What I love about New York is, obviously, it's like the center of the universe, right? And so, and Mount Sinai is the largest healthcare system in New York City. So it's really at the center of the center of New York.

It's great to be located literally in the middle. I mean, I'm not sure what street I would divide it as, but we're right in the middle of East Harlem and the Upper East Side, which are very, very different communities.

It's important to be where we are, because we serve the widest possible swath of humanity.

When you enter medical school, it's fantastic to add, you know, aspiring physician, you know, current medical student, aspiring healthcare provider to your identity. I think just as important, though, is remembering, you know, the identities that you've come into medical school with, whether they are cultural or artistic or occupational, you know, whatever it is, don't lose those things.

I love Sinai because I think that they support that. They support your lived experiences, the things that you bring to the table, and how that informs not only how you practice clinical medicine, but how that informs the things that you do outside of that.

Just to have that sense of camaraderie and being part of a team and having a mission and having goals and community. And sometimes the transition is really hard or you don't have those things, but I really feel like I've just moved from one great team to another with Mount Sinai.

It's funny because like one of my friends was like, "Brandon, you're a black man from the south doing an MD/PhD, like you being here in itself is like a political act." And I'm like, "He's right." You know, like, that's 100% true. And I think that Sinai is doing the things to both bring education to the broader community for people who aren't POC who aren't doing that work in whatever way they can. But I think within Sinai more broadly speaking within the POC community, I think that there is like a large sense of cohesion that I really do think he has been super supportive.

Mount Sinai has been a leader in incorporating that equity lens into the curriculum. There is still a lot of work to go, and much of the work that has been done, you know, is thanks to students who have been pushing it along.

With the energy we have here, it just attracts more people with this energy. And we just keep propelling ourselves one after the other. If you come here, you will have more opportunities for advocacy than you could possibly do and still study gross anatomy at the same time.

Be willing to learn and explore. Don't close doors down.

Go to a place where you feel like you're gonna be supported, and where you feel like even though things will be in constant flux, and you may have like no idea what the next six months will look like. Go to a place where you feel like the people that you're with are going to support you.

Ultimately, if Sinai is the place for you, it's going to be the place for you, and my journey thus far, I could have never imagined. I couldn't have envisioned it for myself, but it happened just as it was supposed to. And I think that's something you have to kind of carry when you're looking at medical schools.

Despite the fact that you're going to be inundated with information and data and opinions from people, from your mom, to your pre-health advisor, to someone who you met who is going to a medical school, you're going to be inundated with stuff. You're going to feel something in your gut that says, "I belong here. I want to be with these people." And you need to follow that gut feeling. That's the truth speaking to you.