Allie Hecht

Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine

Allie Hecht (she/her/hers) is a fourth-year medical student at Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Stratford, NJ. Before attending medical school, she studied Anatomy and Cell Biology at McGill University in Montreal, QC and then moved to Brooklyn, NY where she worked at Community Healthcare Network organizing classes in complementary medical therapies such as yoga, meditation, reiki and acupuncture in under-resourced communities in NYC. The summer after her first year of medical school she completed her 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training with Kula Collective, strengthening her understanding of the spiritual and physical practice of yoga, and sharing these teachings with the Students for Integrative Medicine group she co-founded on campus in her first year.

Allie aspires to become a holistic primary care provider that weaves integrative medical practices and osteopathic manipulative medicine into her care, especially in under-resourced communities and women’s health. Outside of medicine, she loves playing piano and guitar, singing, hiking and cooking plant-based meals with family and friends.

Mika Mintz

University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

Mika Mintz (she/her/hers) is a fourth-year medical student and psychiatrist-in-the-making at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Miami, Florida. Originally from the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts and the arctic tundra of Swedish Lapland, Mika earned her B.A. at Colby College in Maine, where she double-majored in Psychology and Dance. Prior to medical school, Mika worked as a photographer and founded an annual Arts Festival showcasing early career artists in her home county. At the University of Miami, Mika was chosen for the Ethics and Humanities Pathway of Emphasis, for which she is exploring how to stay human during medical training, via interviews with humanistic physicians and personal research. She is also a Reproductive Health Advocate working directly with patients to provide education and ensure access to reproductive health services. A descendant of several generations of physicians who focused their academic careers in part on the humanistic aspects of healthcare, and who regard medicine as an ethical and spiritual practice, Mika has followed suit, developing an interest in Integrative healing modalities.

Mika is looking forward to a career in psychiatry, with a focus on psychodynamic psychotherapy – a specialty which she feels will allow her to continue exploring the human condition and the creative healing power of relationships.

Mika is excited to work alongside such an inspiring handful of almost-doctors to bring HEART-IM 2022 to life!

Dale Oommen

Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

Dale Oommen (he/him/his) is a fourth-year medical student at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Prior to medical school he attended The College of New Jersey where he majored in biology and public health. Initially thinking that he wanted to be “some sort of teacher-environmental-biologist-person” he spent his time conducting wildlife research through activities such as following around white faced capuchins in Costa Rica. Discovering a love for teaching along the way, he had the opportunity to educate kids at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia about fun topics like synthetic meat and how our brains work. Finding that medicine was an unexpected integration of his interests, he found his way to medical school. While in medical school, Dale’s interests have centered around prevention and education. He has pursued these interests through synthesizing and integrating a lifestyle medicine thread into the curriculum, teaching nutrition lectures and diet history-taking to first year medical students, and organizing health literacy sessions in the surrounding community. Additionally, l Dale had the privilege of traveling to the Himalayas to provide healthcare to rural areas, broadening his conception of what medical care can look and feel like. Dale has also enjoyed serving as the beatboxer for the student run acapella group at RWJMS.

Dale is currently pursuing a career in medicine/pediatrics with a focus on chronic disease prevention across the lifespan. In his free time Dale enjoys hiking, slacklining, music, cooking, and playing video games (super smash bros anyone?).

Aloukika Shah

David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Aloukika Shah (she/her/hers) is a fourth-year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Aloukika was first introduced to integrative medicine as a child raised in India, where Ayurveda, amongst other practices in yoga, pranayama, and meditation, were daily rituals in her family’s way of life. Growing up in America, she came to appreciate the power of combining modern medicine with evidence-based practices in lifestyle medicine. Before medical school, Aloukika served as an AmeriCorps Health Fellow at a federally qualified health center in Berkeley, CA, where she witnessed the pervasive role of nutrition among other lifestyle components underlying chronic disease. Her experience managing her clinic’s wellness center and leading classes in cooking, mindfulness meditation, and chronic disease management inspired her interest in getting to the root cause of chronic disease. At UCLA, she has had the privilege of learning from her mentors at the Center for East-West Medicine, which has exposed her to the integration of Traditional Chinese Medicine within an academic setting.

Aloukika is looking forward to a career in Internal Medicine where she hopes to help ameliorate disease by combining the latest innovations of modern medicine with lifestyle and integrative practices grounded in nutrition, exercise, and psychological well-being. In her free time, she enjoys dancing, cooking with her mom, and spending quality time with her rambunctious little doggy Rugby. She is thrilled to work alongside her colleagues to make HEART- IM an incredible experience for our participants!

Charlotte Solmssen (she/her/hers) is a fourth-year medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She grew up in Ardmore, PA and graduated from Harvard University where she earned an AB in neurobiology. After college, Charlotte worked as an emergency management specialist at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and was deployed to the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico to help survivors of Hurricane Maria access long-term recovery services. At Mount Sinai, Charlotte has worked on population health research and co-led the Medical Ethics Student Organization. She is the recipient of the John Conley Bioethics Scholarship to earn a certificate in bioethics in the Health Policy and Law track. She also received a fellowship to study medical ethics and experience a different model of healthcare delivery at Bar Ilan University in Israel.

Charlotte plans to pursue a career in pediatrics and hopes to integrate humanism with medicine to best care for her patients. In addition to medicine, Charlotte enjoys reading histories and novels, hiking, biking, and camping. She is looking forward to learning alongside the dynamic students of HEART IM.