Volunteer sets sights on medical degree

Thursday, Nov. 10, 2005

Click here to enlarge this photo Tom Fedor⁄The Gazette Kim Fritter, 23, of Brunswick, has volunteered at various places around Frederick County, and is hoping to be accepted to medical school soon, where she will study to be an oncologist.

The Brunswick resident has narrowed her goal to a career in oncology, a medical field in which she said she aspires to assist cancer patients by researching alternative treatment options to chemotherapy.

All four of Fritter’s grandparents died of the disease. Fritter said witnessing her grandmother struggle with chemotherapy treatments, which weakens patients and often causes severe hair loss, tailored her plans of becoming a medical doctor to one who specializes in cancer treatments.

Last year, Fritter volunteered at the Frederick County Health Department in the Cancer Outreach Program. Now enrolled in core classes at Hood College that are required for entrance to medical school, Fritter has been busy this year preparing to apply to schools such as Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

‘‘I just think there has to be a better way to do chemotherapy,” Fritter said. ‘‘Chemotherapy works, but there has to be a better way.”

Fritter earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a minor in biology from Hood in May. By earning a spot on the dean’s list all four years and maintaining a 3.5 grade point average, Fritter received the Edenia Guillermo Award last semester, presented annually to a senior Hispanic student who achieved the highest academic record in four years of study.

The prize was established in 1983 to honor Guillermo, who taught Spanish at Hood from 1975 to 1983.

Eric Kindahl, a biology professor at Hood, said Fritter was one of his best students in his evolution and ecology course last year. He recalled her presentation on the evolution of a specific breed of butterflies.

‘‘She was very conscientious and very interested in what we were doing,” Kindahl said. ‘‘Her work was much more sophisticated than I would have expected.”

Born in Washington, D.C., Fritter moved to Brunswick when she was 3 years old and still resides in the same house she knew as a youngster. Fritter remembers playing kickball with her neighbors in a nearby field now divided into lots for homes.

Fritter joined the Brunswick area Girl Scouts daisy troop at age 9 and remained with the organization for several years. She played softball on local teams and performed with the pom-pom squad before joining Brunswick’s swim team.

At Brunswick High School, Fritter was a member of the National Honor Society and Future Business Leaders of America, where she gathered goods for ‘‘Secret Santa” gifts to needy local families. As a member of the school’s track and field team, she competed in the hurdle events at the meets.

Fritter has competed in the Miss Frederick pageant for the last three years, performing songs and dances choreographed by her sister.

Fritter has also appeared as an extra in movie productions such as ‘‘The Visiting” and ‘‘Ladder 49” and television programs such as ‘‘Head of State.” Fritter, who was a ‘‘background performer,” said meeting stars such as John Travolta and Nicole Kidman made the pastime exciting.

Now, Fritter invests most of her spare time volunteering. Recently, she served as a student service leader for Brunswick Middle School.

And she plans to work at hotlines with the volunteer network at the Heartly House, which serves victims of domestic violence in Frederick County. She’s also planning a volunteer stint with the Maryland Department of Aging, which partners volunteers with senior citizens with few nearby relatives.

‘‘There’s a lot of people who have no one to talk to,” Fritter said. ‘‘They get kind of lonely.”