Growing up in Centennial, Colorado, Danielle Newton excelled in high school, and was even recognized as a U.S. Presidential Scholar. She accomplished all of this while living in a home environment where people close to her dealt with substance use disorder and mental health struggles, and money was often tight. She now attributes her upbringing as a key part of becoming the physician she is today.

Through QuestBridge, Danielle attended Princeton University with a full four-year scholarship, and majored in Chemistry, but was not initially on the pre-med track. A turning point occurred when she was undergoing mandatory wilderness first-aid training to become a backpacking leader in college. While others complained about the weekly sessions, Danielle was palpably excited to learn more, so much so that the instructor, an EMT, assumed she was pre-med. When she insisted she was not, he said, “Well, maybe you should be.”

The idea of pursuing medicine persisted as she graduated from Princeton in 2020, and moved to Dallas, Texas, to be a clinical research associate and also an EMT for a year. By the following year, she was bound for medical school.

At the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Danielle began to realize that while science drew her to medical school, she also had many personal, values-based reasons for becoming a doctor. Witnessing substance abuse as well as physical and emotional abuse in her own family “instilled a compassion and desire to heal, and an empathy for people who are struggling,” says Danielle.

As she began to care for a range of patients, she saw that her low-income background was an asset. “I can understand what it's like to not be able to afford your health care [or] what it's like to have to work multiple jobs so you don't end up making your follow up appointments. And every medical student, every doctor has a different set of experiences that informs their care…you relate to patients differently, which is why it's so important to have a diversity of physicians in the world,” says Danielle.

Danielle is currently doing her residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Boston Medical Center. She hopes to pursue a career in hospital medicine for both adult and pediatric patients, with a special focus on addiction medicine, homeless healthcare, and mental healthcare.