Start Year: 2020

Basics

Hometown
Freeland, Maryland

Where did you attend undergrad?
Princeton University

Where did you attend medical school?
Emory University School of Medicine

What are your career goals?
I am planning to apply for fellowship training in gastroenterology.

"Medicine is a team game, and I think Duke does a fantastic job of identifying smart, kind, and compassionate residents who don't take themselves too seriously, but take the role of being a doctor and a colleague very seriously."

-Daniel Bernstein

Reflections on the Duke Program

What were you looking for in a residency program?
Three years of residency can feel like a long time when you are experiencing it, but the time flies. I wanted to participate in a clinically rigorous internal medicine program, where I would gain the skills and experience to feel confident caring for medically complex patients by the end of residency training. At the same time, internal medicine residency is a physically and emotionally challenging experience, and I wanted to find a community of supportive providers who place value in caring for each other as well as the patients.

What are the strengths of the Duke Program?
DukeFam is a term that you will hear often here, and the internal medicine residency at Duke truly is a family. Being kind and supportive to your colleagues, as well as smart, is the expectation in this program, not the exception. At Duke, you will have access to brilliant faculty, a diverse patient population, an array of research opportunities, and you will do it all with a group of fellow physicians who truly care about your wellbeing and personal and professional development.

What are your observations about the relationships between faculty and house staff?
The faculty at Duke are incredibly approachable and accessible. One of the things that the faculty at Duke do particularly well is allowing residents to have a great deal of autonomy in patient workup and management, while continuing to teach and remaining present and available for guidance when it is needed.

Tell us about your co-residents. What has helped you connect, support each other, and form friendships?
My co-residents and I have a great deal of trust in one another. Without exception, I trust all of my co-residents as providers, and I trust that they would be available to provide help or support if needed from a personal or clinical standpoint. Medicine is a team game, and I think Duke does a fantastic job of identifying smart, kind, and compassionate residents who don't take themselves too seriously, but take the role of being a doctor and a colleague very seriously.

About Duke University and Durham

What has surprised you most about Duke?
While I had a good sense of the identity of the medicine program before I joined it, I did not know the extent to which that culture of camaraderie extended to the rest of the Duke system. In your time as an internal medicine resident, you will rely on your consultants and colleagues in PT, OT, respiratory, speech, social work, and more to help provide excellent patient care, and you will find nothing but supportive, dedicated providers across that spectrum at Duke.

What is the best thing about living in Durham and the Triangle?
If you talk to people who have lived here for a while, Durham and the Triangle have changed a lot over the past 10-20 years, and I think this is an area that is continuing to undergo a lot of exciting growth. There are so many great restaurants, bars, and outdoor activities locally in Durham, and beyond that you have Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Raleigh in striking distance with even more to offer. With the time off you have in residency, you won't lack for fun ways to use it.

Where did you choose to live and why?
I live in the Hope Valley Farms area of South Durham. It's a close drive to Duke and has some nice running trails nearby, a favorite pasttime of mine. It is also essentially equidistant from Chapel Hill, where my partner works.

What are your interests outside of medicine?
I can't make it through a day without listening to or playing music of some variety. I also love enjoying the outdoors in North Carolina, running and hiking as much as I can, going to hear live music, reading, and most of all spending time with my family and friends.