How do you manage to stay balanced and healthy in spite of the busy med school schedule? 

I think the best way I do this is by treating school like a job.  I do my best to get my work done in the afternoons and taking the evenings to relax, go to dinner with friends, watch movies, etc.  Also, I’ve found it essential to meet friends outside of med school.  We all love talking about medicine, but its nice to have friends that only know you’re a med student and don’t want to hear about “cool” surgical procedures. 

What’s the most important piece of advice you would give to an incoming MS1? 

The easiest one would be to do whatever it takes to keep a long term perspective.  We’re all here for a reason.  We’re intelligent, gifted and compassionate, and the admissions committee has made sure that we have what it takes to be great physicians.  That said, its not always easy to sit down to a long afternoon of studying on a Saturday and learn biochemical minutia.  However, if you remember the end goal—that you are working for the very thing to which you have been called or that you have wanted your whole life—it will make the studying more of a pleasure than a chore.

What is your favorite artery, organ, or nerve; and why?

The lymphatic system because, after anatomy, I still don’t believe it exists. 

Tell us one of your favorite memories from your first year of med school in the form of a haiku!

Kernick sweater Bleu
Ushers young minds through the doors
Wait, use the bonesaw

If you could be any element on the periodic table which would you be and why? 

Carbon, you can make the most friends, you share a lot and you’re in pretty much everything. 

If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be? 

Sushi, either that or anything with Tony Cachere’s Cajun seasoning on it. 

Give us your favorite first year “one-liner”. 

L2-3-4…your mother’s a whore (anatomy lab postulations on what Dr. Kernick would sound like insulting someone).