Every summer since 2010, ten undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds get the opportunity to explore any curiosities they might have about careers in medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
The eight-week summer internship called the Summer Clinical Oncology Research Experience (SCORE) was started by former faculty member Laura Liberman and intended to give undergraduates an opportunity to explore careers in cancer research and clinical care.
During the program, students are paired with a mentor to pursue a research project through lectures, workshops, and clinics, and they present an abstract at the end of the program. The SCORE program is now led by epidemiologist Sigrid Carlsson.
Data about the program show that SCORE has accomplished its goal of drawing more people from diverse backgrounds into scientific careers. In 2023, a study led by Liberman and published in the Journal of Cancer Education looked at the career paths of 116 students who participated in SCORE over the first decade (2010–2019).
Roughly 70% of these students were either immigrants to the U.S. or children of immigrant parents, and 40% were the first generation college students.
As of 2021:
- 98% had pursued careers involving science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM),
- 38% were in medical school, 12% were medical residents, and 2% were practicing physicians,
- 54% had co-authored peer-reviewed publications, 69% of which were cancer-related.
Isaiah Caines, a sophomore at Hunter College in New York City and part of the Macaulay Honors Program, recently completed the SCORE summer internship program at MSK, where he chose to research health disparities in gynecological cancers.
During his pre-research, Caines learned that Black women have the highest mortality rates for gynecological cancers than any other race. After learning about Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cell line, he queried, “What if Henrietta Lacks had a Black doctor?”
This question spurred his summer project, which focused on health disparities among Black women with gynecological cancers—in conjunction with the lack of Black physicians in the workforce.
Together with his mentors in the Immigrant Health and Cancer Disparities Service, Caines gathered information on the incidence and death rates of three common gynecologic cancers—ovarian, endometrial, and cervical—in Black women, as well as the percentage of gynecologic oncologist fellows who are Black.
Caines spoke to Claire Marie Porter, a reporter at The Cancer Letter.
Claire Porter: Hi Isaiah, thanks for speaking with me. What is your backstory—what initially turned you on to medicine, specifically oncology?
Isaiah Caines: One of the primary reasons I became interested in medicine was my mother. She’s an ER nurse at Mount Sinai Morningside. And when I was younger, she wouldn’t always be able to find me a babysitter.
So, sometimes she would take me to her ER and have me sit in the break room. But sometimes I’d get curious, and I would walk out, and I would see the immense network of the emergency room. Ever since I was a kid, the emergency room very much interested me.
As a kid, I wasn’t interested in working there. But as I grew up, and when COVID started to become a thing, I didn’t get a chance to see my mom for about five to six months because she didn’t want to expose me to the virus.
She would send me photos and videos of her and her coworkers at the ER. And as you might know, the ER was one of the busiest places during the COVID pandemic. So, it was a very stressful time for her, but it also showed me how much teamwork and collaboration is involved. Working in the ER specifically, you start to create a family because of the stressful conditions and environment that it involves. So, that led me towards becoming an ER physician, specifically.
Also, during high school, I became interested in science, specifically chemistry. My interest in patient care combined with my interest in science made me want to go to medical school and become an ER physician.
What did you focus on this summer for the MSK internship program?
IC: For the MSK internship, I focused on health disparities among Black women with gynecological cancers and compared it to the Black physician workforce. Coming into the SCORE program I was especially interested in health disparities.
I wasn’t specifically thinking of cancer disparities, but rather just health disparities in medicine in general. When I got the opportunity to apply to SCORE, I wanted to see if I could do research into health disparities as a part of my career as an ER physician.
I applied and was accepted. It was my first time doing research in general. The most I’ve ever done was a research paper in my biology class in high school. That was it. My mentors at MSK, Dr. Lisa Diamond, Dr. Gleneara Bates-Pappas, and Dr. Monique James, were extraordinary.
I told them I was interested in health disparities. With that in mind, I was doing research online with my mentors, looking at past publications on cancer disparities among Black people. And one article I came across was specifically about a Black male physician who had revolutionized the gynecological cancer field with treatments and prevention. At the same time, I was also doing a historical review looking into instances revolving around Black people and cancer in general.
Of course, one of the main things that popped up was Henrietta Lacks and her story about the use of her cells to create an immortal cell line. But she and her family weren’t given credit or compensation for a very long time.
Combining those two things, I came up with the questions: If she had had a Black physician, would her family have been given the proper credit or compensation? Would her cells have been taken away from her without her permission in the first place? Would it have been different if she had a Black doctor?
That led me to then look at present-day data. This was something I never knew. This was something I never thought about.
This is when I realized that Black women have the highest mortality rates for gynecological cancers than any other race, and they have the lowest survival rates, specifically for ovarian cancer, than any other race.
And with that in mind, that connected me back to Henrietta Lacks, and to that article about the Black doctors. It led to me looking into how many Black doctors are in the field. With my mentors, we did a lot of data analysis and searching to find that only 6% of gynecological fellows are Black.
That doesn’t include gynecological cancer attending, of which the number could be much lower. That doesn’t include Black female doctors either. Again, that number would be even much lower, too.
This raised a concern, and that’s what led to the project.
Do you think your interest in gynecological cancers will be able to complement your studies at Hunter College?
IC: Oh, definitely. At Hunter, I’m double majoring in biochemistry and African American studies. I know they’re completely different majors, but coming into college, I was thinking about how to connect the two.
Doing this project and learning about these new statistics regarding gynecological cancers made me think.
There are certain treatments that I can look into, or I can work within a lab to specifically target gynecological cancers. On the topic of disparities, working with the African American studies department here at Hunter, I’m hoping to gain more information about Black history and Black culture to apply to my research in health disparities and seeing new solutions to decrease the mortality rates of Black women with gynecological cancers and increase the representation of Black male physicians.
There are barely any Black physicians in the field right now. When you don’t see someone that looks like you in the medical field, you wouldn’t think that you would be able to do it. This decreases the self-confidence that some people might have.
So, you hinted at this, but you are planning to continue your research over the next year working with the same MSK mentors, is that right?
IC: Correct. One of the main things that I wanted to do with my mentors continuing this semester, in collaboration with the African American studies department at Hunter, is to interview Black physicians that are already in the field and ask them what kept them motivated and what made them stay in the field.
And two, I want to ask them if they’ve seen any change in diversity during their time as a doctor. Has there been an increase in Black physicians, is it still the same, or has it decreased? And then I’d like to ask them: What do you think we can do to help increase the number of Black physicians?
What are you looking forward to this semester? Are there other specific things that you hope to learn or accomplish?
IC: We’re going to first do a patient survey, and the goal is to analyze race/gender concordance care and to see if there is a benefit to having race/gender concordance care specifically for Black patients with cancer.
We plan to distribute the survey, asking patients (if they identify as a Black male patient), have they ever had an experience or been cared for or treated by a Black male physician. And was that experience different than with a white male physician?
We also want to hone in on the fact that white male physicians can still, of course, care for Black patients. We’re not saying that they can’t.
But what we are trying to say is that if you have a Black male physician in the room, or at least in the specialty or in the field, they can provide a cultural lens that maybe white doctors can’t. For example, hair relaxers. That was one of the examples I used in my abstract. Hair relaxers are mostly used by Black women, but they have a very large connection to uterine cancer. A lot of Black doctors would know about this because this is a cultural thing.
So, after school, ideally where do you see yourself?
IC: Well, of course, one of my main goals is to get into medical school. I mean, it’s a hard process. I truly believe that SCORE has already bumped me up in that process. I think one of the other main things is continuing my research in health disparities.
Either if it’s moving on to a new topic or if it’s expanding on the topic of Black women with gynecological cancers and Black physicians in the field. I still want to continue this research because one of the things I hope to do later in my career as a physician is to not just work in the hospital but dedicate 50% of my time to research, specifically health disparities research. So, not only am I looking to get a medical degree, but I’ve been inspired by my mentors to get a master’s in public health as well to help guide me with my career goals.
Is there anything that you’d like to add that I forgot to ask?
IC: Well, I want to hone in on how the SCORE program at MSK has helped me. This isn’t a publicity stunt and I’m not being paid to say this, but genuinely, I do want to say that they helped me a lot with life in general.
Beforehand, I guess you can say my organizational and time management skills weren’t the best. My mentors in the SCORE program, and the teaching fellow, Zara McPartland, helped me a lot in general. They taught me more about abstracts and presentations, all in regard to research.
Now, starting the school year, I’ve become more organized with my time, especially knowing if I can handle certain things. The SCORE program was a lot of work, of course, and it taught me that I need to manage my time.
Also, I got a chance to meet a lot of really cool students. The other students in the program were all very nice, all from different schools, all different stages in their education, and all with different career paths. I know one wanted to become a nutritionist, one wanted to become a nurse, some people wanted to become epidemiologists, and some people wanted to become PAs and doctors—all different routes of life. But we all started here at the SCORE program. I think it was a very diverse experience and I got a chance to meet a lot of really cool people.
That’s amazing. I’m glad you shared that. Well, you are clearly well on your way to major accomplishments, so I wish you the best, and thanks for sharing.
IC: Yes, thank you so much.
