Why Incoming M.D./Ph.D. Student Kya Foxx Chose the Physician-Scientist Path at the Miller School
With a background in history and philosophy of science, incoming M.D./Ph.D. student Kya Foxx hopes to connect genetics research, reproductive biology and bioethics while pursuing a career that bridges patient care and discovery.
Most students entering a biomedical Ph.D. program arrive with a biology degree. Kya Foxx arrives with a B.A. in history and philosophy of science. That background, more humanities than lab work, is exactly what she thinks will let her do something distinctive with her M.D./Ph.D. at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. She wants to bridge the science of medicine with the ethics of how it is used.
Below, she talks about the moment that convinced her to pursue a dual degree, how a summer at Yale reshaped her research focus and why she chose Miami.
You went back and forth for almost a year deciding between an M.D. and a Ph.D. What ultimately convinced you to do both?
There was one day that really solidified it for me. That morning, I was shadowing a pediatric geneticist meeting with a family who had multiple children with autism spectrum disorder. She was explaining their genetic testing results, and how they’d need to get their DNA resequenced every five to 10 years, because new research might reclassify a variant of unknown significance.
At the time, I was researching a pediatric condition where kids lose their hair much faster than normal, and hearing how patients wait for research to eventually give them answers just energized me.
Doing both clinical work and research would fuel each aspect of medicine for me. I’d see in the clinic what I was researching in the lab, and when experiments weren’t working, I’d see patients and remember why it was worth it.
How did you land on reproductive biology as a research focus?
That actually happened during a gap-year research position at Yale, using fruit flies to study how reproductive function is regulated by other tissues in the body. I was troubleshooting something strange happening in one of my flies, trying to understand the shift from a fertilized egg to an embryo, and I just thought, wait, that’s actually the question everyone in biology is asking. How does life start? I’d loved my undergraduate research, too, which was on chromatin and gene regulation, but I found a different kind of passion in reproductive biology.
Why did you choose the Miller School?
Honestly, I’d applied to a summer research program here as an undergrad and didn’t get the combined research-and-clinical track I needed at the time, so I didn’t attend. But I remember telling my lab mates how much I loved the research being done here. When I got my acceptance, I looked back and realized how perfectly it fit what I actually wanted. There’s a lot of genetics research, and I’m currently doing a rotation in Dr. Sophia George’s lab. Her work spans translational, clinical and public health research, which matters to me because of my humanities background.
I’m interested in bioethics and questions like what it means to research a condition responsibly. I’m ASL-certified and have spent time with the Deaf community, where there’s real tension between how the medical field views deafness and how the community views it as identity rather than disability. The Miller School has been genuinely supportive of that kind of interdisciplinary thinking. Also, everyone in the MSTP program was warm and welcoming from day one. That’s ultimately what made me say yes.
What does your career look like from here?
The current plan is to finish the eight-year M.D./Ph.D., then do an OB-GYN residency, ideally through a physician-scientist training program, which combine residency with protected research time, similar to what M.D./Ph.D. programs do at the medical school level. Long-term, I’d love to run my own practice or a company that combines clinical care and research under one roof, using the data you get from seeing patients, their family history, how conditions present, to actually improve care.
What are you most looking forward to as you start med school?
Getting to actually be in it, honestly. After years of going back and forth, and a gap year of research, it still feels a little surreal that this is really happening. I’m excited to be somewhere that supports the parts of me that don’t fit a typical mold, whether that’s the research interests or just wanting to have a life outside of it.
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Incoming M.D./M.B.A. student AJ Hernandez discusses engineering, physician leadership, pediatric ophthalmology and returning home to Miami.
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Tags: Department of Medical Education, Dr. Sophia George, dual degrees, medical education, Medical Scientist Training Program, medical students, reproductive medicine, student research, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine White Coat and Pinning Ceremony, White Coat Class of 2030