Hometown: Buies Creek, North Carolina

Undergrad: Campbell University, mechanical engineering

Incoming medical student Troy Nation moved often as a kid, as his father was in the Marine Corps. Born in California, Nation also lived in Washington, Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Japan before going to college in North Carolina. But his mom is originally from Iowa, so he came to see the state as a kind of home base.

“Iowa has always been that one place that’s the anchor for my family and for me,” Nation says. “It’s a state I’ve grown to love over the years.”

Though the places he’s lived gave him a variety of cultural experiences, Nation has always been drawn to the landscape and pace of rural life.

“It's a tighter community,” he says, “and that’s a huge draw. Seeing how a community can rally around its members and work toward a common goal and being able to build those relationships that grow deep is attractive to me.”

He loves the outdoors and good, hard work — a combination that recently led him to an uncommon pre-medical school job: commercial salmon fishing in Alaska. Nation enjoyed living in a remote area, working with his hands, and flexing some of the skills he learned as an undergraduate mechanical engineering major.

“There are no roads there. There’s no power. Everything is on generators,” he says. “So if something breaks, you better fix it, or you don’t have it. I really loved doing that sort of thing.”

In addition to hauling in salmon and fixing holes in nets from grizzly bear raids, Nation worked on his medical school application. His ambition is to practice in rural Iowa after medical school and, hopefully, farm a little on the side, as he has been doing the past year with his aunt and uncle in Algona—the latter of whom is also a physician.

Nation’s mechanical engineering background taught him critical thinking and problem-solving skills in addition to fixing complex systems, he says, and his experience in medical school will help him learn how to connect with and serve his future patients.

“In a rural environment, physicians have the opportunity to build a lot of relationships and provide a service for people that need it,” he says. “You can be a tool to better the lives of people in communities that are sometimes forgotten about.”

Nation says he was strongly influenced to follow in his uncle’s footsteps when he saw the impact he made on his community, and that interest was strengthened when Nation experienced acute osteomyelitis and was treated at UI Health Care at age 12.

“My parents weren’t here; they were house hunting. We had just moved back from Japan, so everything was a blur,” he remembers. “Seeing the hope and stability that the physicians gave me when I was terrified was huge.”

He experienced the patient side of medicine many times as a lifelong wrestler, as well.

“That has created no shortage of injuries,” he says. “I got to spend time with doctors—maybe more than I would have liked—but I saw how the work of physicians was able to get me back on my feet and allow me to do what I love.”  

Nation’s path to medicine may have looked a little different, but every step has made him the person he is today—a person who’s ready and excited to take on the new challenge of medical school.

“My life is a hodgepodge of experiences,” he says. “But the emphasis for me is on community. I want to help grow a community where people are concerned for one another’s well-being. I want to develop a skill that I can use to serve others, hopefully here in Iowa.”