A love for basic science research has always been a basic truth for Victor Damptey MD’28 ScM’28. Whether it was refining catheter ablation techniques for arrhythmias, or working to improve treatments for osteoarthritis, his undergraduate degree in biological engineering and minor in Spanish at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gave him ample opportunities to dive into translational problem-solving.

For Damptey, the lab was transformative. “Those experiences gave me a love for research, and an understanding of the amount of dedication required to do good research,” he says. While considering MD-PhD programs as a sophomore, he discovered that his real passion lay in trying to solve unanswerable medical questions to meet the clinical needs of vulnerable communities.

As a dual-degree student in The Warren Alpert Medical School’s Primary Care Population Medicine Program, Damptey realized that he “wanted to spend [his] efforts researching ways that public health institutions could improve the health of communities.” And thus, he applied to the prestigious Robert A. Winn Clinical Investigator Pathway Program, whose mission is to increase participation in clinical trials to drive better health outcomes in all communities, saving more lives.

Last summer, the Winn CIPP fellowship brought Damptey to Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, NC, where he studied the rate of brain metastases from lung cancer with a team of Wake Forest researchers and other CIPP fellows.

Damptey also got to shadow hematologists and oncologists, observing their interactions with patients during their most difficult moments. Listening to that care expressed, and those important moments of silence, shaped his time at Wake Forest. It was the best environment, he says, “to learn about the ethics of clinical research while also trying to improve it.” Mentors including Jimmy Ruiz, MD, professor of medicine at Wake Forest’s Section of Hematology and Oncology, and Leon Bernal-Mizrachi, MD, inaugural chair of the Department of Cancer Medicine, gave students regular feedback at every step of the process.

And it was mentorship, in the form of Abigail Teshome ’23 MD’27, that encouraged Damptey to apply to the program.

Teshome had learned about the Winn CIPP fellowship through a family friend during her first year of medical school. Placed in the lab of Nicholas Giustini, MD, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle that summer, she explored health outcome trends in patients with non-small cell lung cancer who had access to clinical trials. It was incredible, Teshome says: “I hadn’t gotten much exposure to oncology before this, but I got to see it through every organ system.” For the aspiring neurosurgeon, it opened up a world of possibilities, including skull base surgery.

Teshome says she suggested Damptey apply because he takes initiative, and would make the most of an opportunity not only to do meaningful work in the lab but also to shadow physicians in different fields of interest.

“He’s amazing—very kind,” she says of Damptey. “He went through a very lengthy process to apply, and I was very happy to see that he was accepted.” Teshome and Damptey weren’t the first Brown medical students to participate in Winn CIPP: Samuel Restrepo MD’27 and Franck Mbuntcha Bogni MD’26 were members of past cohorts.

For Damptey, work toward “better science for all” will continue. He’s curious about the intersection of cardiology with other fields, including oncology. “In my future practice, I want to be a doctor who provides great care to his patients, but also one who finds and evaluates new therapies to better treat them,” he says. Winn CIPP will be a valuable stepping stone along the way.