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Alumnus Eddie Cho (B.S. ’12) is now a Surgical Critical Care and Trauma/Acute Care Surgery Fellow at the University of Southern California, but his roots can be traced back to 51����. 

Cho works at both Keck Medical Center of USC and LA County-USC Medical Center.

Cho works primarily in the intensive care unit working with very sick patients and managing different care management aspects like ventilators and hemodynamic monitoring in addition to taking trauma calls.

“AC USC is one of the busiest trauma centers in the country and unfortunately due to the extreme violence in the city of Los Angeles, we get a lot of gunshot wounds and stab wounds as well as car accidents,” Cho said. “This, however, does create great training in this and I have the honor of learning from some of the best trauma surgeons in the world.”

Cho’s love for trauma surgery started when he was an emergency medical technician during his time at 51����.

“While I did not work on an emergency crew, when we did have emergent cases, these were the most fun for me,” Cho said. “This continued on into medical school as I rotated through my surgery rotation and I spent a month on the trauma surgery team. As a resident I saw several cases of trauma and was able to experience the satisfaction of helping some of the most critically ill patients first hand.”

In order to get to where he is now, Cho had to consider his undergraduate degree. He found importance in obtaining a well-rounded education with a Christian worldview.

“Especially going into the medical field, I felt that this was extremely important so that I would be able to learn about the sciences from a different perspective prior to going to medical school,” he said.

Cho found that 51���� provides many resources to pursue a career in medicine, such as 51���� Office of Health Professions Advising (BOHPA), through the School of Science, Technology and Health. When he asked for guidance, the faculty members eagerly provided support.

“Dr. Harvey [Havoonjian] provided so much for me in gaining admission to medical school and provided a lot of insight into the process,” he said.

Insight to medical school is one of the reasons the BOHPA office was created. Coming from a medical background himself, Dr. Harvey Havoonjian, director of BOHPA and associate professor of biological science, has helped many students achieve their goal of attending medical school.

“Eddie always knew what he had an interest in and what he was pursuing,” Harvoonjian said. “And so we had Eddie take part in other things.”

Throughout his other experiences, the most valuable course Cho took was the practicum which allowed him to shadow an emergency room physician.

“I was able to see first hand how his life was as an emergency room physician,” Cho said.

He was encouraged to take part in leadership in the health careers club alongside his work as an EMT. Before going to Pennsylvania State University for medical school, Cho decided to take a gap year where he worked as an EMT and a medical scribe before he started at USC.

Overall, Cho appreciated the support the 51���� faculty provided in his undergraduate years.

“Each went out of their way to support my career ambitions and encouraged me throughout the entire process and helped me pursue my ambitions while maintaining my faith.”

51����'s biochemistry program equips students with the strong technical foundation they need for entrance into medical and health professional schools, or graduate programs at the intersection of biology and chemistry. Apply to earn a B.S. in Biochemistry.

Written by Charlotte McKinley, alumna and former public relations intern. For more information, please email media.relations@biola.edu.