You can call him Major Aun because that’s his rank in the U.S. Air Force. You can also call him Dr. Aun because he’s board certified in cardiology and internal medicine.
At the heart of Jonathan Aun’s identity, he’s a Gamecock because it was USC’s Honors College where his dream of becoming a doctor grew. It wasn’t an easy path for Aun, a nominee for the Honors College’s 2025 Young Alumni Award, especially as a first-generation college student.
“I enlisted in the S.C. Air National Guard while I was at USC for tuition assistance and to gain early medical experience,” says Aun, who joined the Air Force Junior ROTC as a cadet while attending Lexington High School. “I was admitted to the Honors College my sophomore year, but I didn’t attend during the spring semester because I enrolled in basic training to become an Air Force medic.”
Leading the way
Brianna Timmerman, Aun’s Honors College advisor, helped him register for fall classes while he was in Texas and Florida for military training. Timmerman later encouraged Aun to create a leadership program for Honors College freshmen as part of his senior project.
Majoring in experimental psychology, Aun was attuned to the nuances of leadership, exploring the idiosyncrasies of group dynamics and effective execution. This led him to launching Drop Everything and Lead. Fellow Honors College students who participated were encouraged to create community projects of their own, including combatting food waste, aiding veterans, international medical training, sustainability initiatives and more.
Aun created a pre-med community for Honors College students and lived on campus every year, cherishing moments on the Horseshoe during football season, serving as a resident mentor from his sophomore year onward. He ended his time at USC as an RM in the Honors Residence Hall.
“I kept my grades sharp for medical school while serving monthly with the Air National Guard, leading in Student Government on health care initiatives and working as a resident mentor. It wasn’t easy, but it became training for a career built on discipline and service,” Aun says.
Despite a rigorous academic schedule, Aun built friendships, immersing himself in the Gamecock experience, and had fond memories, such as attending the 2010 football game at Williams-Brice Stadium when Carolina defeated No. 1-ranked Alabama. He also coached a co-ed flag football team with Honors College students.
Continuum of care
Aun continued to hone his skills after graduating from USC in fall 2010. He spent a year attending MCAT study classes in the evenings and worked as a medical assistant at a hospital and as a teaching assistant for an introductory chemistry course on campus. The year doubled as a practicum as hospital shifts fostered his empathy while teaching refined his ability to explain complex ideas clearly.
Aun graduated from Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine in Spartanburg, then completed his residency training in internal medicine at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi at the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020. Aun was chief of residents, leading the education and training for the Air Force’s largest internal medicine residency training program. He was then accepted into a cardiology fellowship at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, while engaging in research at the National Institutes of Health. The final stretch of his educational career took him to Boston where he completed advanced cardiovascular imaging at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School’s primary teaching hospital.
“When I completed the cardiac imaging program, I joked that it was my final graduation. It’s been a long journey, but I’m excited to be board certified in six areas, including my two primary certifications in internal medicine and cardiology,” Aun says. “I moved this past July with my family to San Antonio where I’m the director of noninvasive cardiovascular imaging for the Division of Cardiology in the Department of Medicine at Brooke Army Medical Center.”
Aun also serves as an assistant professor of medicine at the Uniformed Services University, training military health care professionals.
Reflecting on the long journey of study, training and patient care that have marked his career path in medicine thus far, Aun says USC helped shape his early perspective on the medical profession.
“The Latin motto on the university seal — ‘learning humanizes character and does not permit it to be cruel’ — stands out to me to this day because so much of medicine is about understanding and appreciating the humanistic aspect of it all,” Aun says.
Connecting with compassion
“When I was in the S.C. Air National Guard, Dr. Jim Chow, ’80, ’85 MD, was my commanding officer and mentor. He always encouraged me to remember that ‘practicing medicine is an honor and a privilege.’ Now I have a tremendous opportunity to provide care and compassion to military members, their families and the community every day.”
Aun points to the lessons learned from his psychology courses, which emphasized establishing a connection in everyday interactions. “This might be just another day for me as a physician but for the patient it might be the first time they’ve seen the inside of a hospital to get medical care,” he says. “It’s the first time they’ve undergone a procedure that is routine for me, as the doctor, to do but not at all routine for them.”
One of Aun’s undergraduate courses in health psychology focused on the social determinants of health — the challenges that some people face in affording prescriptions or finding transportation to medical appointments.
“In the classroom, other Honors College courses such as medical anthropology broadened that lens, reminding me to approach every patient and family with cultural humility and respect guiding my bedside approach,” he says.
“Before I became a doctor, I didn’t truly appreciate those challenges, but those lessons early on in psychology courses and others in my liberal arts education really benefited me as a physician and educator. The university taught me so much about humanism and compassion, and it means so much to me.”