KU med student chosen for NFL Diversity in Sports Medicine program

SHAWNEE, Kan. (KCTV) – The Chiefs will have a new teammate when they take the field in St. Joseph, Mo. for training camp this year: fourth-year KU medical student, Elizabeth Holmes.

“This is kind of like, my biggest dream come true,” Holmes, a lifelong Chiefs fan, said. “My dad said what I used to do whenever they scored a touchdown was throw my hands up and do the whole like ‘Touchdown, Kan-sas City!’ thing. I’m from here. It just makes sense.”

The Shawnee Mission South graduate has been selected to this year’s NFL Diversity in Sports Medicine Pipeline Initiative.

Just 32 participants across the country earned a spot – one for each club.

READ MORE: Delta adding special nonstop flights for several of Chiefs biggest road games in 2024

“The learning opportunities to come are just innumerable,” Holmes said. “I just can’t wait.”

The program, founded in 2022, aims to “encourage medical students from diverse backgrounds to consider sports medicine careers, and over time, help to diversify NFL club medical staffs.”

“Especially in medicine, we need diversity,” Holmes said. “I’ve said I wanted to be a doctor since I was five. I’m very fortunate in my life that that was never like, ‘Oh, you’re a girl, you can’t.’ It was more like, ‘You can do whatever you want because you are a human being.’”

As the Chiefs study the playbook during training camp, Holmes will learn the ins and outs of player care under the team’s medical staff.

“I’m fully going to show up every day to learn,” she said. “I know that everything I learn, I’ll be able to apply to my future patients — whether that be professional athletes, or whether that just be everyday people and people of the Kansas City community. I can learn something to help my patients better.”

Copyright 2024 KCTV. All rights reserved.