From Medical Student to Future Ophthalmologist with- Khalid El-Jack

When you're standing at the foot of a mountain, the peak can seem impossibly high—that's how the journey through medical school can feel. But Khalid El-Jack, a tenacious fourth-year medical student and our guest this episode, proves that with the right mindset and support, even the steepest climbs become conquerable. He walks us through his story of triumph, from the daunting days of pre-med to his match in a coveted ophthalmology residency, interweaving the threads of global health interests with community impact and the fulfillment of making a tangible difference in people's lives.

The path to becoming a physician doesn't have to be a solitary trek. Throughout this episode, we discuss the underestimated yet powerful role of peer mentorship, shining a light on how finding your tribe in medicine can lift the veil of isolation, especially during the challenges brought on by the pandemic. Khalid and I reflect on the transformational connections made through clubs, organizations, and our emerging B-MED Connect app—tools that bridge gaps and build communities. For those who might hesitate to reach out, we share personal tales of overcoming shyness and the importance of persistence when seeking mentors.

As we wrap up, the conversation turns to the interesting realities Khalid faced starting his medical education amidst COVID-19, the transition to clinical clerkships, and the palpable excitement as residency looms on the horizon. It's an honest look at the multifaceted journey of medical students today—the trials, the errors, and the growth that come with each new stage. Khaled's optimism and practical advice serve as a beacon for current and aspiring medical students alike, illuminating the path to what is not just a career, but a calling. Tune in to absorb the wisdom, feel the encouragement, and join a community that understands the heartbeat of the medical field. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Do you feel stuck as a pre-med trying to figure out how to navigate the journey into medical school? Well, today I have a phenomenal guest with me. His name is Khaled El-Jack, he's a fourth year medical student and he is going to share all about his tips and strategies that help propel him into medical school. And now to being a fourth year student who recently matched into an ophthalmology program. Let's jump right into the episode. Hello everyone, welcome back to the BlackMed Connect podcast, affectionately known as the BeMed podcast, where we share inspiring stories of black physicians and physicians in training. And today I am delighted to have my guest with me. His name is Khaled El-Jack. He's a fourth year medical student at Perlman School of Medicine in Pennsylvania, and we are absolutely delighted to have you here to share more about your story. So thank you for joining us.

Speaker 2: 1:14

Thank you so much, dr Weiss.

Speaker 1: 1:16

Absolutely so. I should be calling you future Dr El-Jack, of course, because I'll let you share what the audience with the good news is.

Speaker 2: 1:24

Yeah, I had the pleasure to recently match into the field of ophthalmology, which has been a field I've been looking to get into for a while, and thankfully I'll be actually moving to sunny south Florida, the University of Miami, this summer.

Speaker 1: 1:37

Awesome Congratulations, thank you so much. That is absolutely to be commended. So you mentioned that you had this dream of being an ophthalmologist for quite some time. Tell me more. I'm interested in that field and share a little bit with the audience, who may not even know what ophthalmologists are.

Speaker 2: 1:55

Yeah. So I came into medical school at like 2020, right in the middle of COVID, without a specific specialty in mind. I just knew that I wanted to pursue kind of a procedural specialty. But I knew that the field that I wanted to pursue I wanted it to have an element of being able to do global health in that field, including my families from Khartoum, sudan, and that's like a community. That's been a huge role in my life. I used to visit Sudan a lot as a child. So when I went further on in medical school, I found that ophthalmologists can fairly easily go on global trips, be able to do these quick procedures, life vision changing procedures and really impact quality of life, and that's kind of what pushed me into that field. And for those that are necessarily familiar with the work that ophthalmologists do, they're specifically eye surgeons. A lot of common ophthalmology procedures are like cataracts, lasik, patients with glaucoma or patients with diabetes can have vision threatening eye conditions as well, and there's a lot of different sub-specialties in ophthalmology.

Speaker 1: 2:59

That's amazing. That's amazing. I love how you talked about coming in during the pandemic and how your desire and passion for global health is a big reason why you chose ophthalmology. Tell me more about how you hope to kind of impact the global community with your work as you proceed into residency here soon in July.

Speaker 2: 3:22

Yeah, I think long term. There's two main ways of thinking of global health. Number one is like actually physically going abroad and working with communities abroad and of course, ideally I would love to go to Sudan and work with patients there. Unfortunately, there's a lot of civil unrest at this time in Sudan so it's quite difficult to physically go, but hopefully, as we think of after training and in the future, it would be an honor to be able to serve that community into them. The other avenue of doing global health is actually right here at home, especially in a lot of major cities like I'm in Philadelphia currently. We'll be in Miami. There are communities from all around the world in major cities, so sometimes people think global health is just like you have to get on an airplane and treat a patient abroad. But it really starts with treating like immigrant communities in your own home city, developing networks for them to get eye screenings if they need surgeries after the screenings, or medications Like those are always conservative, global community and in training even.

Speaker 1: 4:22

Absolutely. I love that. I genuinely don't think people understand how much we take care of patients from diverse backgrounds all over the world right here, and what the needs of specific communities are and how they're different. And so you know as much as we're all very much so the same human humanity wise. I think it's it's important to know that when people come from different locations worldwide, it's nice to know that they have communities and individuals that want to make sure that their needs are met based on their backgrounds.

Speaker 2: 4:54

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1: 4:56

And so could you share a little bit more about what the process was like. Let's say you're a first year. I'm actually going to go back even further.

Speaker 2: 5:05

Sure.

Speaker 1: 5:05

Let's say you're a pre-med the pre-med here. Let's say you're a pre-med in college and you think you may want to be an eye surgeon one day and ophthalmologist. What advice would you have? What are three tips you would give to a student who may be thinking about this as a career choice for them?

Speaker 2: 5:24

Yeah, I think going. Going back to pre-med, I think my first tip is to kind of think of things as one step at a time. I think it's easy to be your freshman year of college. You just turn like 1780 and you move to inner city and you're like, oh, one day I want to be an eye surgeon, and you think about like this overwhelming burden of, okay, now I have to like skip all these steps, go through residency and eventually I'm going to be an eye surgeon. So tip one I would say is like what is the immediate step in front of you? So the immediate step in front of you as a pre-med student is like, okay, I have to get into med school. So there's a whole series of events that have to take place from pre-med to med school before you can jump through like hoops, number two and three to get to eye surgeon.

Speaker 2: 6:07

The second tip I would say that's going to be helpful even within med school would be to find the right mentors. So you're doing a good job by like watching videos like this, getting information, but to find a correct mentor for you to kind of help guide you through pre-med, through med school, and then to get into, like the ophthalmology residency and even within residency, like to become an attending physician. You need to find mentors that are going to advocate for you and kind of give you the the best advice moving forward. And then I think three. If I am going to think about like pre-med specifically, it's going to be very important to try.

Speaker 2: 6:45

Everybody says, like protect your grades, do the best academically, but frankly, like I wouldn't advise people to get overwhelmed with their end goal and then kind of mess up like the original pathway. So without that in mind, it's going to be difficult to even like go from like the pre-med stage to the medical stage. So like really focusing on even though there's a lot of extracurriculars and everything you have to fit in really making sure that you have like as strong grades as possible, as strong test scores as possible for yourself.

Speaker 1: 7:14

I love that. I think you know, as you do talk to a lot of pre-meds and I do as well the tips you just gave are extremely important because I think when you've had a lifelong dream, or even if it's a newer goal that you know you develop in college, it's really easy to almost get overwhelmed because the path is so great. And so, to your point of like, keeping the main thing, the main thing you know, keeping your grades as the priority, making sure you're paying attention to the steps you need to for the immediate future. That semester, I think, is really critical. And then your second tip regarding mentorship, is huge. So can you share a little bit about, maybe a college mentor you had, and then even in med school? Now, if you have some mentors, like, what did you do to find them and why has it been official for you to have mentors?

Speaker 2: 8:06

Yeah, I have been very fortunate that a lot of my mentors, especially in college, in med school, they've been more like academic professors and people within my med school. Within college, I was lucky to have a strong network of peer mentors, of students that actually were just only two years older than me, three years older than me, and they actually didn't even go to my undergrad. As I mentioned, I come from a Sudanese background, so I grew up in Wisconsin and a lot of these mentors two of them in particular grew up in Michigan. So these are people I've been childhood friends with, but they were a couple years older than me and they had gone through pre-med and, like they successfully actually made it to medical school. So I depended on them greatly. They were like people who were luck and stuff with me as I was going through pre-med to try to make sure that I could get to them next level, and I would say that sometimes it's better to even have.

Speaker 2: 9:02

It's not mutually exclusive. You don't just need either peer mentors or professors, but I think having had both having peer mentors is a lot easier to relate to them because they're around your age, they just went through the exact same thing. They're not 20, 25 years removed from the process and then kind of giving outdated advice or advice that like might be difficult for you. So if there are people in your university maybe they're two years older than you there are like, for example, clubs like MAPS or SNMA or like other cultural diversity clubs or even just a pre-medical club at your university. Seeing people have gone through the exact same thing that you're going through right now. I think that's a good place to start to find peer mentors.

Speaker 1: 9:45

Absolutely and to your point, you never really stopped needing individuals to help you. So, whether you're in your stage of the journey or, like my stage, as an early faculty member, out of my training, you need peer mentors to, like you said, relate to the immediacy of what you're going through. But then it's good to have those layers too.

Speaker 1: 10:06

Yeah, exactly I love that, I love that. So you were able to have some mentors kind of in proximity to you at your university and some individuals from your community, and really that's what Bmed is all about. And so I'm going to take this moment to plug our new app that's launching soon the BlackMed Connect app, the Bmed app, which is a new platform where you will be able to connect with peers and individuals at every single level, and so we're excited that we're launching this platform in March. That's right. You'll be able to download the app on Android or iOS in March, so be on the lookout for the exact drop date. And thank you to Cali for even bringing up the importance of community, because that's what we're all about here at Bmed making sure we help you build that community.

Speaker 1: 10:53

With that being said, let's talk a bit about the shy student, right, the student who they know what they want to do. I call them like quiet giants. They know exactly what they want to do, but may not be the vocal person, the outgoing person. What advice would you give to a student who may need mentors or may need peers to connect with, but they're not necessarily familiar with how to go about navigating, building those connections?

Speaker 2: 11:21

Yeah, I think I would say two things. Number one you don't have to be like just because I'm here on this podcast speaking doesn't mean that I'm the loudest voice in the room or something like that. I think you just need One person who can relate to you. You don't need a hundred different mentors or a hundred different friends to support you Through a journey. You just need a couple people that really relate to you and understand what you're interested in. So I think, number one, don't don't be overwhelmed by the fact that you have to have hundreds of people. And then Two, I would say it really is like any other thing.

Speaker 2: 12:00

It takes practice. So you start reaching out. You might get overburdened by the fact that you reached out to five people and no one really responded to you, and sometimes people take that very personally, but that's that's not really a personal thing. Oftentimes the people that you're reaching out to can be, can be quite busy, especially in medicine. So it's really about volume. You continue reaching out, you continue to try to have meetings and even if you are shy over time having those meetings, you kind of develop a practice and a little bit of like a thicker skin when it comes to like having Opportunities that didn't necessarily work out or mentorship relationships that didn't work out and then over time it becomes a much easier practice. But five years ago, or like beginning of pre-med, is very different, like I'm very different now, eight years later, in terms of reaching out to people.

Speaker 1: 12:48

Absolutely so you speak it to the growth of just going through the process and really building those skills and practicing those skills. And so Now let's talk a bit about your transition from From pre being a pre-med into medicine. What was it like for you, the med school admissions process and and what was your experience like as like a first-year med student?

Speaker 2: 13:10

Yeah, I think the medical school admission process I think it's a difficult and lengthy process for anyone. I specifically took a gap year between undergrad and med school. While I was applying, I was doing a summer research project actually here at the University of Pennsylvania. But it's a lengthy process. Like you submit the primary, you get a ton of secondaries. You have to go through interviews. At that time when I applied, it was the last cycle of in-person interviews, so I was like traveling across the country trying to do the interviews as well.

Speaker 2: 13:42

But thankfully, ultimately, I Really wanted to attend the medical school that that I currently attend, so I was very thankful that that ended up working out for me. And then transitioning Transitioning was also quite difficult because, I mentioned, it was during, like right during COVID, like August of 2020. So in the beginning it was it was tough moving to a new city and like not really knowing, I didn't really know. I Maybe knew two people in the city of Philadelphia when I, when I moved and but you find that, like, a lot of my classmates were in that exact same position. So we still were able to connect and and over time, we were able to develop like good relationships, like within our class.

Speaker 1: 14:26

Excellent. Do you feel like when you first got there in the middle of the pandemic, I know you all were pretty much so isolated. What did you guys do to try to build those connections up? And especially as a, a trainee from an underrepresented background, historically like, how did you build those connections and were you able to connect to your community as well there?

Speaker 2: 14:47

Yeah, I got lucky. There's a lot of intersectionality in my background. I am Sudanese but I'm also Muslim, like of faith. So when I actually during Orientation we have to get COVID testing, and when I went to the COVID testing I met two classmates of mine who are who, honestly, like I met them within three days of school and four years later they're like still my absolute best friends in med school. So like literally, it just so happened that in that first week I was able to have a connection and in in my mind I think, like some people in med school have like a ton of friends they interact with with a lot, of, a lot of people. I Thankfully already had a support system from like back home and undergrad, so I wasn't looking to make like 50 new friends. So this core community of like a handful of people like they kind of carried me through the four years in med school and they're so, so great. I.

Speaker 1: 15:40

Love that. I love that to your point. So many people think, oh, you've got to make friends with, like everybody. And obviously you want to be friendly.

Speaker 2: 15:48

Yeah, yeah, exactly, I'm good terms with everybody.

Speaker 1: 15:50

Yeah, I'm good terms with everybody, collegial. But all you need is one or two good. You know people you can really bounce ideas off of or laugh, cry whatever you need to do, study all night. Whatever the case may be with yeah and so what was your experience?

Speaker 1: 16:06

like you know, during med school and you know, for individuals who may not know, it's match season, so Caled already knows where he's going, but a lot of students are just now getting to the point where they're going to Find out very, very soon where they're matching into their residency programs. So let's talk a little bit about your kind of classroom experiences and then jumping into the clinical world. What were those two worlds, like for you.

Speaker 2: 16:33

Yeah, I think, first and foremost, one thing that definitely is apparent now, going after grabbing, going through muscle, is that it goes by very, very quickly. I like people use to tell me that I think, oh no, it's like four years, it's really really long. But no, but honestly, like month to month, semester to semester is like it's just passing very, very quickly. I would say I view my school really in different stages, like you're saying, like pre-clinical versus clinical versus like after the clinic. All those stages are like completely different experiences. So I would say, like if we went from the beginning, my school, like the first year and a half is spent in the classroom, but for us it was a lot of virtual work because of the pandemic, but we still had to come in to do our like small group problem-based learning. That was. That was honestly it felt like a more intense extension of undergrad, like because it was a lot of classroom based work. You have a lot of examination and the material comes at you pretty quickly. But after, I would say the first semester is a really big adjustment, like adjusting to the level of material. But then, like when you get to a year, like one, and you're in the organ systems and you have a system of how you're studying, then it's like, okay, this, this somewhat becomes manageable. And then when you transition from the the books to the clerkship, that's like a whole different transition.

Speaker 2: 17:52

So the clerkships that I think was probably the the most intense period of medical school because it's it's one year long. You're going from rotation to rotation. You don't like, as soon as you become familiar with one thing like you're being transitioned to another team. At night you have to study for your shelf exam. That's coming at the end of the rotation. So definitely I would consider that period probably the most challenging but also, I would say, probably one of the more rewarding times. You're directly interacting with patients every single day. Most of the time you're like playing a key role actually on the team and in patient care. So I think, even though the hours are longer and it's a lot more intense, it's it's just like a very different feeling than than being in the classroom.

Speaker 1: 18:38

Agreed, absolutely. Do you feel like I don't think people are ready for that opportunity to realize, wow, I'm a part of the care team for someone in a very stressful, tough time in their life, so that transition is huge. What did you do to kind of get yourself prepared to be that student doctor on the team? How did you begin to connect or start to build up your clinical skills when you dealt with patients more?

Speaker 2: 19:04

Yeah, I think the number one skill or tip I can give for someone on their clinical rotations is to like, really understand, like to have very strong like situational awareness of what's what's going on around you. Because sometimes, as like a medical student, you think, oh, like, all eyes are on me, like everyone's evaluating me and that every like, we always have it from the lens of me, me, me, because that's what we're used to. You get an exam. It's only about you. Like that grade is only a reflection of, of your ability and your scores.

Speaker 2: 19:36

When you get to the clinical rotation, yes, you're being evaluated, yes, you're on a team, but at the end of the day, like everything that's going on is to take care of a person. So, over time, you develop that like situational awareness where it's like, oh, I have extra time, you know, maybe I could talk more to the patient. I could understand, like, what are the reasons they're not able to take these medications? What are the reason? Like they're here the second or third time? Like these are things that your resident or your attending may not have the time to do for every patient, but you sometimes, or like somebody might say, like the patient might be hungry and you might think, oh, like that, that might be beneath me to like go do some, but it's absolutely not like you. You can play or you can like change someone's whole day just by listening to them, getting them some food, sitting there for like an extra five minutes. Like that ability to understand the situation, that's something that I think develops over time but is really, really important.

Speaker 1: 20:31

I love that you said that. I love that you said that you can spend five more minutes with the patient and it can change their whole day.

Speaker 2: 20:38

Because you're absolutely right.

Speaker 1: 20:39

I think as you go through each stage, your responsibilities change and so, as the student, you have the most opportunity to just learn freely and contribute in a way that you know to some extent it's very helpful for the patient but, like for the resident or the attending, there are required things that must get done, and so I love that insight and that advice to like have that situational awareness and look for the spots where you, as a med student, can be extremely valuable. It's funny. I remember having the opportunity to just talk with a patient as a med student about their family and about their upbringing and, as and most people know like, your doctor may ask you a few questions about your family or your upbringing, but it's oftentimes because they need to make sure it's well documented and make sure it's not related to why you're there, versus just wanting to learn and understand more about your patient.

Speaker 1: 21:36

So, that's a great great point that you bring up to have situational awareness. So if you watch the entire episode, then we have a special bonus for you. So, Khaled, I'll let you share what that bonus is with our audience.

Speaker 2: 21:49

Yeah, Thank you, Dr Weiss. So we're giving away our pre-med guide that we've created. So this is a 24 page guide created by me, my classmate and the med school bro team Specific highlights in it. We have a MCAT study schedule in there. We have my own personal statement that I applied to medical school with. We also have an example of medical school secondary that I used to apply to medical school and screenshots of my activity section used to apply to medical school. And finally, there is a template letter for sending out research opportunities professors. So if you're ever confused on how to reach out, we've got you covered on that.

Speaker 1: 22:28

I love that. I love that. So thank you all for watching and definitely definitely click on that resource and I want you to comment med school bro down below so we can make sure you get that resource. And if you want to check us out, I got a few things I need you to do. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to black med connect. You can listen to us on all podcast platforms. So if you're walking or if you're studying or needs a motivation, you can listen to us on our podcast platforms or you can check us out on YouTube and subscribe there. And if you haven't followed us on social media, check us out on Instagram, tiktok, anywhere where you like to kind of check out social media where they're as black med connect as well.

Speaker 1: 23:11

We hope you enjoyed this week's episode, part one with Khaled. He is a fourth year student who really just gave us some really, really great gems on how to navigate through your premiere journey and your early years in medical school. If you enjoyed this episode, then you'll absolutely enjoy part two, where we also share more tips and strategies on how to navigate the med school journey and his exciting endeavor with med school bro to make sure to build community for those who are trying to get into med school. So if you're excited about that and you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to join us next week for the part two of our episode with Khaled. Until next time. Always remember to dream without limits.