Student Features

Milan Terzic – MEDI 407

“The attendings and fellows always had time for questions, regardless of their incredibly busy schedules, and are encouraging you to take on more responsibilities as a medical student. This includes seeing multiple patients, evaluating them and forming a plan.” – Milan Terzic, University of Belgrade (Serbia)

Christina Lara Klatt – MEDI 408 & MEDI 449

“…the patients have it all, multiple illnesses at the same time and you have to figure out how to filter. What is important? What is still considered normal, while which change is worrisome? I really enjoyed applying the information I have gathered over the years to real cases.” – Christina Lara Klatt, Ruhr University Bochum (Germany)

Pranav Balakrishnan – SURY 420 & SURY 481

“The thoracic team flew me out with them to harvest a lung for a transplant. That’s something I’ve never experienced before. Just being a part of a transplant surgery in itself is incredible for someone who is looking to do surgery.”
– Pranav Balakrishnan, Kasturba Medical College Manipal (India)

Khushboo Agarwal – MEDI 413 & MEDI 407

“The elective experiences have made me very confident in terms of being able to gather the relevant data specific to a patient, present the same in a comprehensive manner and communicate effectively with my patients and their families. There’s so much we get to learn about each patient.”
-Khushboo Agarwal, Kasturba Medical College Manipal (India)

Amrin Kharawala – MEDI 413

“You need to be active, ask questions, ask for consults, offer to write patient notes and that way, you will have a more fulfilling experience.”
– Amrin Kharawala, Medical College Baroda (India)

Vasudha Sharma – PSYY 403

“Ask for feedback, I asked after every week. I wanted to know what to do better for the next week. Try to do everything, try to experience how to write notes, how to interview patients, how to conduct family meetings. Never feel shy; never think you can’t do this task.”
– Vasudha Sharma, Dayanand Medical College & Hospital

Sowmya Kruttiventi – PEDS 445

“The clinics are super busy, which translates to more learning opportunities. The attendings devote a great deal of time to teaching and answering my questions, so I feel like I am constantly learning something new.”
– Sowmya Kruttiventi – Coimbatore Medical College (India)

Swati John – PEDS 421

“The fellow and attendings were super helpful; they pushed me to do better every day and provided me with valuable feedback every day. My experience here has definitely helped me gain insight about the US medical system, present my cases confidently, and type up patient notes.”
– Swati John, Kasturba Medical College Manipal (India)

Hangcheng Fu – MEDI 465 AI in Ward Medicine

Hangcheng Fu – Fudan Univerisity Shanghai Medical College (China) MEDI 465 – Acting Internship in Ward Medicine As an international student who wants to match for residency in U.S and must complete many away rotations, I would say UNC MEDI 465 is one of the best rotation I have experienced among my away rotations. I … Continued

Arunima Jose – MEDI 414 & MEDI 475

“UNC, being ranked number one in primary care has well renowned programs and I was excited to be a part of it. What I liked about the program is that there is a beautiful balance between patient care and academics.There are major research activities and efficient patient care going on here at the same time.”
– Arunima Jose, Sree Gokulam Medical College and Research Foundation (India)

Syed Osama Ahmad – MEDI 406

“I would have to say attending clinics and getting to talk to the local people was an interesting experience. Learning the intricacies of the US health care system and experiencing how physicians work around the bureaucratic hurdles to help patients was a great learning opportunity. ”
– Syed Osama Ahmad, Alfaisal University College of Medicine (Saudi Arabia)

Martin Huerta Garcia – PEDS 445

“One of my favorite parts is that it’s a very big hospital compared to where I live. Here we have patients from all around the state so that means that we have many patients whose are very difficult cases and have very rare diseases. I have seen many syndromes here that I had never seen in Spain, and I really enjoy doing research and learning how the treatment and management of these patients is.”
– Martin Huerta Garcia, Universidad de Navarra (Spain)

Hanyang Kevin Hong – ANES 409

“This rotation has allowed me to gain more exposure to the specialty. More importantly, I was given more autonomy and responsibility than OR anesthesia! I spent two weeks at the UNC Pain Clinic, where I got to see 5-7 patients independently every day and talk about my diagnosis and plan of care with the attendings before composing a comprehensive note in EPIC. I am very proud that I correctly diagnosed a patient with complex regional pain syndrome on my last day of the rotation (of course with the help of our dear friend UpToDate).”
– Kevin Hong – University of Sydney School of Medicine (Australia)

Zhuoran Brian Yang – MEDI 465 & MEDI 413

“Everyone is so nice and so helpful. For my previous two electives, it was more you step back and watch what they are doing. For this one, I can have my own thoughts and plans and discuss with the team. So, I feel more involved with patient care.”
– Zhuoran Yang, Shanghai Medical College Fudan University (China)

Divya Sudireddy – MEDI 465

“This was totally different compared to our home country.  One thing new was the bedside rounds, which I really enjoyed where we had to explain to the patient what was happening and at the same time explain to the attending what was happening which really helped me improve my communication skills.  With bedside rounds, the attendings always encouraged us and gave us great feedback with ways to improve.”
– Divya Sudireddy – Apollo Institute of Medical Sciences and Research

Kaavya Murali – MEDI 413

“The advice I would give to future students is to drop any expectations you have and just come here with a blank slate. I thought doing a rotation in Nephrology meant that I was going to see AKI every day, but you don’t realize how unique each patient is. Every single day I learned a new topic…”
– Kaavya Murali – Kasturba Medical College Manipal (India)

Shivani Wadnerkar – PEDS 421

“UNC is an excellent place to be at. You often read about UNC being one of the top medical schools in the country, and when you’re actually here you realize why they mean that. I think it’s because academics is so ingrained into clinical practice are every level. Everyone who is at the hospital is learning, the residents, students and fellows are all learning.”
– Shivani Wadnerkar – Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (India)

Muhammad Dawood Sheikh – MEDI 406

“The advice that I would want to give would be to take things one step at a time guys and to not overthink about how you are performing in your elective. Just remember that you’re here to learn and focus on the learning part and honestly everything else just falls into place.”
– Muhammad Dawood Sheikh – The Aga Khan University (Pakistan)

Simranjit Kaur – MEDI 407

“This is my third elective in the States and has definitely been the best so far. The reason I say this, is because UNC has a good patient load, I saw a variety of cases and got sufficient hands on experience both on the liver and luminal side. I got the opportunity to see procedures I had just read about in books”
– Simranjit Kaur – Kasturba Medical College, Manipal (India)

Noor Shoukat – SURY 410

“[My residents] treated me like an actual intern and not like a student. Even though it was tough in the beginning it was very helpful to boost up my confidence and get an idea of what it would be like to be a resident in the United State. I ended up doing a lot of work because they pushed me to it. This made me realize that I can fit it into the system. ”
– Noor Shoukat – Shifa College of Medicine (Pakistan)