thought the hardest part of finding a passion project would be coming up with something meaningful. It wasn’t. The hardest part has been finding ways to change PatternMD to find where it can have the most real effect. At first, it was supposed to help doctors diagnose faster. That felt like the obvious solution—reduce delay, …
Dear PatternMD
It’s difficult to think of something that could genuinely help people—and even harder to follow through with it. Ideas are easy to romanticize. You imagine the impact, the lives changed, the problems solved. But the moment you try to build something real, doubt creeps in. You start asking yourself if it’s even good enough. If …
Dear Resting Lab Face
In all honesty, my new motto entering the lab was: “Act like you give a sht.”* I would literally repeat it to myself before walking in. Not because I don’t care — I do. I genuinely love research. I love thinking deeply, solving problems, contributing to something bigger than myself. But I realized something uncomfortable: …
Dear Imperfection
Dear Imperfection, As an artist, dealing with you comes with the territory. You show up in brushstrokes, uneven lines, colors that don’t blend the way I imagined. In art, imperfection can even be beautiful. But as a researcher, you terrify me. I think about the weight of getting things wrong. Not small mistakes — not …
Dear Money
Dear Money, You’re an uncomfortable topic in medicine. One people dance around, soften, or pretend doesn’t matter. But you do matter — not as the goal, but as the context. When I think about becoming a physician-scientist, I don’t imagine wealth as excess or status. I think about sustainability. Freedom. The ability to choose meaningful …
Dear MCAT
Dear MCAT, You’ve been a lot. I’ve officially started studying for you, and honestly, it’s been intense in a way I didn’t fully expect. A lot of the content feels unfamiliar, and some of it feels like I’m learning a new language all over again. But I’ve found that sticking to Anki, committing to a …
Do I really Have What It Takes to be a Doctor?
Dear Future Me, How do I know if I have what it takes to be a doctor - let alone a physician-scientist? I’ve seen so many doctors work and walked through the steps they took to get there: the late nights studying, the seven-hour MCAT, the constant push to network, build relationships, and apply yourself …
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Dear Scientific Writing (Poster)
Dear Scientific Writing (Poster), I love to write, and I love science.So you’d think scientific writing would come naturally to me — you’d be only half right. This summer, I’ve been working on an independent research project that I’m so excited about. But I’ve never done anything like this before. At first, I was overflowing …
Dear Lab, You Are More Than An Item On My Checklist
Dear Lab, Anyone on the pre-med track knows how valuable having lab experience on your resume can be. When I first joined a lab, I did it with that in mind, but over time, I realized that this was more than just a resume booster — this was my future. I needed to treat every …
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Dear Academia Gossip, You make me Uncomfortable
Dear Academia Gossip, When I walked into the world of research, I had no idea you existed. I knew people were competitive, smart, and driven — that wasn’t surprising. What I didn’t expect was how mean some of them could be. I was standing outside the office of a prominent researcher at my university when …
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Creating My Autobiography 