April 15, 2026 — Jennifer Wen still remembers sitting on a tree stump in her backyard watching her father tend their vegetable garden after school.

“I would ask him questions like, ‘How do the plants grow the way they do? Why does the world work in this particular way?’” Wen said.

That curiosity stayed with her.

After high school, her inquisitive nature led the Tallahassee native to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied bioengineering. Afterward she returned to Florida to pursue medical school.

Today, Wen is a second-year medical student at the University of Florida College of Medicine and a recipient of the merit-based Dr. R. Dean and Elizabeth F. Hautamaki Endowed Medical Scholarship.

“For me, medicine connects science with people,” she said. “It is understanding how the world works, but it is a field that relies on human connection, talking with people and understanding their specific stories.”

Her desire to become a physician was also shaped by her family’s experiences. The daughter of immigrants, Wen noticed her parents avoided medical care unless they were very sick. She struggled to understand why they would not seek care sooner. Over time, that confusion became awareness.

“They were raised to suffer in silence,” she said. “That value is deeply ingrained in how they interact with the medical system. Their experience helped me see the invisible barriers people have when seeking help.”

At UF, Wen has found a way to put those lessons into practice through the Equal Access Clinic Network. She is an officer at the Eastside Clinic, where she helps manage clinic operations for uninsured and underinsured patients. Outside the clinic, she coordinates which physicians and residents come each week and helps them understand what to expect.

The experience has been one of the most meaningful parts of her medical education.

“It is really rewarding to see my classmates becoming physicians before my eyes,” she said. “Someone once told me, ‘You do not become a physician the day you get your diploma. You are becoming one every single day.’”

She is still exploring her long-term career path but feels drawn to fields that allow her to work with her hands, including surgical and procedural specialties.

“I played instruments, took art classes and built things with my dad,” she said. “I like being hands-on and seeing change happen.”

Receiving a scholarship has been both practical, personal and humbling for Wen.

“It means someone believed in me enough to invest in my potential as a future physician and me as a student right now,” she said, noting the support from the Hautamakis has helped her feel more confident in her path and “live up to the values behind the scholarship.”

Looking to the future, Wen hopes to continue working in community clinics and improving health care access. For her, medicine is about listening, understanding and showing up for others, even when it is difficult. It is about envisioning the world as it could be.

“I want to keep doing this work,” she said. “Whether that is through volunteering, public health or clinical care, I want to help create a world with fewer barriers.”