Matched to: Urology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School

What inspired you to enter the field of medicine?

My father is definitely my biggest inspiration in medicine in general. His work as a physician working with HIV patients was always something I admired. Specifically with regard to my interest in urology, my dad’s passing from kidney cancer opened my eyes to the field of urology.

Today I feel inspired to hopefully one day be able to help patients like my father through tough cancer diagnoses and be able to offer the curative solutions that can be offered at early stages.

What were your years like at the Icahn School of Medicine?

I learned that it takes a village to get through the journey, and I’m really grateful to have made it.

M3 (the third year) can be an isolating year, since you are constantly switching rotations and specialties. Dealing with that isolation can be challenging since all of your friends are also on different schedules and even in different places.

I think what helped me navigate this situation the best was being very intentional about keeping relationships going, even if it was just having a simple FaceTime with a friend or studying virtually with someone. I will miss the close relationships that I have with my friends and learning as a medical student.

What change do you hope to achieve as you progress in your medical career?

I hope to improve patient education for vulnerable communities, especially in urology, where there is still a lot of stigma for men to do their preventive screening.

“I am feeling really happy. I’m excited about this next chapter and hopeful that I can continue to grow as a physician. I’m excited to be more hands-on and hope to become a robotic surgeon one day.”

Matched to: Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Mount Sinai

What inspired you to enter the field of medicine?

My path toward medicine was shaped by my years as a competitive fencer. Even as an athlete, I knew I wanted to eventually serve athletes the way the physicians at Mount Sinai served me, helping future generations reach their potential just as those doctors helped me reach mine.

That aspiration came into sharp focus when I was 15 and suffered my first significant injury—a sprained ankle that sidelined me for a week. That experience was my first real encounter with sports medicine, and I remember thinking: I want to be one of them. From that moment on, the goal never wavered.

What were your years like at the Icahn School of Medicine?

I started at the Icahn School of Medicine three days after I got back from the Tokyo Olympics and did not miss a beat in regard to training or competing. I then qualified for the 2024 Olympic Games during my first two years of medical school. I traveled across the country and around the world during my first two years of medical school, training between two to six hours every day while balancing my studies.

It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. But I watched every lecture and never missed a practice or tournament. At the end of the day it really came down to organization. I would wake up every morning and ask myself, “What do I need to do today to pass the next exam and what do I need to do today to get myself ready for my next competition?” I had endless checklists, calendars, and planners. I worked on planes and took exams in between matches at World Cups.

In all honesty, I did not sleep for those two years and, looking back, qualifying for the Olympics while being in medical school seems impossible. I cannot believe that I managed to balance all of it, but somehow, I did! It took every ounce of focus, persistence, and determination that I had. But I guess when you want something badly enough, you are willing to go to any lengths to achieve them.

What change do you hope to achieve as you progress in your medical career?

I see myself contributing to change in health care, particularly at the intersection of sports medicine and research.

The U.S. Olympic Team is composed of some of the most accomplished athletes in the world, supported by world-class Olympic Training Centers, physicians, and sports scientists. Despite these incredible resources, there is still a surprising lack of research leveraging this unique environment.

This is something I’ve been especially motivated to address within fencing. As a smaller and historically under-studied sport, fencing presents a significant opportunity to better understand athlete performance, injury prevention, and training optimization. Through my own work, I’ve aimed to utilize the resources of USA Fencing and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee to contribute to this growing body of knowledge.

Looking ahead, I hope to expand this model to other similarly under-studied sports. By helping these programs more effectively use the resources available to them, we can improve athlete care, advance performance science, and ultimately support the long-term health and success of athletes across a wider range of disciplines.

“Mount Sinai has always been my dream. It’s USA Fencing’s partner hospital, so from the beginning my goal was to attend Mount Sinai for medical school, match there for residency, and hopefully continue to a Sports Medicine fellowship. I hope to one day serve as a physician for Team USA at the Olympic Games and ultimately stay on as an attending physician at Mount Sinai.”

Matched to: Internal Medicine on the Physician-Scientist Track Program, followed by a guaranteed Hematology/Oncology fellowship, at University of California San Diego

What inspired you to enter the field of medicine?

I was drawn to medicine through both personal experience and a deep sense of curiosity shaped by my early exposure to science. Growing up in a family where my parents and maternal grandparents were scientists and engineers, I developed a strong interest in understanding how the natural world works.

That curiosity took on a more personal meaning when my grandfather was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Watching him navigate his illness, and witnessing its impact on our family, was a formative experience that drew me toward hematology/oncology.

At the same time, my paternal family’s experience as refugees from the Vietnam War, navigating language barriers and socioeconomic challenges, deepened my awareness of the obstacles many patients face and continues to shape my commitment to caring for diverse and underserved communities.

What were your years like at the Icahn School of Medicine?

One of the most challenging aspects of my time at the Icahn School of Medicine was navigating the uncertainty inherent to research during my PhD years. There were periods when experiments didn’t work as expected or when the data were difficult to interpret, which can be discouraging when progress feels slow.

This was especially true during the early stages of the project that ultimately became my published paper in Cancer Discovery—of which I was first author—where initial findings raised more questions than answers. I overcame these challenges by leaning on mentorship and by shifting my mindset: learning to view unexpected results not as setbacks, but as opportunities to refine the question and think more deeply about biology.

Over time, this experience taught me how to sit with uncertainty, remain persistent, and trust the process. It ultimately made me a more resilient and thoughtful scientist, and it’s a perspective I will carry forward as I continue training as a physician-scientist.

Something I learned, which surprised me, was how important it became for me to stay connected to the communities I care about, even during the most demanding periods of my training. During the spike in xenophobia and anti-Asian hate during the COVID-19 pandemic, I cofounded Soar Over Hate, which evolved into a 501(c)3 nonprofit focused on combating anti-Asian hate and expanding access to safety resources for vulnerable communities.

Balancing this work alongside clinical rotations and PhD research, there were many moments where things felt uncertain or overwhelming. Staying engaged in this work grounded me and gave my training a deeper sense of purpose. That perspective continues to shape how I approach both patient care and scientific discovery.

What change do you hope to achieve as you progress in your medical career?

As I continue my training, I hope to contribute to change in health care through both clinical care and research. As a future physician-scientist in hematology/oncology, I’m particularly interested in improving how we understand and treat cancer by bridging mechanistic insights with patient care. I hope to help advance more precise and effective therapies, by addressing why patients respond differently to treatment.

I’m motivated by the opportunity to better understand why some patients respond to therapy while others do not, and to translate those insights into more effective and personalized treatments that can meaningfully improve patients’ lives.

More broadly, I hope to see meaningful progress in reducing disparities in access to care. Throughout my training in New York City, I’ve become more aware of the many different types of structural and social barriers that patients face. I hope to be part of efforts that make care more equitable, accessible, and responsive to the needs of diverse communities.

“I’m immensely grateful and excited to have matched at UC San Diego. It’s a program that strongly aligns with both my clinical and research interests, and I’m especially looking forward to returning to Southern California to be closer to my family. At the same time, it’s bittersweet to leave the Mount Sinai community, which has been such an important part of my growth over the past eight years of my MD/PhD training.”