Lorijane Robles

“One day I will become a physician in bariatric medicine.”  This statement is what continually motivates Lorijane, a Human Biology major at Eleanor Roosevelt College.  She wants to pursue bariatric medicine for the purpose of supporting disadvantaged low-income communities.  She personally experienced the lack of access to healthcare as a child and saw the impact of poor diet due to the lack of affordable and nutritious food in her neighborhood.  It is this personal connection to her past that is the reason for her goal.

Research and medicine have always been a huge interest to Lorijane, but because of her circumstances she was very limited in what she could be involved in when she was in high school. 

Lorijane believes her biggest achievement in life is “recognizing how far I have come despite all of the obstacles I have encountered.”  She was even a participant in the Roosevelt College Honors Program, despite her undiagnosed learning disability, ADHD, until the end of her sophomore year.  In spite of this challenge, she was able to obtain a lab job, consistently receive Provost Honors, and start undergraduate research the summer between her freshman and sophomore year.  She feels that all the pressure, long hours of self-studying, and years of building up her academic confidence has transformed her into someone that once looked at her learning disability as a weakness, to one who now views it as proof of her resilience.

“My dream, after becoming a bariatric physician, is to connect to lower-income communities, find balance between sustainability and affordability, and to establish a charitable organization that aims to not only help provide nutritional resources, but to also monitor the health and progress of its patients who are not able to access bariatric care.”