By Cathy Frisinger

Dr. Christopher Leba

Long before he started at UT Southwestern Medical School, Christopher Leba was saving lives. The summer after graduating high school, he took EMT training, and when he started at Rice University, he joined the Rice Emergency Medical Services team. By the time he was a senior, he was captain of the organization, the top student position.

He was in charge of the emergency medical service the day a man who was on campus for a race collapsed. The young paramedic directed the team during basic and advanced life support efforts to restore a pulse. The Houston Fire Department later presented him and several colleagues with a commendation.

Dr. Leba is the 2017 recipient of the Hemphill-Gojer Award, presented each year to the top Medical Student in internal medicine.

The Hemphill-Gojer Award was established by Ross H. and Anne Seymour Hemphill in honor of their son and daughter-in-law, Dr. and Mrs. Seymour Hemphill; their daughter and son-in-law, Dr. and Mrs. Bernard Gojer; and Anne Hemphill’s parents, E. Clyde and Florine Allen Seymour. Dr. Hemphill and Dr. Gojer are both UT Southwestern Medical School alumni.

Dr. Leba’s years in Medical School were busy. He was a teaching assistant, an officer in the Emergency Medicine Interest Group, Vice President of the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) Honor Medical Society, and – demonstrating that his “strengths” are varied – a competitive powerlifter. Dr. Leba earned a Master of Public Health degree concurrently during his first two years at UT Southwestern. Although he had the option to earn the M.P.H. across four years of Medical School, Dr. Leba wanted to be focused on his clinicals during his third and fourth years, so he completed the M.P.H. degree early.

During his first clinical rotation Dr. Leba found the field that was for him. He soon will begin his residency in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He expects to eventually specialize in pulmonary and critical care medicine.

Dr. Leba, inducted into the local AOA chapter last year, had several mentors at UT Southwestern, including Dr. Francesca Lee, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and of Pathology, and Dr. Blake Barker, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Associate Dean for Student Affairs.

“Dr. Leba had significant work experience in health care prior to Medical School as a paramedic and pharmacy tech, and we think this likely informs both his passion for health care and his ability to work well within teams,” Dr. Barker said. “He is consistently praised for his communication skills with both colleagues and patients, and we expect to hear great things about him in the future.”

Dr. Leba said the collegiality he felt during his internal medicine rotation is part of the reason he selected the field. “The Internal Medicine Department is truly a down-to-earth community. I felt like I could always have a casual conversation or just joke around with all of the faculty,” he said.

But it’s a faculty member from another Department, Dr. Raymond Fowler, Professor of Emergency Medicine, who exerted the biggest influence.

“Dr. Raymond Fowler has been a fantastic mentor. I call him ‘Gramps.’ He’s a big part of the reason I came to UT Southwestern,” Dr. Leba said. “He persuaded me this was the place I needed to be. Since then he’s always been there, whenever I needed advice.”

The son of Vietnamese refugees who came to the U.S. at the end of the Vietnam War, Dr. Leba said he grew up hearing stories about the hardships they endured and the shock of the transition to a foreign country where an unfamiliar language was spoken. Despite these challenges, his parents both ended up working for NASA, “becoming literal rocket scientists,” Dr. Leba said. “It is through their sacrifice that I have the opportunity to be where I am today.”

Dr. Fowler holds the James. M. Atkins, M.D. Professorship in Emergency Medical Services.