There is a rare breed of man whose personality is so magnetic that they can’t carry a credit card. They are the kind of men who wouldn’t be afraid to show their feminine side, if they had one. Their beards have more experience than a lesser man’s entire body. Ben has met those men and really enjoyed their company. As for him, Ben is a down to earth guy who enjoys playing guitar, golfing, getting ridiculous fruit ninja scores, and having a good time with his friends. He graduated from UT with a BS in cellular and molecular biology before heading to UT Southwestern. He will be spending his summer doing research on the hormone ghrelin, and planning the best Pre-Op possible to increase his generativity (that will be funnier towards the end of first year.)

Casey is a native Houstonian and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a BS in geology (yes, I know, it has nothing to do with being a doctor). This summer, she is working in a basic science lab that focuses on brain tumor development. In her free time (when she is not busy curing cancer) she enjoys shopping, cheering for the Longhorns (read: yelling at the TV), laughing, being ridiculous, singing really loud in the car and eating really good cupcakes. She is really excited about meeting the incoming medical school class and cannot wait until PRE-OP!!!

Fatima Wazni was born in Virginia and later spent three glorious years in New York before moving to her eventual hometown of Pflugerville, Texas. She likes the following things: Sophie (her dog), gardening, cooking, tennis, movies, brunch, literature, travel, bad jokes, abbrevs., friends, video games, mint tea, and making unnecessary lists. She dislikes writing about herself in the third person. Her role model is Liz Lemon. The other day she called “911” because she thought she found a dead man, when help arrived she realized it was just a bum taking a nap on the sidewalk.

Fuu was born in Taiwan, but moved to Austin, TX (no doubt the best city in the world) when he was 3. He loved it so much that he stayed and went to UT Austin (Hook ‘em!!) and studied biomedical engineering because he just couldn’t bear to leave. As you can probably tell by his name, Fuu is Asian, but one of his favorite things about UTSW has been exploring other cultures. By other cultures, he means Indian culture, and by Indian culture, he means Bhangra (dance) and Indian food =). Despite being super manly and stuff, Fuu takes guilty pleasure in watching Glee and musicals. He also enjoys playing sports, trying (and succeeding?) to be as sassy as Susan, trying (and failing) to beat Ben’s iPhone game scores, eating, and making fun of his Aggie friends (who doesn’t?). Fuu absolutely loves it here at UTSW and hopes to make your PREOP experience as awesome as his was!

Mark was born in San Antonio but spent the good years in Georgetown, Tx. After gathering a cornucopia of knowledge from the land of the Horned Frogs, he then embarked on a quest to become the vocabulary coordinator for the Pre-Op committee. In this role he educates his fellow committee members about hip words in an effort to make Pre-Op even more hip than ever before. While research for this position occupies most of his time, he finds time to cycle, sail, fly airplanes, and bake brownies. His biggest aspiration in life is to become BFF’s with a hedgehog-owning pirate.

Pamela Hoof was born the beautiful spring day of April 5th 1988 in the small, Elvis and BBQ-loving city of Memphis, Tennessee. Although she embraces her Tennessee roots, Pamela moved to Dallas when she was in the 6th grade and has been a “Texan” ever since. From a young age Pamela has had two major passions in life- baking and puppies. She was famously dubbed the “Cookie Queen” during her undergraduate career at the University of Pittsburgh and enters cooking competitions regularly. As far as puppies go, Pamela is a consummate dog lover and owns a Shih Tzu named Mattie plus a Chihuahua named Angel. She knew since high school that she wanted to be a physician and was absolutely thrilled when she got the chance to become a part of the UTSW family. Pamela truly values the friendships and connections she has made throughout her first year of medical school and is UBER excited at the prospect of welcoming the class of 2015!!

[Cue theme song from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air]…
Now, this is the story all about how
Shariar’s life got flipped-turned upside down
And he’d like to take a minute so just sit right there
He’ll tell you how he ended up in medicine and healthcare
In north Bangladesh, born and raised
On the farm was where he spent most of his days
Chillin' out, maxin', and cleanin' up cow poo
While still tryin’ to be educated and goin' to school
Then his parents, who were up to no good
Tricked him with candy and moved him to a Houston neighborhood!

But he grew to be quite fond of Houston (Go Rockets!) and has stayed there ever since. He spent his last couple years working as an EMT and studying Biology and Medicine & Society at the University of Houston. He likes anything outdoors, playing football and futball, Calvin and Hobbes comics, and oreos with milk during late night study sessions. His ultimate goal is to become a master diagnostician as a pediatric interventional neurocardiospleenomegalyologist (basically, he’s undecided). But for now, he’s focused on planning and making this year’s Pre-Op the best one yet! Welcome, Class of 2015!

With a profound respect for 80's garb and a nearly fanatical relationship with peanut butter pretzels, Susan stands tall at a whopping five foot two-and-three-quarter inches. Born in Oregon and raised in northern California, this newly transplanted Texan (as of August 2006...) has yet to buy a pair of cowboy boots, but says y'all as often as possible. At eleven, Susan learned to say "Rome is Burning" in Latin and discovered gigantic pixie sticks soon thereafter. She has walked into more inanimate objects than most quintuplets do in a lifetime, tends to burn the bottom of pots when cooking (she gets impatient and turns the burner to high... every time), and will roll down just about anything with more than a 27% incline regardless of what's at the bottom. In between various misadventures, Susan decided it would be a good idea to learn Japanese and go to college; she eventually majored in Economics and Biological Sciences at Rice and forgot all the Japanese. Throughout college, Susan worked as a barista at the Rice Coffeehouse, which has made her much more accepting of squirrels (the unofficial coffeehouse mascot) and hipsters alike. She loves large scale craft projects, farmers markets, and traipsing around mountains. Susan loves trying new restaurants, being a med student (work nonewithstanding), and is SO EXCITED TO WELCOME YOU TO UTSW! PRE-OP IS GOING TO BE AWESOME.