A Mercer University staff member dedicated to advising students on pre-health professions tracks has been awarded the Mike MacCarthy Mentorship Award.
Dr. Carol Bokros, director of pre-health professional programs, received the award during the student recognition banquet on April 15 in Hawkins Arena. The Office of National Fellowships and Scholarships hosted the event.
“Mercer has a well-earned reputation as a pipeline to medical school. That is partly because of attentive faculty, motivated students and abundant opportunities for engaged learning, and it is also because of Dr. Bokros’s caring mentoring,” said Dr. David Davis, director of the Office of National Fellowships and Scholarships. “She has developed a robust set of resources to help students prepare applications for health sciences programs, and she invests hours and hours of her personal time and attention into the students and their applications. Hundreds of Mercerians who have gone on to medical school, nursing school, pharmacy school and other health sciences programs owe her a debt of gratitude.”
Dr. Bokros began working at Mercer in 2002 as an adjunct professor. She took on her current role advising pre-health students in 2007. As of spring 2025, Mercer had more than 1,000 students across 18 available pre-health tracks.
These students have access to an abundance of resources through the Pre-Graduate and Professional School course developed by Dr. Bokros in Canvas, Mercer’s web-based learning management system. Students interested in the health professions, graduate school or law school may self-enroll in the course, which is not for credit.
The course provides relevant advice, resources, FAQ and contact information. It also includes modules that cover topics like understanding your motivations for your pre-professional work, becoming a competitive applicant, and writing for your professional school application.
Dr. Bokros offers students one-on-one advising appointments, and in spring 2024 she launched the pre-health ambassadors program to connect students on similar paths. The ambassadors, who are upperclassmen on pre-health professional tracks, hold office hours in Tarver Library during the fall and spring semesters.
“There’s so much to know if you want to be doctor or a dentist that it’s a little overwhelming, so I’m poised to help students make sense of all the information out there, and because of my training and background, I know what information is the most important to pay attention to and when,” Dr. Bokros said. “It’s like helping them decipher all the information that’s coming at them.”
Students describe Dr. Bokros as supportive, passionate, dedicated, kind, selfless, helpful and inspiring.
“Dr. Bokros is an embodiment of what mentorship means,” said Reema Chande, a pre-med student who graduated in May with bachelor’s degrees in global health studies and psychology from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “I credit her constant support — from making a list of schools, organizing recommendations, to preparing personal statements — for how rewarding my (medical school) application experience has been.
“More than her success as an advisor on paper, she’s expanded my view of what a physician can be. We initially met tabling for voter mobilization drives, and (our) discussions about a physician’s role in political and community advocacy have stuck with me and will motivate the way I direct my career. Not only is she a dedicated mentor herself, she encourages students to use their experiences to support and advise one another, expanding her impact and creating a community of mutual support.”
Dr. Bokros said she was honored to be recognized with the Mike MacCarthy Mentorship Award, even though she doesn’t necessarily see herself as a mentor.
“I think of mentors as being people in the profession that will give guidance to people who are coming behind them, and I’m not an M.D. I’m not a health care professional. I’m an advisor, not a mentor. But it’s nice to be recognized as providing guidance that assists students to get to where they want to go.”
The Mike MacCarthy Mentorship Award is named for the late Dr. Michael MacCarthy, associate professor of environmental and civil engineering and director of the engineering for development program. He died in 2021.
