations through cutting-edge research, innovative educational programs in medicine and biomedical science, and leadership in academic medicine.
We strive to implement this mission with the highest professional and ethical standards in a culture of diversity, inclusion and cultural humility. Our commitment is to foster an environment that enables all students, faculty, staff and the communities we serve to develop to their fullest potential.
