Achieving in Healthcare
Ohana is a Hawaiian word for family, but to Kekoa Taparra ’12, MD, PhD, MPH, a native Hawaiian from a small mountain town on Oahu, the word means more than family in the traditional sense. “In Hawaiian culture, ’ohana speaks to the interconnectedness of all people, like the ’oha [corm] of the taro plant,” he explained. “No matter how many offshoots emerge, they all come from the same root.”
When he arrived at Fairfield in 2008, thousands of miles from home, Dr. Taparra set about acquiring a surrogate ’ohana with the same enthusiasm he brought to his studies. There was roommate Kevin Grondin ’12, who later served as a groomsman at his wedding, and Aly Criscuolo ’12, who invited him to his very first Thanksgiving on the continent and made him feel at home despite being so far away from his own family, and many others.
“Essentially the entire Biology department” was also part of his Fairfield family, he said, including Professor Shelley Phelan, PhD; his mentor, Associate Professor Anita Fernandez, PhD, whom he credits with teaching him “how to think critically about scientific questions;” and his academic advisor, Professor Brian Walker, PhD.
Dr. Taparra likens Fairfield’s academic offerings to a candy shop that allowed him to “sample bits of everything to discover what I truly wanted out of my academic career.” His sweet tooth for studies resulted in double majors in biology and psychology, and triple minors in mathematics, Asian studies, and philosophy. All this after starting out as a computer science major.
The turning point in Dr. Taparra’s Fairfield career, he believes, occurred in Dr. Phelan’s lab. “She was talking to a fellow classmate about the MD-PhD path,” he recalled. “Up until then, I had no idea that it was something that could be done — to become a physician-scientist. It truly planted the seed of possibility in my young mind.”
The drive to achieve, nurtured during his time at Fairfield, has continued to fuel Dr. Taparra over the dozen years since he graduated as valedictorian of his Class of 2012. Not only does he have a PhD in cellular and molecular medicine from Johns Hopkins, but he also earned an MD at the Mayo Clinic’s Alix School of Medicine and is currently finishing his residency in radiation oncology at Stanford (University) Health Care. “The resilience that Fairfield instilled in me has been a cornerstone of my journey,” said the former D1 Stags swimmer.
