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Shira Lanyi at the VCU School of Medicine White Coat Ceremony on Aug. 3 (Photo by Thomas Kojcsic courtesy VCU)
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Shira Lanyi in "Swan Lake" by Nicolas Beriozoff, Richmond Ballet 2013 (Photo by Sarah Ferguson)
There’s a 32-year-old first-year medical student at Virginia Commonwealth University.
It’s an atypical age to begin med school, but Shira Lanyi has already enjoyed one full and fruitful career, as a professional dancer. She studied dance since she was 8 and was a company member for eight years with the Richmond Ballet, and a solo dancer for a year with the Israel Ballet. Now, the Richmond native is one of the 184 first-year students at the VCU School of Medicine, a member of the Class of 2022.
“My trajectory has always been nontraditional,” she says.
Med school is a calling, something she seemed destined for. It’s a career choice that her late mother, Ricki Grunwald Lanyi, helped define, and her father, urologist Thomas Lanyi, was an early role model. Ballet also helped pique her interest in the healing profession when she was a teen and shadowed an orthopedic doctor as he worked with the dancers.
Shira was set on a path to college and med school at VCU, but she was extended an invitation to dance professionally with the Richmond Ballet. A career in dance is a rare opportunity, a statistical improbability, and it was a calling that needed answering first. She reasoned that she could pursue that particular passion while she was still in her physical prime, then take on medicine at a later date.
“I was so fortunate,” she says. “You have to have a passion for it, because the pursuit of that career is grueling.”
It is hard work. What looks so elegant and effortless on stage is the result of a pursuit of perfection marked by blisters and long hours of practice. The dedication and drive that are essential in a dancer’s skill set translate well to med school, she says.
But her mother challenged her on the decision to forego school, and Shira challenged her right back, telling her mom that she could do so later. It was a discussion they engaged in throughout her decade of dance.
Shira describes her mother as strong, charismatic and compassionate, her best friend and someone with whom she had an especially strong bond. “My mom was and still is a tremendous figure in my life,” she says.
Her parents split their time between Israel and the United States. In 2014, Shira was rehearsing in the ballet studio when she received a call. It was her father on the phone, not her mother, who generally called daily. He told her that her mother had a brain tumor.
Shira took leave from the Richmond Ballet and flew to Israel to care for Ricki. Her mother had surgery, but the prognosis was that she had a year to live. When Ricki was on an upswing following the procedure and able to communicate again, in very few words, she told Shira to go back and perform.
That, understandably, led to mixed emotions for Shira. She decided on another course, to stay in Israel. She became a soloist with the Israel Ballet, and also cared for her mother until Ricki's death in January 2015.
A period of self-reflection followed. Lanyi replayed those conversations with her mother about what she wanted for her child, and what Shira wanted for herself. It was time to leave dance and go into medicine, to become the person “I would want someone to be to care for my parents.”
Her last performance with the Richmond Ballet was in "Don Quixote" in early 2015.
She enrolled at VCU and pushed through to earn an undergraduate degree in biology in three years, graduating in May of this year. While an undergrad, she participated in molecular biology cancer research conducted by Dr. Anthony Faber at the VCU Massey Cancer Center. The project involved seeking a treatment for a rare childhood cancer that was similar to her mother’s cancer.
It was hard, fascinating work, she says, but fulfilling in that she was playing a part in eradicating the disease.
Shira's dedication to dance and the discipline needed to excel on stage will serve her well in med school. “I feel like having had my ballet career has been a huge help,” she says.
Ballet may be an unusual stepping stone for a doctor in training, but Dr. Michelle Whitehurst-Cook, the associate dean of admissions at the VCU School of Medicine, notes that students find their way to medical practice from a variety of professions. “We have had chefs, veterans and interior designers touched by a meaningful experience which changes their focus from what they were doing to medicine,” she says in an email. “This diversity creates a rich learning environment for students to develop an understanding of patients’ needs.”