When he and his three classmates who make up the band “Cytokine Storm” performed a six-song set at the 9th Annual HeART of WMed art showcase, the scene was surreal for M4 Tyler Ulrich.
As he played the guitar, and then the drums, he looked out as those in attendance sang along and some began crowd surfing. And Ulrich, who began pursuing his MD degree at WMU Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine (WMed) in 2017, found himself in a full-circle moment in his nine-year journey to become a physician.
“For me, the journey has been very much about building the path as I’m walking it,” said Ulrich, 32, a native of Northville, Michigan.
Ulrich came to WMed in 2017 as a member of the MD Class of 2021 after double majoring in physics and biochemistry at the University of Michigan. His journey at that point looked relatively straightforward – four years of medical school followed by residency training and a career in medicine that he hoped would allow him to care for patients and also pursue his passion for research.
Coming to WMed also afforded him the opportunity to continue to delve into his love of music and in 2018 and 2019 he and a group of friends from UofM formed the band “Tyler Made Us Do This” and performed at the 2nd and 3rd Annual HeART of WMed art showcases.
And then, as he was most of the way through his M2 year in 2019, news came that Ulrich’s father had suffered a massive stroke.
“My dad is fine now, thankfully, but it was really bad at the time and I needed to be home,” Ulrich said.
Ulrich ultimately took a nine-month leave of absence from WMed to help his mother care for his father and prepare for graduate physics studies before returning to Kalamazoo as a member of the Class of 2022 and continuing his pursuit of his MD degree.
And then came the COVID-19 pandemic.
The moment filled Ulrich with uncertainty but it also gave him time to reflect. From the time he first came to WMed, Ulrich said he knew he wanted to pursue a PhD in physics while also earning his MD degree. When the pandemic set in, he decided to make that dream a reality.
“At that point I felt like if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen now,” he said.
The decision led Ulrich to take a second leave of absence from WMed and in January 2021 he began the graduate physics program at Western Michigan University. Now, more than five years later he’s just a few months away from defending his PhD dissertation.
His research during his time in the PhD program at WMU has been focused on experimental nuclear physics with applications to microdosimetry using an alpha particle microbeam generated by the tandem Van de Graaf particle accelerator at WMU. He’s currently working with a team made up of researchers from WMU, Florida, and GANIL in France to develop a tool for the delivery, detection, and measurement of alpha particle radiation at a subcellular level. This would enable further study and dose calibration of alpha-emitting isotopes which could be coupled to antibodies to target and kill cancer cells locally with microscopic bursts of radiation while avoiding healthy tissue.
While he was still working on the groundbreaking research, Ulrich returned to WMed in May 2025 to complete his core clerkships and set himself on track to graduate with the MD Class of 2027.
Ahead of commencement at WMed, which will take place in May, Ulrich is completing his advanced clerkships for medical school and taking part in away rotations in radiation oncology, the specialty he hopes to pursue during residency training. In early September, he left Kalamazoo for a one-month rotation at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
While being dual enrolled at WMed and WMU has been a challenge, Ulrich said he’s been fortunate with timing and scheduling which has allowed him to maintain a good life balance while pursuing his MD and PhD degrees. More importantly, he said the consistent support he has received from faculty, staff, and classmates at WMed has been a catalyst for his success and one of the main reasons why he’s on track to walk at commencement at WMU in April and the following month receive his MD degree during WMed’s commencement.
In a way, he said performing at the 9th Annual HeART of WMed in August was a suitable marker and bookend to the journey he began when he first arrived at the medical school in July 2017.
“It really was a full-circle moment,” Ulrich said. “The two main points that come to mind are that you can’t prepare for everything in life and you need to be able and ready to adapt. Your plans might run into a speedbump or even a wall, but it doesn’t mean you should give up.”
“And I think the more important part of all of it is having a very strong community behind you and knowing you don’t have to do it alone and, frankly, you can’t do it alone,” Ulrich added. “It’s like being in a band. It just doesn’t work without your team”