Michael Konu

University of Pennsylvania, Class of 2023

Major: Science, Technology, and Society

Minor: Chemistry

Michael Konu is pursuing a BA in Science, Technology, & Society, and a minor in Chemistry and Health Care Management and Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. His interest in the SUMR program stemmed from his desire to understand health care outcome disparities, health care innovation trends, and developing interdisciplinary approaches to 21st century health care challenges. He plans to pursue an MD-MBA or MD-PhD with the hopes of utilizing innovative approaches to eliminate longstanding health care outcome disparities at the institutional and community levels.  

Konu’s time as a SUMR scholar was spent working with the Palliative and Advanced Illness Research Center alongside two physician researcher mentors, Dr. Joanna Lee Hart, MD, MSHP, and Dr. Nwamaka Eneanya, MD, MSHP. Dr. Eneanya’s work had an overarching goal of identifying key factors that impact ACP among elderly patients with non-dialysis dependent chronic kidney disease. Dr. Hart’s work consisted of estimating the prevalence of prior trauma among family members of critically ill patients. He had the opportunity to conduct and analyze semi-structured interviews among critically ill patients’ family members and clinicians focused on the decisions to restrict family-centered critical care practices to specific family members.  

In his free time, he enjoys playing and watching basketball, running, catching up on his favorite geopolitical podcasts, watching history documentaries, and exploring Philadelphia with close friends. 

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