‘A way to improve people’s lives’: National Merit Scholar from Maryland plans on a career in neurosurgery

Quinn C. Parker, a Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School student, was named a National Merit Scholar. (Courtesy Quinn C. Parker)

Twenty Montgomery County Public School students have been named National Merit Scholars.

One of them, 17-year-old Quinn C. Parker, a senior at Bethesda Chevy Chase High School, plans on going into medicine, specifically neurosurgery.

As Parker puts it, “I kind of gained my interest in the brain when my grandma got dementia. She suffered with it for five years.”

She thought to herself that there has to be a cure for a disease that takes such a heavy toll. Parker said what drove her interest was finding “a way to improve people’s lives.”

From there, she set about looking for a mentor, and found one in Dr. Jennifer Parker Porter, a plastic surgeon at Chevy Chase Plastic Surgery — who Parker points out — is of no relation.

Parker said she found Dr. Porter’s name in a search and was intrigued.

“She’s a Black woman, like me, so I figured that would be a really good mentorship opportunity, so I reached out to her and it turns out we have a lot in common,” she told WTOP.

That led to an internship that Parker calls amazing.

Parker said she’d have to give credit to all the counselors and teachers at B-CC.

“All of the counseling staff at B-CC have really made my experience there what it was, both academically and socially,” Parker said. “I’d really love to shout out Mrs. Heald. She’s the college and career counselor, and she definitely has made at least — especially this year — but all of my years really special.”

“Regardless of who you are and what you want to do with your future — just believe in yourself,” she said. “It’s really important. It’s the first step in achieving what you want to achieve, in creating a future for yourself that you want to have.”

National Merit Scholars receive a $2,500 award toward a postsecondary education. They’re chosen out of thousands of finalists and honored for excelling in their academic studies.

Here’s the complete list from MCPS and their probable career fields are:

Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School