As you reflect on your time at CI MED, what stands out now?

The people definitely stand out the most - the many Project-Based-Learning (PBL) sessions with peers made us know each other well.  The faculty who was passionate in teaching and staff who supported us through the medical school journey.  So many positive memories.

CI MED has just received full LCME accreditation. What does that mean to you?

So many individuals worked hard to make this happen, from prior Chancellor Wise, the donors, Dean Li and Dean Cohen, faculty and staff, and the feedback from students.  I recall (from being sitting in on the faculty executive committee meeting in my first year) that there were so many metrics the College is analyzed on. Getting full LCME means the shared vision of creating the world's first engineering-based medical school has been achieved - the shared goal of all the individuals.  This also means Carle Illinois' curriculum has passed rigorous scrutiny and has the resources (student affairs, curricular affairs, etc.) to support students. All the effort that went into building this school paid off, and it’s thriving.

What do you think CI MED's accreditation as the world's first engineering-based college of medicine means for its standing among medical schools?

People who I meet - patients, teaching faculty, or peers sometimes ask which medical school I graduated from and become curious when I share it is an engineering-based medical school.  I loved the innovation aspect of the medical school curriculum.  We were coming up with problems we see during clinical clerkships and then coming up with ideas to solve them. I believe the latter is the important step that drives innovation.  That's a skill that CI MED students get the unique opportunity to hone.  The data science and capstone projects also provide the unique opportunities to create something inspiring and potentially impactful to healthcare.

"At Carle Illinois, we're super unique in that I don't think there is a medical school right now that trains medical students to be Physician-Innovators. In our curriculum, we learn different engineering concepts and I think that gives us an extremely competitive edge over other incoming residents into a resident program."

What components or aspects of the curriculum prepared you for contributing during residency and clinical practice?

I found a lot of advantages of going through our curriculum. It makes you think deeper. For example, we understand the physics behind how dialysis, imaging scanners like MRI or PET machines, devices, and Artificial Intelligence work whereas I think maybe in a traditional medical school, you may not know how it works and it’s just all a black box. And having that understanding makes you ask, ‘How can we improve it further?’ It's a mindset.

We learned how to improve processes that make a healthier organization or improve health care delivery, and that's really important.

What is upcoming for you in your career?

I'm excited to pursue clinical informatics fellowship while practicing in internal medicine at UCLA this upcoming July.  My hope is to make both a personal impact on individual patient lives through compassionate patient care, as well as a positive system-wide impact through improving the health care system via technology.

What message would you send to current CI MED students?

Study hard and make the most out of the four years that you can but also take the time to create positive memories with peers.  Explore different specialties and keep an open mind!