On February 28, UAB medical students and faculty, along with friends and family, gathered at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center for the 10th Annual Best Medicine Show. This annual variety show raises money for Equal Access Birmingham, the medical student-run clinic for underserved populations in Birmingham. Featuring everything from musical and dance performances to live skits and short films, the evening showcased the talents of UAB medical students and proved, as its name suggests, that laughter is indeed the best medicine. Here are a few of the performers who shined at the show.

Aaron Landis, a rising MS3, has always had a creative side. But since starting medical school, he’s mostly pushed it aside—with one notable exception. This year his first-ever short film made it into the show: a takeoff on the trailer for “A Star Is Born,” with Lada Gaga’s character dressed as a parasite—specifically, Ascaris lumbricoides, leading to the film’s punch line, “Ascaris born.” Landis says making the film was a great chance to work with friends Kush Patel, Saad Khan, Eric Kim, Ayo Ayokanmbi, and Rahul Gaini.

Meghana Gaini, Veena Danthuluri, and Viny Memul perform a Bollywood dance.A native of Florence, whose parents are pharmacists and whose grandmother was a code nurse, Landis fell in love with medicine early on and is considering either pediatrics or internal medicine. But he’d also like to build on his newfound skills in video. “Expect more to come,” he says.

The Best of Medicine show has come a long way from its early years, when it was known as Skit Night and held in a lecture room. But the spirit remains the same, says Callie Perkins, a 2020 graduate who directed this year’s Best Medicine Show. “It provides a unique opportunity for students to express themselves,” Perkins says. “It’s also a way to get the whole student body involved, whether someone is interested in helping with the tech aspects of the show or wanting to showcase their talents.”

As a child of parents in the military, Perkins lived in a lot of places growing up, but she was ultimately drawn to UAB School of Medicine to make a positive change in the community. “I became fascinated with health disparities and the social determinants of what makes a person healthy or not healthy,” she says. “I have been very encouraged by seeing physicians trying to make a positive change in that realm.” This summer, she begins an OB/GYN residency at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine.

Veena Danthuluri, a rising MS4, has always enjoyed sharing her Indian culture with others, so participating in the Best Medicine Show by performing a Bollywood dance, along with Vinayak Memula and Meghana Gaini (also rising MS4s), was a natural extension of that. “I grew up learning Indian classical dance and doing Bollywood dance performances,” Danthuluri says, describing Bollywood dancing as highly energetic, with the songs straight out of Bollywood films. “People who don’t normally dance tell me they love it after they try it.”

Growing up in Huntsville in a family of physicians, Danthuluri became interested in medicine at a young age and began shadowing doctors as an undergraduate at the University of South Alabama.

Desalyn Johnson’s performance in the show grew out of an evening she spent experimenting with pairing poetry and guitar with her friend Chibuike Obinwa (both are rising MS2s). Obinwa played guitar while Johnson recited a favorite Maya Angelou poem, “Phenomenal Woman.”

“We said, ‘You know, we could do this for the Best Medicine Show,” Johnson remembers. She says she chose “Phenomenal Woman” for its message of empowerment. “It speaks not only to female empowerment, but also to how everyone should feel about themselves. We must know that our value doesn’t come from our abilities, our intelligence, or our physical appearance. It comes from the phenomenal greatness that is inherent in each person.”

Desalyn Johnson performs the Maya Angelou poem “Phenomenal Woman,” accompanied by Chibuike Obinwa.
Johnson, who is from Huntsville, says she’s pursuing a medical career out of a passion for learning. “To me, there is no better way to use my love of learning to make a positive impact on my community.”

Vincent Bolus, a rising MS2, sang in a cappella groups throughout high school and college, but he’d never performed with a band until he and a group of friends decided to play in the Best Medicine Show this year. His roommate, Caleb Carroll, signed on right away to be the frontman; next they recruited Alex Harrelson on bass and Michael Liptrot to play saxophone. All they needed was a name.

“We came up with NSyncope,” Bolus says. “It’s a play on the boy band *NSYNC and syncope, which is basically a fainting spell.” The medical pun paired neatly with the slyly ironic title of the song they selected: “I Don’t Need No Doctor.”

Vince Bolus recruited friends to perform as NSyncope, a takeoff on the boy band *NSYNC. Bolus grew up in Birmingham as the son of a UAB radiologist, David Bolus, M.D. He says having a physician for a dad left him with mixed feelings—he admired his father’s work but also saw the demands it imposed. “I think the fact that I tried to shy away from it, but it kept calling me back kind of speaks to the call of medicine,” says Bolus, who wants to pursue a specialty in oncology.

Rosalind Fournier