USMLE STEP 1 PERSONAL TUTORING

Dr. Ramirez was born and raised in East Los Angeles County, California. He graduated with honors from the University of California, Irvine with a degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2013. During his time at the University of California, Irvine he participated in peer-tutoring, mentorship programs, and he served as a teaching assistant for numerous pre-medical and biology courses. He received multiple awards for excellence in tutoring and research. After graduating, he spent a year working aboard an ambulance as an emergency medical technician in Los Angeles County prior to matriculating to the top-ranked University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.

In medical school, he continued to teach, mentor, and advise undergraduate and medical students. He spent a year between his third and fourth year of medical school as a National Institutes of Health TL1 Clinical and Translational Research Fellow. During this time, he became intimately involved with USMLE education, tutoring, and preparation. He received a 266 on Step 1 (99th percentile), 265 on Step 2 CK (95th percentile), 255 on Step 3 (98th percentile) and he scored in the 90th percentiles on all of his shelf exams. He also received honors in nearly all of his clinical rotations.

Collectively, he has been teaching a wide range of subjects for more than ten years and has experience tutoring for several board exams, including all of the USMLE exams. He is a passionate educator and strongly believes that with hard work, good direction, and resilience, every medical student has the opportunity to succeed and pursue their dreams. In his role as the Director of Medical School Tutoring, he strives to ensure that all of the tutors at MedSchoolCoach have the training, tools, support, and resources that they need to provide their students with an exceptional experience.

In addition to his passions for education, he has been intimately involved in medical school admissions. He has served on the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine admissions committee and has extensive experience reviewing applications, interviewing applicants, and providing recommendations for admission. In this role, he enjoyed learning how to review applications holistically and how to view each applicant as a unique individual, each with their own experiences, skills, and passions.

He is currently an integrated vascular surgery resident at the University of California, San Francisco where he continues to be intimately involved in medical and surgical education. He is interested in academic vascular surgery and is committed to continue being a leader in medical education. In his free time, he enjoys running, swimming, weightlifting, and exploring San Francisco with his friends and family.

Austin Jolly is from Lakewood, Colorado and is a current MD/PhD student at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. As a Colorado native, Austin attended the University of Colorado at Boulder for his undergraduate studies, where he majored in Integrative Physiology and graduated with Honors distinction. During his time in Boulder, Austin was an undergraduate teaching assistant in the human anatomy labs where he facilitated dissection learning and helped students master the organization of the human body. Austin was also a resident advisor in Boulder. He demonstrates a passion for helping students achieve success in their pursuits.

Austin received multiple offers from MD/PhD training programs from around the country but chose to stay close to his home in the Rocky Mountains. As third year MD/PhD student at Anschutz, Austin has excelled thus far in his studies, receiving top Honors grades in all his courses and scoring a 256 on USMLE STEP 1. Austin serves on the Education and Training Interest Group where he advises first-year medical students on how to navigate through their first year in medical school. Ultimately, Austin has a serious passion for connecting with students and inspiring them to believe in themselves as they prepare for exciting challenges in their professional career. Austin is currently funded with a Pre-Doctoral fellowship to fund his thesis research.

Emmy graduated with honors from Yale University with a B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. In college, she directed an educational outreach organization (Splash at Yale) and taught classes to middle and high school students.

In medical school, she has continued to teach as an anatomy lab TA and peer mentor for USMLE test strategy. She scored 250+ on Step 1 and Step 2 CK exams and >90th percentile on multiple shelf exams.

She is passionate about helping students excel and supporting their well-being.  

Emmy also completed a Master of Theological Studies through the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Fellowship at Duke University. Outside of school, she enjoys throwing frisbee, hiking, and sharing a good meal with friends.

Emile Gordon is a physician graduate from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He is currently doing his intern year and will continue with his residency in Diagnostic Radiology at the University of Pittsburgh. Originally from South Africa, Emile moved to the United States when he was 12 years old. For undergrad, he attended the University of Arizona and graduated summa cum laude with a 4.0 GPA and three majors in cellular biology, physiology and microbiology.

Emile’s love for teaching others began as an undergraduate when he was a teaching assistant and as resident assistant when he mentored freshmen for three years. His time at MedSchoolCoach has reignited his passion for teaching – he especially enjoys when material just “clicks” or when students are surprised how well they can do if they believe in themselves. He individualizes each learning plan and capitalizes on students’ strengths to help them achieve their best scores. He has been recognized as a “Master Tutor” for MSC given his experience and outstanding reviews. Outside of tutoring, Emile has continued to mentor medical students while in the hospital.

He is also actively involved in his community and in the past led his student health advocacy group to successfully spearhead a tobacco-free campus policy and has started a homeless vaccination clinic which is still active today. He is also involved in White Coats for Black Lives. His efforts have been recognized by numerous honors including “Director of the Year” and his college’s “Outstanding Senior” award.

One of Emile’s passions is in research. Initially in college he worked for 4 years researching viral morphogenesis of the bacteriophage ՓX174, but afterwards went to the National Institutes of Health to research diagnostics and therapeutics of cerebral malaria. He continued to do research while in medical school in radiology as well. He has multiple first-author papers, including publications in prestigious journals such as PNAS and Journal of Virology. Collectively, he has been cited over 100 times. One of his papers was editorially featured and won a “Spotlight Award”. Emile hopes to incorporate research into his career by studying the imaging of infectious diseases and of host-pathogen interactions.

After graduating from Carleton College with a degree in Biology, Ashley spent two years at the National Cancer Institute performing cancer genetics research. While there, she began tutoring high school and college students with a focus on ACT, SAT, and MCAT prep and math and science concepts. She found a love of teaching and mentoring which she continued at Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine and as an internal medicine resident at Oregon Health & Science University.

In medical school, she served as a teaching assistant for the pathology block for the inaugural class at the Scottsdale, Arizona campus where she prepared and led small group sessions teaching basic science concepts and clinical reasoning skills through cased based learning. She also served as a tutor for pathology, Step 1, Shelf exams, and general study skills. She took on the responsibility of collating internal data and resources for Mayo students for Step 1, Step 2, and third-year clerkships and shelf exams, and hosted and served on multiple Step 1 study success panels for Mayo students and visiting students.

Ashley is passionate about crafting individualized study plans and focusing on understanding rather than memorizing. With more than 7 years of tutoring experience, she brings expertise in test-taking strategies including how to understand exactly what a question is asking and how to use what you do know to correctly answer questions even when you don’t know the specific fact being tested. She is also passionate about developing clinical reasoning skills and connecting the relevance of medical education concepts to the goal of future medical practice.

Pamela has lived all over: Illinois, California, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Beijing, China. She will be doing her transitional year internship at Virginia Mason in Seattle before returning to her home state of California for a Radiology residency at Stanford. Pamela attended college with a double major in English and Biology at the University of Southern California on a full academic scholarship. Her love of writing and literature informs her creativity and communication skills as a tutor.

She completed a Master’s of Medical Science at Boston University Medical School with a thesis in Alzheimer’s Disease before attending the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University for her medical degree. She was the highest-performing student in her class in pre-clinical coursework and obtained a majority of honors on her clinical rotations. Tutoring has always been a passion for her since undergrad and over time she has developed a very strong rapport with her students, some of whom have continued to reach out for her tutoring and advice for years. She has a particular interest in medical education and has worked as a mentor and tutor for many medical students prior to joining MedSchoolCoach.