LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ -- Kevin Duffy (left) of Delran, a senior biology major at Rider University, has set a whirlwind pace at Rider University. This past year has been particularly intense. All of it has been by design and with an important goal in mind -- getting into medical school and becoming a physician.

To help him toward that goal, Duffy was notified that he is the 1998-99 recipient of the John Taylor Ealy Scholarship, which goes annually to the outstanding student in Rider's pre-medical studies program.

This summer he is working in a prestigious internship program at Schering-Plough Research Institute in Union, conducting monoclonal antibodies research -- or, in simple terms, researching manmade proteins for medical purposes.

He is the first Rider student hired into this program and is in excellent company with three interns from Cornell University, two from Harvard University, two from Columbia University, one from Stanford University, and one from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

During the recently completed spring semester he assisted Dr. James Riggs, assistant professor of biology at Rider, with his research on the effects of cancer on the immune system that occurs with aging. Duffy also made two presentations based on the research -- one a student presentation on March 28 at Thomas Jefferson University entitled "Age-dependent Generation of MLS+ B Cell Lymphomas" and the other at the annual retreat on cancer research in Princeton on May 20. That presentation, "Impact of Aging Cytokine Polarization Upon B Cell Lymphoma Generation," updated earlier research.

For most students this amount of activity would be enough for a year. But for Duffy, this was the wrap-up to his intensive junior year.

He actually began his flurry of activity last summer when his family physician, Dr. Steven Kolesk, who has a practice is in the Larchmont Center in Mt. Laurel, allowed Duffy to follow him around and observe his daily office routine.

Then Duffy, a graduate of Holy Cross High School, spent the 1997 spring semester studying abroad in Spain. "Nowadays if you want to be a physician, it is imperative more than ever to speak a language like Spanish. The opportunity to do this is while you are in college," he said.

He gained enough proficiency to converse in Spanish, and this allowed him to put his language capability to good use during a January 1998 hospital internship at the Capital Health System-Fuld Campus in Trenton. There he had the experience of serving as a translator between a doctor and a Spanish-speaking patient.

During the year, he also found time to play right wing for Rider's ice hockey team and to be a disc jockey for WRRC, the student radio station. "I can do this because hockey practice is at 10 p.m. and games are on weekends," he said.

Since he came to Rider as freshman, Duffy has also assisted two other biology faculty members: Dr. Michael Benner with general laboratory duties to get his feet wet, and Dr. Jonathan Yavelow with his molecular biology research.

What made him realize he really wanted to become a physician was his first hospital internship in January 1997. He was placed at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey in New Brunswick. "It was this experience that made me realize I want to be a doctor and on the front line in the profession. I particularly like primary care," he added.

As the 1998 academic year was ending and although his senior year at Rider still lies ahead, he was filling out medical school applications. At this early juncture, he is interested in medical schools at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester University, and Dartmouth University.

With the way Duffy had gone about preparing himself for a medical career, it's a good bet he will realize his goal.