About

About Brody MedPals

Brody MedPals is a student-run mentorship and outreach organization at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, serving K–12 students across eastern North Carolina. Founded by Eduardo Castañeda in October 2023, MedPals partners with rural and under-resourced middle schools, high schools, and early colleges in Pitt County and surrounding counties to expose students to medicine, science, and health-care careers through hands-on programming and near-peer mentorship. The program is grounded in a simple thesis: the doctors who stay are the ones who came from here.

MedPals is grounded in Social Cognitive Theory and Social Cognitive Career Theory, which hold that career aspirations form through observed role models who reflect a student's own background and identity.

The organization is officially recognized by the Brody School of Medicine Office of Student Affairs and operates as a sanctioned student organization at East Carolina University. MedPals has been honored with East Carolina University's Outstanding Educational Program of the Year award and the Pitt County Board of Education's Creating Excellence in the East award, both received during the 2024–2025 academic year.

Programming. MedPals delivers in-school anatomy and physiology modules using heart and lung models, on-campus exposure days at the Brody School of Medicine — smaller two-hour sessions bringing 20–30 students into the simulation center for focused experiences such as code blue simulation — and an annual flagship event called MedVentures that brings approximately 125 middle and high school students to campus for a full day of hands-on workshops, simulation lab experiences, and direct mentorship from medical students. MedPals has completed four MedVentures cycles since its founding and has reached approximately 2,000 students across all programming. Partner schools include D.H. Conley, Ayden-Grifton, Farmville Central, Greene Central, J.H. Rose, North Pitt, C.M. Eppes, Wellcome, South Central, E.B. Aycock, and Pitt Early College. MedPals also delivers programming at the Young Scholars and Leaders Summer Camp, a community program led by Councilmember Portia Willis serving youth in eastern North Carolina.

Regional collaboration. MedPals collaborates with Dr. Jerry Johnson, Director of ECU's Rural Education Institute and Principal Investigator for Community Schools, and is recognized within the Rural Education Institute's network of rural education programming across eastern North Carolina. In April 2026, MedPals was a featured initiative at the ECU GRAD Partnership End-of-Year Celebration, with a one-hour dedicated presentation slot alongside the Rural Education Institute's annual program review. Following that presentation, MedPals entered early collaborative conversations with school districts across eastern North Carolina — including counties currently outside MedPals' established footprint — about expanding the program's reach in coordination with the Rural Education Institute.

Leadership. Brody MedPals is currently led by medical students at the Brody School of Medicine, with an undergraduate chapter led by co-presidents at East Carolina University. The medical student board includes president Amy Liu, vice-president Jakob Heiser, secretary/treasurer Matthew Thomas, service coordinator Sayeed Kabir, and curriculum manager Alicia Spencer. The undergraduate chapter at East Carolina University is currently led by co-presidents Brianna Falcone and Gabriel Hamill, and was anchored in its first two years by Brinkley-Lane Scholars Trisha Rangaraju and Kendall Pixley — members of the university's most selective undergraduate scholarship cohort — who were recognized for their leadership of the program by ECU and external organizations.

Founding. MedPals was founded by Eduardo Castañeda, a former teacher, who built the program as a near-peer mentorship pipeline modeled on his own experience as a Guatemalan immigrant living in under resourced Appalachia— a path through under-resourced education that shapes how MedPals reaches rural students today. The program is grounded in the belief that early, sustained exposure to medicine — delivered by mentors who understand the realities of under-resourced schools — can shift the trajectory of students who might otherwise never see a path into health-care careers. The doctors who stay, MedPals holds, are the ones who came from here.

Contact and partnership inquiries. Educators, school administrators, faculty collaborators, and community partners interested in bringing MedPals programming to their schools or districts can reach the medical school branch at brodymedpals@gmail.com or the undergraduate branch at ecumedpals@gmail.com. MedPals is officially recognized through the Brody School of Medicine Office of Student Affairs at medicine.ecu.edu/studentaffairs/medpals.