Recovering from a brain injury he sustained on his mission, Greg Hooke (PH ‘26) spent his first several months at BYU trying to manage his symptoms. “I couldn’t work. I couldn’t interact with people like I used to,” he shares. “You really can’t live life when you’re having to take medication all the time and sit in a dark room.” He didn’t know it then, but that season of struggle would become the foundation for his commitment to health, belonging, and Christlike service.
After his injury, Hooke’s curiosity about the influences that shape health encouraged his desire to help people live their best lives despite the challenges they face. Public health captured his attention for its focus on factors beyond genetics, including social issues like racism, housing inequality, and food insecurity. “It really expanded my vision on what health and individual flourishing mean,” he reflects. After joining the major, Hooke began searching for opportunities to deepen his understanding of the field.
One of the most impactful opportunities was a Diversity Summer Internship Program through the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In Baltimore, he conducted research on social determinants of health. One of these determinants was implicit bias—the unconscious attitudes that people have toward groups of people. Through his research, he saw how these biases impacted individuals' abilities to access health care and feel seen.
Returning to BYU and wanting to make a difference, Hooke met with Dean Loreen Allphin to discuss ways to foster more belonging within the College of Life Sciences. In 2023, Hooke and Allphin assembled a team of ten students from across the college’s majors to form the Student Belonging Council.
It's really hard to love a neighbor you don't know.
The council’s purpose is to create events that foster a more Christlike community within the college. “It's really hard to love a neighbor you don't know,” Hooke explains. Since its launch, the group has organized initiatives such as the First-Generation Luncheon, the Women in Life Sciences Dinner, Spring into Service, and freshman finals care packages. Each effort—big or small—is designed to help students feel seen, supported, and represented.
Hooke treasures BYU’s motto, enter to learn; go forth to serve. He believes his education has empowered him to serve others as Christ would—not only in the future, but right now. For his capstone, he and four other students developed a project aimed at increasing healthcare access for refugees in Utah County. After visiting local hospitals and clinics to ask providers if they could offer a set number of free visits to refugees, they found a few who agreed. Knowing how busy these providers are, Hooke feels deeply grateful for their willingness to help.
After graduation, Hooke plans to take a year off and continue volunteering at the Maliheh Clinic as a Russian and Spanish interpreter and medical assistant while he waits to hear back from the medical schools he applied to. He’s grateful for the opportunity to continue serving and to spend more time with his wife and newborn son.
Hooke hopes that as a future physician he can recognize his own implicit biases and create a welcoming environment for every patient. “I understand that when I care for someone, my care doesn't end at the door of my clinic,” he says. “I have to consider the outside factors [that] affect their health.” For Hooke, seeing others as Christ would means seeing the whole person, not just their symptoms.