Every medical student dreams of Match Day. This is the ultimate goal that drives many med students through the grueling years of medical school. It’s what makes the sacrifices and dedication all seem worth it. I couldn’t wait for Match Day last year. In my mind was a constant loop of questions: Where will I match? Will I be at my first choice? Will I get to be near my partner, my friends, my family? I hadn’t even considered the alternate reality: What if I don’t match? I was feeling so confident on Match Monday (the day when you find out if you’ve matched or not), that I almost didn’t set my ..read more

Premed students know the drill: get as many clinical hours as possible to be competitive for acceptance into medical school. Like many of my peers, I too heard that being an emergency medical technician (EMT) was a great way to get patient experience and practice provider autonomy. I signed up to take an accelerated EMT course in my hometown over winter break last year, and it took about a month to complete. In the spring, I took the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians Exam (NREMT) and applied to volunteer with a local rescue squad. Initially, I was excited (and nervous) to trea ..read more

High acuity situations in emergency medicine can feel like a whirlwind. The excitement of heroic resuscitations and the thrill of saving a life is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. But some of my most cherished memories come from what one might consider typical encounters, interactions where I have communicated effectively and made a lasting change or learned a valuable lesson. It is in these everyday encounters that I’ve felt the most growth as a physician and often felt the closest to my patients.  Earlier in my intern year, while working a busy shift with a young attending (a supe ..read more

On a hot and humid July afternoon, the white coat ceremony for the class of 2025 at the Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine was in full swing. Not even the threat of a giant thunderstorm, which happens often during the summer in Miami, could dampen the excitement of 150 aspiring physicians and their families. I walked onstage, slipped on brand-new white coat, and accepted the coveted “medical student” title I had spent years working for. I thought about why I was embarking on this journey: my family of Vietnam War refugees, my brother who has autism, and my fa ..read more

People perceive greatness as something that comes from grand gestures or remarkable achievements. However, the field of medicine has shown us time and time again that the origin of true greatness lies in small acts of kindness. Seemingly minor acts of generosity and compassion have the power to not only improve the lives of our patients, but to inspire future generations to follow in our footsteps. Even as a premed, I strive to embody these values so that when I become a physician, I can inspire future generations of providers to do the same. This realization dawned upon me during my senior ye ..read more

Five years ago, if you told me that I would be an entering MD/PhD student, I’d be elated, but if you had told me two years ago — I’d laugh and call you a liar. It’s strange that along my journey to medical school and physician-scientist training, there was such a low point, but one that many medical students can relate to: impostor syndrome during the application cycle. I had been working toward this point throughout college, and before I started writing my applications, I felt reasonably confident in my goal to become a physician-scientist studying cancer biology. Yet the writing process brou ..read more

As a pre-medical student in college, it can be overwhelming deciding how to allocate your time outside of classes. A good first step is to try a variety of activities and to intently pursue those that fulfill you the most. While you should take into account admission requirements and experiences to maximize your competitiveness (i.e. clinical experiences, research, and volunteer service), the driving force for how you spend your free time should be where your passions lie. Ultimately, pursuing your passions will inherently make you a stronger (and more unique) applicant. Now that I have finish ..read more

My story begins with this quote from a sixth-grade teacher in a classroom: “All you do is disrupt my teaching; you won’t succeed in life!” After hearing this, I wrestled over these words over and over, thinking to myself, am I fit to continue in school? In elementary school, I read below my grade level and continuously fell behind the rest of the class. My self-esteem plummeted as I watched the rest of the students pass their tests and receive compliments for their good behavior. My fifth-grade educators observed this, so they hired a learning specialist to evaluate any learning or behavioral ..read more

“There are these two young fish swimming along and they meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and eventually one of them looks at the other and goes, ‘What is water?” – David Foster Wallace, Kenyon College Commencement 2005, “This is Water.” The journey from medical school to residency goes fast: there scarcely seems time enough to do it all. Although we practice again and again so we can better discern what troubles our patients, we do not do the same for ourselves. In fact, until I ..read more

This weekend, I had the incredible opportunity to attend the Pisacano leadership symposium in Chicago. I had been chosen as one of 10 fourth year medical students to receive this prestigious scholarship in recognition of our academic, creative and community-building achievements and our commitment to a career in family medicine. I was in awe to receive such a recognition and be among peers who had advocated for anti-racism and abortion access on national platforms, published articles in premier journals such as Academic Medicine, and pivoted from personal hardships to provide incredible patien ..read more