Two families, two generations complete the PBPM Program

Goucher’s Post-Baccalaureate Premedical (PBPM) Program began in 1984. In 2024, for the first time, two members of the cohort each had a parent who also went through the program. Zoey Cantor and Kyle McGuire will complete their certification this May, as did Cantor’s mother, Jane Birschbach, in 1988 and McGuire’s father, Kelly McGuire, in 1996.

Cantor knew early on that she wanted to be a doctor. “I have two parents who are both physicians, and it was always something I wanted to do,” she said. She grew up in a small town, where it was not unusual to run into her parents’ patients. “It was really beautiful to see the way they were able to heal people.”

Cantor enrolled at the University of Oregon with the intention of pursuing a premed major, but that didn’t feel like the right culture fit, so she switched to psychology. But in her senior year she realized she still wanted to be a doctor. After graduating, in order to gain clinical experience, she worked as a medical assistant in pediatric care and did medical triage as a volunteer with Occupy Medical, a free health care program in Oregon for people in need. The work further confirmed that she wanted to follow that path. When her mother reminded her about her own post-bac experience at Goucher, Cantor looked it up. “I was like, whoa, that’s the cream of the crop,” she said. Through the interview process, she felt the sense of community that was missing when she started college.

For McGuire, service was ingrained at an early age within his military family. His mother was a doctor in the Air Force, his father was in the Marine Corps, and he has five siblings who were or still are in the military. McGuire himself went to the Naval Academy and joined the Marine Corps, which he said was a great experience. Eventually, he wanted to find another way to serve. “I knew from having a mom who is a doctor in the Air Force and a dad who got out and [became a doctor], that there were a lot of translatable skills from the military,” he said. The family already had three children when McGuire’s father enrolled in Goucher’s program. “Seeing that my dad was able to do it was encouraging for me, that it was possible to do,” said McGuire, since a lot of people who have been out of school for a while “might see all that goes into becoming a doctor and assume that time has passed for them.”

McGuire was eager to get medical school underway, so he was drawn to Goucher’s one-year program. “It’s a really tight package,” he said. “It’s everything you need and nothing that you don’t.” He also appreciates the small size of the program, which only accepts up to 34 students a year. Everyone gets to know each other and shares advice and experiences.

Cantor also likes that about Goucher’s PBPM Program—everyone has each other’s backs. “The distinct sense of community is my favorite part,” she said. “The professors really care about you, and I definitely feel prepared for medical school.”

Goucher has linkage agreements with several medical schools that enable students to apply early. Cantor and McGuire both applied to the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine through the linkage program, and, recently, they were both accepted.

As for after medical school, they both have ideas about what will be next. Before coming to Goucher, McGuire spent six months researching and observing at the University of Chicago’s trauma center through a post-military transition program. It made him realize he would prefer to go into a specialty with more patient interaction, so now he’s volunteering at a free clinic and in hospice care in Baltimore.

Cantor loved working with kids as a medical assistant, so she’s considering pediatric care for her specialty. But she could also see herself pursuing a similar route to her mother and going into women’s health.

Cantor and McGuire had different paths that led them to Goucher, but they both agree that the program’s rigor and intensity is good preparation for medical school—and for wherever that leads them next.