I think Sinai is unique in a couple of ways.

So Mount Sinai has this really unique pathway for military veterans to transition from active duty to medical school, it's called the "Institutional Partnership with the US Military." And I applied as I was transitioning out of the Marine Corps and got accepted. And I'm now in my second year of med school.

There is clinical excellence in all different areas. So that we have a program that takes care of homebound patients called the "Visiting Docs" program. We have the biggest adolescent health center in the country. We have a program that's relatively new in transgender medicine. So, I give those examples because we have, if you want to work in a certain specialty, or a certain community, or with a certain patient population, we likely have that opportunity for you.

There are courses that are very academically rigorous and have very high expectations. We provide an unbelievable array of learning experiences for students from global health and social justice and human rights to the business of medicine, to entrepreneurship, to leadership skills, research skills, and sort of everything in between. So that flexibility and flow, coupled with what I think is an amazingly rigorous academic high quality program is the secret sauce.

And I think for me, that was like, also something that I think of now kind of come together in a way that I didn't fully expect to happen so quickly. Were like, you know, during the peak of like the COVID outbreak in New York City, like I had a bunch of friends who were like MD-PhDs who were like writing reviews on like the immunology of COVID. And like, I was working on a review paper beforehand.

And like now we're like talking with lab members about like different types of COVID projects. And so it's like, a really interesting interplay to see like the kind of fusion of both like this kind of like really like expansive medical knowledge that you've gained within the first two years, in combination with the kind of fact that like, I've chosen my lab, and like, I kind of know my area, roughly.

I also think that Sinai has probably one of the best articulated initiatives for racism and bias that I think really comes to bear in my mind as a student. But then also what the institution puts resources behind. And I think sometimes when we tend to separate out like the clinical and see that it's very separate from the psychosocial. One, that's actually not true at all, they obviously are related. I really appreciate that Sinai encourages that type of thinking. And honestly, I don't think you can be as good of a doctor as you could be if you don't think about that, and approach your patients that way. So I do think that that's a huge strength. And then one that I see very explicitly kind of addressed by Sinai and I really appreciate that.

I think Mount Sinai talks a big game in terms of advocacy, but they also walk-the-walk and they really follow through and I've been just really honored to be a part of it. Seriously, that's not like a line for this. It's true.