Class of 2020: Kevin Wills is on the pandemic’s hidden front line

By Eric Peters
MCV Foundation

Kevin Wills beat cancer twice — at ages 10 and 11 — and those experiences ignited in him a desire to one day pursue a career in health care.

This past spring and summer, the Virginia Commonwealth University student fulfilled that goal and more by contributing to a critically important — yet often overlooked — component of the health care system during the deadliest pandemic in more than 100 years.

Wills, who will graduate in December with a master’s degree from the College of Health Professions, is a student worker in the diagnostic microbiology and immunology lab managed by professors Christopher Doern, Ph.D., and Alexandra Bryson, Ph.D., in the Department of Pathology. Wills has stayed longer, and has taken on responsibilities beyond the usual student workload, helping log, process and complete diagnostic testing, especially for COVID-19. In fact, he estimates that this spring and summer he touched at least half of all COVID-19 tests that came through the VCU Health lab.

He also played a role in validating VCU Health’s in-house test by running numerous blank and positive specimens, ensuring results were consistent and that there were no false positives or false negatives.

“I keep a list of people I’m going to thank for all they’ve done for us during this time, and Kevin [Wills] stands out,” Doern said. “That young man has saved us throughout this. You ask him to do something and he’s doing it, and he works weekends. He is one of the heroes of this thing. Without him, I’m not sure where we would be.”

Wills’ contributions have been made possible through the College of Health Professions’ Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, where as a student he said he’s been given incredible opportunities to learn practical skills, as well as theory, and to explore his interests outside his degree’s concentration.

The department trains scientists to play critical roles on health care delivery teams. Its graduates ­— which make up most of Doern’s staff ­— provide data in hematology, microbiology, immunology, medical chemistry transfusion medicine and molecular diagnostics that physicians need for accurate diagnoses and effective disease management.

The education and training have paid off for Wills. He has been offered a full-time position in the VCU Health lab after he graduates. He said he’s overjoyed to find a career in lab sciences after setting his mind to it so many years ago.

Wills made that decision after beating rhabdomyosarcoma and adrenocortical carcinoma. “Ever since that, I’ve wanted to get into health care in some way,” he said.

“I didn’t know the lab existed back then, but when I look back on it, I probably wouldn’t have ever been diagnosed correctly if it weren’t for the lab,” he said. “They were there the entire time and I never knew it.”

This story originally appeared in MCV Foundation's NEXT magazine under the headline “A Student's Impact on the Hidden Frontline.”