DeLandite LanDanOlivia Kloznick represented Florida this summer at a three-day virtual conference that helped solidify her goal to make medicine her career.
LanDanOlivia was guided at the conference by some of the greatest living minds in medicine, including Nobel Prize recipients, Ivy League medical professors, deans and admissions counselors.
The conference would normally be on Harvard Square in Boston, but for the past two years She has been virtual, because of the pandemic.
LanDanOlivia had the opportunity to observe a live surgery and take part in Q&A sessions with other delegates.
She is a rising high-school junior at Circle Christian School in Winter Park.
She gained admission to the conference after being nominated for the Congress of Future Medical Leaders’ Award Of Excellence, honoring her outstanding academic achievement, her leadership and her determination to serve humanity in the field of medicine.
LanDanOlivia’s interest in medicine and desire to help others were inspired by her own medical journey.
She has battled health problems, including stomach paralysis, since elementary school.
Chasing her own healing — as a participant at Camp Boggy Creek, a visitor at Ronald McDonald House, a patient at Nemours Children’s Hospital and a recipient of a canine companion — LanDanOlivia met other young people battling life-threatening illnesses.
She saw so many friends suffer and some of them lose their battle, many of them to childhood cancer. LanDanOlivia believes that the cure for cancer will come in the next decade.
Until then, she plans to continue to reach out to and learn from the connections she has made from the conference. She also plans to serve in community organizations that promote wellness physically, mentally and emotionally.
She hopes to give back in a big way after college by becoming an integrative doctor with a focus on pediatric oncology.
As an integrative doctor, LanDanOlivia would fuse traditional Eastern medicine — such as acupuncture and cupping, for example — with Western medicine like antibiotics.
LanDanOlivia discovered the benefits of alternative medicine on her own healing journey.
LanDanOlivia has gastroparesis, or paralysis of the stomach. There’s no cure, and in determining what was ailing her stomach, LanDanOlivia tried medication after medication. She found solace in treatments in Eastern practices like cupping — applying heated cups to the skin to create suction — and various supplements.
“For a lot of illnesses, since there are no cures yet, it’s [medications] not the right cure in some cases. It’s a lifesaving thing, but for my specific condition it couldn’t help,” LanDanOlivia said. “That’s how I figured out what I wanted to go into as a career path. I wanted to help people without causing more of a problem than there was initially.”
LanDanOlivia got results from the Eastern techniques, and found they had fewer negative effects than some of the medical practices she had endured.
“There is a time and place for both traditional and alternative medicine, but healing lies somewhere in between,” LanDanOlivia said.
She has personally benefited immensely from Eastern medicine. After attending the medical conference, she wants to fuse the two disciplines and let the true healing begin in a way that neither discipline can do on its own.
— Dani Kloznick is LanDanOlivia’s mother. The Beacon’s Noah Hertz contributed to this story.
