Neha Mylarapu’s biomedical engineering degree program at Georgia Tech played a large role in her recent match to a diagnostic radiology residency program at the University of Louisville.
“I feel blessed and fortunate to be entering the field which I have been aiming for the past few years,” she said.
As part of her senior design project at Tech, her team was presented with a problem to solve — pediatric patients are afraid of going through an MRI machine. Mylarapu saw her first image acquisition and was “hooked on how technology could provide a view into the human body without having to open up patients.” She realized that advances in imaging provide data that directly affect a patient’s course in the hospital.
After she earned her degree, Mylarapu worked for Epic Health System where she was placed on their radiology application, which further bolstered her interest in radiology. During medical school, she took a year to complete an interventional radiology research project at Northwestern University, calling it “one of the best decisions ever. It allowed me to gain so much research experience as the first wave of COVID hit the world.”
This future radiologist plans to become fellowship trained in breast imaging while becoming further involved with the intersection of radiology and community outreach and global health. Mylarapu realizes that the field of radiology does not have as many opportunities for outreach as other branches of medicine, but plans to change that.
“It is a field that is continuously becoming crucial for patient care so being able to provide imaging services for areas that lack resources is a goal of mine,” she said.
Having grown up in Johns Creek, Georgia, Mylarapu chose to attend PCOM Georgia partially because of its proximity to her hometown. “Having my family and friends near me during medical school was so important,” she said, “as they were my support system. Without them, medical school would have been much harder.”
Interestingly her younger sister, Namratha Mylarapu, is graduating with the class of 2022 from the Medical College of Georgia. She will be a general surgery resident at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“It was an immensely gratifying experience going through the application process with my sister. Being able to support each other through the match cycle and then finding out that we matched was such a joyous occasion,” she said.
Mylarapu said her parents, who immigrated to the United States to give their children greater opportunities, are her greatest inspiration. “They have instilled in me the ideas of never giving up on my dreams and working hard in whatever I put my mind to.”
She advises prospective medical students to talk to those around them and seek mentors to gain a wide variety of perspectives. Her advice — “Never stop believing in yourself and lean on those around you. A strong support system is important because they will share your highs and lows and will be there for you no matter what.”
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