Growing up in Oakland, California, Alexandria Tartt watched her grandmother struggle with Alzheimer’s disease and her grandfather grapple with epilepsy. Neither was referred to a neurologist. That wasn’t unusual among her family members and neighbors, who often had trouble securing adequate medical care due to barriers such as poverty, housing insecurity and mental health conditions.
Years later, as Tartt was studying neuroscience and seeing patients in medical school, she reflected on how profoundly people’s environments shape their health. “I’m sitting here and counseling patients, and I don’t know why that was something that was never offered to anyone in our family,” she said. “I felt like, ‘Wow, if only we had a better system and my family members had access to care, their outcomes might have been different.’”
Now, as Tartt prepares to graduate with a degree from the Stanford School of Medicine and begin a neurology residency at the University of Pennsylvania, she’s determined to help others avoid the same fate.
“I fell in love with the biology of medicine,” Tartt said. “But there was always this real need to put it in a context that would better serve vulnerable communities like the one I grew up in.”
A fascination with neuroscience
Tartt’s commitment to improving conditions in under-resourced communities was inspired by her parents. Her mother held leadership roles in the Alameda County Public Health Department, eventually becoming director, while her father worked in community development in San Francisco.
I fell in love with the biology of medicine. But there was always this real need to put it in a context that would better serve vulnerable communities like the one I grew up in.”
But it wasn’t until the end of high school that Tartt considered a career in health. As a senior, she traveled to Haiti with classmates in the wake of the catastrophic 7.0-magnitude earthquake in 2010 and subsequent cholera outbreak to volunteer in a soup kitchen. “That devastation was something I hadn’t seen before,” she recalled. She took to heart the words of a local community leader she met there: “It was no accident that you were born into the life that you have ... You were given this path to be of service to others.”
As an undergrad at New York University, Tartt initially pursued a global public health track. That changed when she studied in Ghana during the spring of her junior year. Tartt interned at a clinic that served patients with HIV, which gave her the opportunity to shadow doctors and discuss diagnoses with patients. “I fell in love with being able to talk to patients,” she said. “That really drew me into medicine.”
Tartt became captivated by neuroscience after enrolling in a class on a whim during her senior year. “The professor made neuroscience feel so exciting and like this new frontier,” she said. “I was always interested in how the environment shapes us, and learning about the molecular components of that was really fascinating.” She joined a lab that was studying the neurobiological underpinnings of schizophrenia.
After graduating with a degree in global public health, Tartt wanted to continue investigating psychiatric illnesses. She spent the next three years conducting neuroscience research at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, the primary research site for Columbia University’s psychiatry department. She conducted experiments on brain tissue taken from cadavers to explore how disease affects the brain’s ability to produce new cells.
Her team published a provocative study suggesting that the brain generates neurons well into a person’s 70s — contradicting the findings of another major research group. “That was really cool for me to be a part of, because it gave me the opportunity to defend the types of things I was doing in the lab,” Tartt said. “If there are ways to regenerate old or damaged brain tissue, we have a lot of therapeutic potential there.”
Empathy and neurology
Tartt considered pursuing both a medical degree and a PhD but decided that an MD was most aligned with her vision for the future. “I was asking myself a lot of personal questions about what I wanted my contribution to society to be, and I kept coming back to taking care of patients,” she said.
Tartt felt that Stanford Medicine’s curriculum offered the best path for combining her passion for patient care, research and public health. “Stanford was one of the only places that made me feel like I never had to choose,” she said. “You could be a jack of all trades.”
As a medical student, Tartt joined the Parker Lab Social Neurosciences Research Program, where she was part of a team studying frontotemporal dementia, a brain disease that often affects people younger than 60. Patients typically wait several years for an accurate diagnosis, as doctors often mistake early symptoms as signs of psychiatric conditions. Tartt worked on a study exploring whether two hormones, oxytocin and vasopressin, could serve as early markers of the disease. “If we find great biomarkers, then we can think about translating those into treatments,” she said.
The research, which is ongoing, was particularly rewarding for Tartt because it hit close to home. While she was in medical school, the health of her grandmother, who had Alzheimer’s disease, deteriorated rapidly, catching Tartt and her family off guard. She died in January 2024.
Soon after, Tartt’s grandfather, who had long suffered from side effects of his epilepsy medications, also saw his health decline. He died last summer, while Tartt was completing a palliative care elective that required her to regularly discuss end-of-life issues with patients and their families.
Having those conversations allows people to plan better about the life they want their loved one to have and the medical assistance they need, which was something we weren’t prepared for with my grandma.”
This emotional period shaped Tartt’s perspective on the role of physicians. Even when a cure is not available, she believes early diagnosis and accurate information can ease the path for patients and their relatives. “Having those conversations allows people to plan better about the life they want their loved one to have and the medical assistance they need, which was something we weren’t prepared for with my grandma,” she said. “Being able to do that as soon as possible is really powerful.”
During the past year, Tartt completed a continuity of care clerkship, working with Kristin Galetta, MD, in Stanford’s neuroimmunology department. There, she treated patients with multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune disorders affecting the brain. “My big dream is to push this area of neurology forward and think about the role of the environment — why certain patients are more likely to develop these disorders and do worse,” she said.
After graduation, Tartt will start a residency at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, where she will specialize in neurology. Her goal is to work in general inpatient neurology and neuroimmunology at a hospital serving a diverse urban population. “I want to provide care to vulnerable patients who haven’t historically been represented in clinical trials and research,” she said. “I want to push the medicine that I love forward but make sure we’re bringing everyone along with us.”
As Tartt moves into the next chapter of her career, her grandparents’ experiences shape the kind of physician she strives to become. “We all went into medicine because we want to save people and find a cure,” she said. “But sometimes we don’t have cures, and that doesn’t mean our role as a healer ends. You’re still able to be there for people as a doctor.”
