Page 14 - 2019 MPMA Summer Profiles

PODIATRY BOUND

The path to podiatry; or any medical field for that matter, is seldom
straightforward and littered with a plethora of challenges. For Moriah
Peoples, however, her aspirations to overcome these challenges and
achieve the dream of helping people were realized before the time she
had even left for college.
Hailing from Detroit, Michigan, she graduated from Renaissance
High School, where she quickly distinguished herself as an academic
standout; earning a scholarship to study at The University of Michigan-
Dearborn. She graduated from in 2015 with a Bachelor of Science
degree in Biochemistry and a Bachelor of Arts degree within Health
Policy Studies. She views this diverse range of education as a necessity
in becoming a well-rounded physician that is able to effectively and
efficiently understand the needs of her patients, and deliver them the
highest degree of care—which prompted her to attend the University
of Detroit Mercy in 2016 to pursue both the master’s degree Health
Services Administration and master’s of Business Administration
Moriah Peoples
degree. Excellence followed her, and membership to the Upsilon Phi
Delta and Alpha Sigma Nu honor societies, as well as the McAuley
Ignition Academic Excellence Award documented her outstanding
commitment to her studies.
Her passion to help people maximize their happiness through
mobility is a large contributing aspect of what piqued her interest in
My interest podiatry as opposed to another medical field.

in Podiatry “My interest in Podiatry originated with my aspiration to be a
physician that practices a specialty that has a positive impact on an
originated with individual’s ability to live up to their full potential in both sharing their

my aspiration to own talents with the world and fortifying their capacity to achieve
their goals such as becoming an athlete, firefighter, dancer, medical
be a physician that professional and beyond.”
For Peoples, providing happiness to other’s lives is what her work is
practices a specialty
all about.
that has a positive She can trace the moment that she knew she should pursue podiatry
after conducting an independent study for her Health Policy Studies
impact on an degree on the effects of diabetes upon Native Americans in the city
individual’s ability of Detroit. In this study, she spent time analyzing the role of culture
in the healing process and was surprised how adamantly the primary
to live up to their care physicians emphasized patient attendance to their podiatry

full potential.” appointments. This was even more apparent during her time as a Care
Coordinator at Meridian Health Plan in Detroit, as most of her patients
–Moriah Peoples directly linked their depression to their foot pain and their inability
to be independent and do what they once loved. Hearing the stories
and seeing those who were most affected demonstrated to her the link
between behavioral health and mobility; and how maximizing mobility
can help improve patient happiness.

14 MICHIGAN PODIATRIC MEDICAL ASSOCIATION