Growing up in West Oʻahu, Maveric Abella fondly remembers many busy weekends renovating houses with her dad and brother. Together, they would paint and fix up patios, windows and flooring. In fact, she began handling power tools at the early age of eight. It all came together naturally with her mother, Maria Teresa Abella, being a realtor and her father, Eric Abella, a retired firefighter and craftsman.
“It kind of worked really well in that she would find properties and my dad would come in and fix them up,” said Maveric.
It wasn’t until many years later, as Maveric explored different career paths, that she found herself shadowing surgeons in the operating room. As she watched the intricacies of surgery in the operating theatre and noticed the tools being used, everything seemed to click.
“And then I was hooked! I thought, ‘I’m definitely going to medical school. This is awesome. This is what I want to do,’” Maveric said.
The more she watched, the more flashbacks she had to those days with her dad, working with drills and saws.
“I saw a knee replacement from Dr. Cass Nakasone. It’s the same thing on the human body. It’s like construction on the human body and that’s when I was hooked. It was drilling and sawing but on bones. The tools look really similar,” Maveric said.
A Penchant for Patient Care
While attending high school at Kamehameha Schools, Maveric interned at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center. Her initial plan was to do clinical research but after moving nearly 5,000 miles across the globe to attend Columbia in New York City, she quickly learned that she was interested in engineering. She co-led a team of 10 fellow undergraduates to design mini cubed satellites for a research and education program, NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative. Heading into her junior year, her path would change once again after traveling to the Marshall Islands for radiation research.
The goal was to collect fruit, sediment and soil to measure its radiation levels left behind from the 1950’s US nuclear tests during the cold war. During the process, she found that it was the interactions with the people there that were most memorable. She also realized how difficult it was for the residents to receive healthcare in such a rural area.
“There were no doctors out there. These kids just had wounds that were festering and there were flies coming in and out of the wounds. But the kids were completely fine and they were just having fun,” Maveric said.
The trip left a life changing mark on Maveric. With a limited supply of basic wound care supplies on the boat, she and the group she was with tried to treat as many sores as they could– that was her first spark into medicine. On the flight back to New York, Maveric already knew she would shift career paths once again.
“I wanted to know what patient care was like, getting to know patients on a one on one level, treating people. I think that was lost in engineering for me. It was very much a lot of research and development and you never really got to see the end result of that,” said Maveric.
After completing the radiation results, which were published in PNAS in July 2019, Maveric spent the last few weeks of summer break volunteering at the Queen’s Medical Center in West Oʻahu. After graduating from Columbia University, she returned to Hawaiʻi with her sights on becoming a physician. Then the COVID-19 pandemic made its way to the US and she saw that many Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders were being disproportionately affected by not only the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but also a digital divide and difficulties with remote schooling. During her gap year, the Honua Scholars Program was born.
“It started out as a tutoring company. So, to help retention into schools, we went to Leeward Community College, just recruited some students out of there and just offered free tutoring,” Maveric about her and a small group of tutors, all graduate students across the nation in some form of STEM– Science, technology, engineering and math.
In just four years, more than a thousand students have been tutored or mentored. Honua Scholars has grown to now include career prep, a symposium where students present STEM research, and an essay contest where winners are awarded with funds.
“Really, the underlying goal is for STEM awareness, increasing STEM interest, but also retention here on the islands,” said Maveric.
Her JABSOM Journey
Maveric entered the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) in 2020, receiving her white coat during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, joining her fellow classmates in greeting the now-retired Dean Jerris Hedges onstage with fist-bump. Although she has met so many wonderful mentors and friends at JABSOM, she recalls that one of the most fulfilling moments of her medical school career was helping to deliver a baby during an OB-GYN rotation. Maveric made a connection with a mother in labor after speaking to her about her experiences in the Marshall Islands.
“Just establishing that rapport pretty early on and then actually being able to help deliver that baby, it just felt like it all came full circle,” said Maveric.
She vividly remembers helping the mother through trial birthing exercises, holding her up and helping her to breathe through 10-second labor counts. And she continued to stay by her side when an emergency c-section was imminent, doing her best, despite a language barrier, to help the mother understand what would need to happen to save the baby’s life.
“That’s forever in my mind and is what I'll remember my OBGYN experience was like. Honestly, it solidifies the fact that I’m coming back as soon as residency finishes and hopefully I practice on the west side– that’s really my goal. But really, anywhere in Hawaii where I get to treat the people, the community that I grew up around and also the Pacific Islander community that I’ve grown really attached to,” said Maveric.
This summer, she will join Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles for residency training. During our video interview with Maveric’s family, she revealed to her parents that it was father’s unintended influence during those many weekends of fixing up houses that solidified her choice to specialize in orthopedic surgery.
“It’s not a planned event, it wasn’t something that I hoped for but it’s something that turned out to be great. Some small little things that we did really affected her and affected her thoughts of what she wanted to be so that’s great,” said Eric.
“(Maveric) she’s going to be the first doctor in our family so I’m very very proud,” said Maria Teresa.
Reflecting back on her years at JABSOM, Maveric said, “I think it’s something so special to be able to talk and learn medicine and treat people from your community. Really, the kind of doctors that I shadowed at Queen’s West and the surgeons— that’s exactly who I wanted to be. And I knew I could do that if I went to medical school here. Super blessed and super lucky to be at JABSOM.”