My name is Jacqulin Fabina but most people call me Jackie,
with the exception of a few of my closest family and friends which bizarrely
enough each have their own nickname for me. I was born and raised in Johnstown
PA home of the famous floods and the worlds’ steepest vehicular inclined plane
(I know makes you want to drop everything and go visit). I am an only child and
grew up in a single parent home. My mom is not only my best friend and biggest
supporter but was a huge inspiration to me growing up. I am also very close
with my family. I attended Richland High School, where the only reason I went
to school was to play volleyball. I was on the 1999 and 2000 State Championship
team. I also played club volleyball for Greater Johnstown Junior Olympic
Volleyball Club.
I wasn’t always interested in medicine. When I was very young I wanted to be a
lawyer. Man am I happy I changed my mind! Then in middle school, like every
other girl in the world, I wanted to be a marine biologist and study great white
sharks. My mom quickly talked me out of that one! I decided then to be a
veterinarian but it was after I tore my ACL my junior year of high school that I
finally settled on medicine. So when looking at college two things were
important to me, one was playing volleyball, and two was a school with a good
Pre-med program. I found both at Gannon University in Erie PA. I spent four of
the happiest years of my life there and graduated with a B.S. in Biology.
Gannon University had an early acceptance program with LECOM, even though I was
not in that program, it did allow for osteopathic medicine to be introduced to
me very early on in my college experience. So when it came time to apply to
medical school I knew that I wanted an osteopathic school, and I wanted to stay
in PA. Therefore that left me with two options. I applied to both and got
accepted at both but picked LECOM based on the fact that I could stay in a city
in which I was familiar, and because all my friends were doing it! I’m only
partially kidding!
I went into LECOM wanting to be a radiologist and came out of my second year not
knowing what I wanted. Ultimately I chose family medicine because it was the
only rotation where my day was never boring. You get to see a little bit of
everything and there is so much flexibility with what you can do with it! Also
it is the one field of medicine where I can incorporate a lot of osteopathic
manipulation and treatment. I chose Altoona because after doing their summer
preceptorship program and rotating there, I loved the fact that they were
willing and encouraged me to learn as much as I wanted.
Interests in medicine: manipulative medicine, preventive
medicine, and after a rotation in it Neurology.
Outside interests: Still love volleyball and try to play
as much as possible! I would love to coach one day (maybe I should have
rethought that radiology thing!), volunteering especially for the MS society,
forensics, I am a huge CSI Las Vegas fan, and spending time with my two cats,
the twins, Gemini and Aries!
