About Mikayla
Born and raised in Milford, MA, Mikayla always grew up with access to quality and accessible healthcare. It was only after the COVID-19 pandemic that Mikayla saw how deep disparities ran, even in a state with some of the best hospitals in the country, and knew she wanted to work to end those disparities in medicine.
Mikayla originally went to college at Suffolk University in Boston to study accounting, with dreams of becoming a certified public accountant, and completing her formal education after 5 years. After landing her dream real estate tax internship, she realized that medicine was her calling, but she should give accounting a try anyway. To see if medicine was right for her, she began volunteering in the Emergency Room at Massachusetts General Hospital. Accounting proved to be fun, but Mikayla realized she couldn't spend 30 years doing corporate real estate tax returns, and every day of her internship, she yearned to be back in the hospital, working with patients to improve their quality of life.
After graduating from Suffolk, she enrolled in the Postbac Premedical Program at Tufts University, and started taking the science classes required to apply for medical school. At Tufts, she participates in the Lahey Preceptorship Program, where she gets to shadow Dr. Sarkis Soukiasian, an ophthalmologist at Lahey Hospital, as he examines patients in the clinic, and in the operating room as he performs cataract surgeries, and cornea replacements. Mikayla also conducts research with Dr. Soukiasian, and is currently researching the correlation between uveitis and embolic stroke.
In her free time, Mikayla enjoys watching musicals, sewing, and playing the Wii.