STONY BROOK, N.Y. — Chase Rome has spent her final summer before graduation administering insulin, taking vital signs and ensuring patients have their proper medication as a medical technician at a memory care facility in her native Oregon.

Stony Brook women's soccer teammate Anna Slang had been interning through the Undergraduate Clinical Experience Program run by medical students at Stony Brook Hospital, which afforded her the opportunity to shadow doctors and spend time in a clinic for uninsured and underinsured local patients.

And when both seniors graduate in May, they plan to move closer to entering a medical field filled with Stony Brook women's soccer alums.

Among the recent women's soccer graduates currently practicing in the health science profession are Lindsay Hutchinson '17, Christina Casamassina '15, Danielle Singson '14, Larissa (Nysch) Lamb '14, Queli Ornelas '14 and Daniela Giuliani '12.

"There have been so many times when someone older on our team has helped someone younger with what they want to do with their life — if it's nursing, if it's being a doctor, biomedical engineering, whatever," Slang said. "There's a really good mentorship ladder throughout our team. There's always someone willing to help you with your courses. Someone has probably taken it already."

The alumni medical pipeline is a major attraction for Stony Brook women's soccer recruits.

"That was definitely a selling point. And the hospital on campus was a massive selling point for me," Slang said. "It provides so many opportunities for internships, job shadowing and things like that."

Said Rome: "They mentioned this is a great medical school and it will get me where I want to go. It was a great match."

Hutchinson (Milton S. Hershey Medical Center), Singson (Northwell Health), Lamb (Einstein Medical Center Montgomery), Ornelas (BayCare) and Giuliani (New York Presbyterian) all serve as registered nurses. Casamassina is as a sonographer at St. Charles in Port Jefferson.

Slang, a biology major, plans to return to her native Canada after graduation in May and apply for medical school, likely focusing on internal medicine.

Rome, a health science major also on track to graduate after the spring semester, intends to enroll in an accelerated, 15-month nursing program, possibly at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, roughly a half-hour from her childhood home.  After that, she expects to attend graduate school to become a nurse practitioner.

Rome will take all five of her fall-semester classes online. That will allow her to delay returning to Stony Brook's campus until next month in order to maximize her time working at the memory care facility.

"I love interacting with the patients," Rome said. "I'm really learning a lot, and gaining a lot of hands-on experience. I'm basically a nurse's assistant. It's pretty much exactly what I'll be learning in nursing school. So it's very good prep."

Both seniors' future plans within the medical field evolved during their time on Stony Brook's campus.

When Rome first committed, she believed physical therapy would be her eventual career path. Freshman year, she considered being a physician's assistant. Now, she has resolved to be a nurse practitioner.

Slang will arrive on Long Island from Cowichan Bay, B.C., on Aug. 10 and quarantine for two weeks. She has a lab and one other class in person and otherwise will study remotely this upcoming semester. She currently sees herself entering the rheumatology field.

"But I'm sure that could change as I get more experience," Slang said. "I like the puzzle of it all — figuring out what's wrong and working with a team of doctors. That's the part of medicine that has interested me the most."

They each will compete for a final season with the Seawolves this spring, now that the season has been postponed from the fall due to COVID-19 — Slang as a back, Rome as a midfielder. And they are set up for the future after graduating.

"I got to have great mentorship by all these med students," Slang said about the internship at Stony Brook Hospital's free clinic known as SB Home. "They would do seminars where they would bring in doctors and the med students and teach us about different things. And then we got to spend two days in the clinic, shadowing and helping out where we can. Unfortunately, I only got one day because of COVID and it all got canceled. I'm hoping I'll be able to pick it up again this year."