Vital Signs
Talking about the journey of becoming an M.D. and the experience of doing it at Western Atlantic University School of Medicine.
Vital Signs
Vital Signs S1E1 - Matthew Manfredo, a medical school journey.
In Episode #1, we hear from Western Atlantic University School of Medicine (WAUSM) student Matthew Manfredo as he prepares to begin year three of his medical school journey - clerkships in the US. How does he balance studying in medical school and his own self care? What things has he done during his time on Grand Bahama? Vital Signs is a podcast for anyone who is at any point in their MD Journey, just starting out investigating becoming an MD or already in practice. We can all learn a thing or two from each other. Join us as we explore this tough but very rewarding journey together as we speak with students at Western Atlantic University School of Medicine, faculty and those in the industry.
This is Vital Science, a podcast about Western Atlantic University School of Medicine and the MD. Experience no matter where you are in your MD journey. Just starting out or already in practice, there is something for you to learn. So let's do it! Well. Good evening. My name is Ken Blustajn. I'm the associate director of recruitments for the northeast region, for Western Atlantic University School of Medicine. And today we have Matthew Manfredo who is a semester six student,or a first semester clinical rotations student with us. I would like to welcome you. And thank you very much for for joining us and your time today. And we have some questions that we're going to go over with you. At the benefit of, the those who were listening. So we'll get right into it. How's that sound? Sounds great. Thank you for having me. Thank you. So first question is, what things led you up to decide to go to medical school? And what gave you the goal to want to do this with your life? That is a packed question, but a really good one. So I actually started off wanting to be a meteorologist my entire life. I had always been fascinated with the weather. I think that the weather patterns are so interesting, especially in Colorado. You never know what you're going to get. And it wasn't until my sophomore year of high school that I completely switched everything, and I started to go into cancer research as something that I wanted to do with my wife, because my Nana was diagnosed with cancer a few years earlier, and I wanted to do something that would make a difference in the cancer community, essentially. And it was the January before I graduated high school that my Nana passed away from her battle with cancer. So once I got into college, I still thought, okay, I want to cure cancer. So let's get a PhD in cancer biology and get an undergraduate degree in biology. All these things to try to cure cancer. And then I realized what a PhD actually does. And it's a bunch of bench work. And that did not interest me. So my sophomore year, I talked with one of my honors bio professors, and he told me, hey, have you ever considered being a doctor? I was like, no, I haven't. So I went ahead and completely switched everything. I became a pre-med, and that's when I started thinking about being a doctor in the first place. And it is just been my goal ever since. And here we are starting to get into the hospital. So it all stemmed from my Nana's cancer diagnosis, and that's what really made me want to go into medical school and then like what the goal to do this with my life. I. I want to be an advocate for those who don't have a voice for themselves. I ideally would like to be a pediatric oncologist and the young and the old are the most vulnerable populations. And I want to be that voice for the kids who don't have a voice for themselves, because it's already hard enough on a parent to have to watch their child get sick. But when it comes to something like cancer, I want to be that doctor that is there for them every step of the way and can guide both the parent and the kid through their battle. And I think that's the thing that really just lights my soul and ignites my fire for wanting to do this, is to be that advocate for those kids. Well that's tremendous. I mean, it's also very telling. I mean, the fact that you are, the founder and clinical liaison for the ecology Club, for, for WAUSM as well as your work and, you know, forming the, the, the Med Peds Club as well. It just shows your, your commitment to really wanting to be of service. You know, you, if you don't mind my saying, being a peer learning partner as well as a student ambassador. Further exemplifies your your desire to be the voice for people and to help people move forward. I think that's that's terrific. And that intrinsic motivator to want to, treat people because of your visceral experience, is is, you know, talk about lighting someone's fire. That's tremendous. It's it's a it's a it's an amazing and very honorable way to, honor your nana as well. That, that that's wonderful. So next question we have is how hard, was your journey to get there, aside from, obviously, the, the personal, reasons. But overall, from an academic standpoint, how hard, was your journey to get there? Yeah, that it is a it's an interconnected question. I personally have found undergrad to be harder and more difficult than medical school itself, but a lot of that comes from what I was going through in my personal life during undergrad. I had a lot of time spent in therapy to deal with things that were going on in my life, and it was just really, really hard to balance that. Plus, working 60 hours a week and doing all the things Premeds had to do and, and, and it just really was difficult to balance everything and to have a really well-rounded, AMCAS application. And I had to use a lot of my work experience as, you know, working with people. I didn't get to have a lot of time spent in hospitals. And that's where, you know, clinical experience is such a huge part of your application. I physically couldn’t. To be able to live in Denver while being a pre-med, like doing all the things I had to do, I had to work 60 to 80 hours a week. It was physically impossible for me not to, so I couldn't spend the time being in the hospitals or working with patients. Like I know a lot of my friends who are also pre-med were able to do. So, I think that is one of the reasons why I made it so hard for me to get into medical school in the first place is just I didn't have the time to get those clinical hours and just a lot of the things that were happening in my personal life during undergrad, I mean, it just really hard to really get where I wanted to in my future. So the fact that WAUSM gave me the chance has been the biggest blessing I could ever ask for, and I, I wouldn't wish anything different on my journey because this is where I'm supposed to be in. So I'm very thankful that even though I went through a lot of hardship prior to med school, I'm here because I’m supposed to be here and I'm very excited to use WAUSM to launch me into the next step of my career. That that that's fantastic. It reminds me of a saying that, you know, from the hottest fire creates the strongest steel. And, the fact that, you know, WAUSM one of its tenants is one of our tenants, is is opportunity and, you know, through the hard work that you've done, I'm sure the admissions committee recognized, and, and, you know, the, the fact of what you've done, and we're really I'm really happy that you're here and and that you went through that you're not that you went through the journey, but that you've that you've made it to this point. So congratulations. A heartfelt congratulations on that. Thank you so much. So the next question has to do with academic work. So you know, how do you study. You know people have stated that in medical school, the the amount of information that comes out in lectures is the equivalent of learning how to drink water from a fire hose. So how do you study? So I study in a very atypical way. I have been told that I don't study enough, not only by my some professors, but also from my classmates. But the way that I study seems to work really, really well for me. So for me, I treat medical school like a full time job, like literally 8 to 5. So whether we're in earlier semesters where you're in classes from eight to noon, or if you're in afternoon classes from 1 to 4, that is basically all that I would do my studying. If I'm in class from eight to noon, I would take a lunch break, and then in the afternoon from 1 to 5, I would study. After 5 p.m., I stopped. I would not do anything else, and I think that really helped me keep that separation between school and everything else in my life, because one of the things that I always say is that being a medical student isn't my entire being or my entire personality. It's only a small part of who I am. Like, if someone comes up to me and says, hey, who are you? My first response isn't, oh, I'm a medical student. It's, oh, I'm Matthew and I like all of these things. And I happen to also be a medical student. And so the way that I personally study, it can be looked down upon by some people. But I always tell people, you have to do what works for you, because what works for you isn't going to work for someone else. And I think the way that I go about studying really helps me be effective with my time. So that way I can study really well in a short amount of time. So like when I get a practice question, I'm not just going to the correct answer. If I have seven options, I go through every single option and I make sure, okay, do I know what this answer choices is describing? What's the pathophysiology behind it. What is this the correct answer to? So from one question I'm answering eight. And that has just been really effective for me. So that way I can solidify my knowledge and constantly do spaced repetition. So that way I don't forget those things that I did earlier. So that's how I go about it. I mean, it's, you know, it's two things. It's a matter of life balance because studies have shown that academic stress, if someone does not take care of themselves, can lead to increased cortisol production. And, and it really does impact recall so that that's, you know, that's one thing. And as you said, your, your you're working smarter and not harder, which I think which I think is critical. So so let's say during the day, you know, during your study time that you that you map out, you find that you have free time, and don't spend studying. How do you not feel guilty when you have this free time of day during the day? And don't spend it studying? That's a wonderful question, my friend. Milena Gihday. So she is. I think she's technically semester seven now, but she is also in clinicals right now. And she asked me this exact question and it's something that I have had to learn through years of therapy. Honestly, I was so hyper focused on school, both in high school and the first two years of college that I basically broke and got rid of every single relationship in my life, with my family and my friends and I put all of my energy into school, and it was just very toxic. So I decided basically during my sophomore year of high school, nope. Sophomore year of college, that I needed to have school not be my main priority anymore because it was so toxic. And once I hit my junior year, that's really where I turned things around and made sure to make time for family and friends and the things that give me life other than school. So when I do have my free time, I view that as a gift, not as, oh, I could always be doing better because could I always do better? Sure. But at what cost? I think that's something that a lot of medical students in general can fall into a trap of, is that we have been taught literally our entire lives. You have to sacrifice yourself to be the best that you can. And I think that's also a statement just for medicine in general, is that people assume that doctors have to sacrifice everything about who they are to be a doctor, and that has to be the only thing that defines their personality and makes it who they are. And I that's just a very intrinsic problem that I think needs to change. So I take that as not being guilty when I have free time and I don't need to study. No, that's a gift, and I'm going to take that and I'm going to treasure it because there's school will always be there, but your family and your friends and other relationships in your life won't be. You don't know when people are going to die. You don't know any of that stuff. So at school, it will truly always be there. Well, also, especially since what you went through in your undergraduate working as much as you did because you had to. Here, you know, again, it's learning lessons. As I, as I used the analogy before through the hottest fire creates the strongest steel. A part of that strong steel is understanding oneself like you clearly do. And what works for you so that that that's that's terrific. And again, you're you're not burning yourself out on both ends. Yes. There is the sacrifice in terms of the coursework and and the rigor of the study. But how you get there, as you’ve very eloquently pointed out, that really is an individual. Thanks. So, so thank you for, that, that, that, answer. Yeah, I quite sure, I sure it's going to help a lot of students listening to to this. I hope as you were looking at different medical schools, what why us why wasn't so one of the things that I've always talked about on the different livestreams is that I wasn't willing to wait another med school cycle. I applied through one cycle, and I was rejected from everywhere. I was working at Home Depot and Domino's and it did not give me any bit of life. It sucked the life out of me every single day. I had to go to work working these 80 hour weeks or it just was not fulfilling. I always knew that this was never the plan was to do Home Depot and Domino's rest my life. So I took a chance on myself and I started doing research on Caribbean medical schools because it's nothing that I had ever considered before. I always thought, oh, I have to go to years med school because that's the way that it's done. But once I hit December of that mCAT cycle, I was like, this is not happening. I need to look at other options because I want to start my medical career now because I can overcome any hardships throughout being an IMG. But putting myself through another application cycle with money that I didn't have, it wasn't worth it to me. So I started doing research. I found WAUSM, I found Ross, Saint Georges and you are all those big name places and just from just from the website alone, seeing its structure, reading the faculty profiles, it truly looked like they care about who you are as a person. And for me, that is one of the biggest things that I care about in a faculty member is that they don't just see me as a student, but they see me as a person and someone that is a future colleague, someone that they can open up to as well as I can open up to. And I got all of that just by reading faculty profiles and once I actually got to WAUSM it just further reaffirmed that this was the perfect place for me, and I could not be more thankful that not only did I choose WAUSM, but WAUSM chose me. That's great. You know, it's interesting people. What people don't realize is that 25% up for physicians in the US come from, international medical schools. And so it's not, it's not an uncommon thing anymore. And so, and as you know, students should go to, or IMGs, they have to go through the exact same, issues that the US medical schools students have to go through. You know, they, they go through, you know, the five terms, the step one, the clinicals, etc., etc. it's it's no different. So, it's great that again that you that you're proactive and you, you did what you needed to do to achieve your goal. So that's that's amazing. Last question. Last but not least, and I know if people take this particular topic, for granted, but what do you do specifically for yourself, for self care? Oh, I love this question. So self care is really, really important to me. Ever since I started in therapy when I was in eighth grade, I self care was a huge topic that we had always talked about. So I had to learn from a young age, what do I do to take care of myself and what is going to get me back in the right mind space for whatever I'm going through in life? So for me, the things that I love to do for self care, I will bake all the time. I am a avid baker. I actually made a business off of it and it has served me well because the setup that I have right here was paid for by my business. So my five here, my PC, this microphone, my monitor, all of it. I was able to purchase by doing something that not only that I love, but it brings so much joy to other people. So not only is it self-care for myself, for all I know, my baked goods could be self care for someone else, so I think that's really cool. I also do a lot of singing and dancing, especially when I'm in the kitchen, because I don't get to listen to a lot of music because I can't study and listen to music at the same time anymore. So when I'm in the kitchen is when I get to listen to music and just sing my heart out. So that's something that I love to do. And then I play a lot of video games at, To say that I played a lot of video games is a bit of an understatement, because people don't realize just how much I was playing. Like even during med school, like the first couple of years. It was a lot. I was probably spending as much time playing games as I was studying because I never had the opportunity growing up to play games with friends. So once I had the opportunity, I was like, I'm probably not going to have this time any time in the future. So I've had as well go for it. And I think it really helped me, especially the last couple of semesters, semesters four and five of pre clerkships. And because there's just so much pressure on you to get off the island and get to clinicals. So it was a way for me to decompress from the stress of everything and just enjoy time with friends. And really just take a step back because like I said before, the this time that you have with your friends is so precious. Same with family. It's it's fleeting. You're not always going to have it, especially once were, you know, attending and residence. And we are just full blast, fully immersed in our work. And it's really hard to get any time off. So I knew that whatever I do needs to bring me joy and the also things that have brought me joy. So that's why I do them. That's great. You know, you know, in in the way that you've set things up. And I think this is I think a lot of students can learn from this is the is, the issue number one of time management. It sounds like you've really by, by necessity, you've learned how to really get the most out of every hour of every day. You know, also the, the idea of feeding people not just through your baking, but through the work that you're going to be doing. The joke in my house was food was so important growing up that up until the age of 15, I thought my name was Taste This. So, you know, sorry, I I've got terrible dad jokes, but, you know, you're it's the idea that you know what you're doing when you do your self-care. You're feeding your own soul as well. And so I think it's it's critical overall that individuals understand that, yes, you can study hard what you have to and you and what you have done, but there needs to be a balance in what you're doing. Otherwise, you know, people say that, that the best jobs are when people feel like they're like they're not necessarily working, but they're doing what they love. And it sounds like that's exactly what, what you're doing. So, you know, in in listening to your story, you know, as far as doing things that are, that are outside the classroom, can you talk to me about some of the opportunities that you have, participated in, in regards to community outreach? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a big supporter of people have to make their own mark in some way, shape or form and so the way that we did that, not only through the oncology club, we were a part of the Grand Bahama Cancer Society. So we did some outreach there, and we're able to do some volunteer events with them, and we're trying to get them on campus and everything. That's one of the first connections that I made on the island was getting connected with the president. There. But I knew early on that I wanted to reach the community in a way that is near and dear to my own heart. So I grew up doing drama literally from age five through high school into college. And I also was in speech and debate, which is something that is incredibly important to me. The power of communication, both the written and verbal, is an art form that many people do not possess, and it is my job as someone who is passionate about it, to reach that to people who either are uncomfortable with it. As we know, public speaking is one of the biggest fears in the US. I would just wanted to do anything that I could to reach the people who needed it. So I reached out to the Grand Bahama Resilience Center and I asked, hey, would it be possible for me to do a professional skills workshop? And they were like, yes, absolutely. We'd love to have that here. So I helped people with essay writing, public speaking, how to do debates. So I did two separate sessions during my semesters, three and four, and I have missed acting so much and so desperately. I asked, hey, for this last semester that I have for semester five, can I do an acting workshop? And they said, oh my gosh, this would be incredible. This is what we would love to see. And it was one of the most fun experiences I ever got to have on the island. I, I, even some of my classmates were able to come to my professional skills workshops, but it's just so fun getting to connect with all the community members and help them get out of their shells. Because just as humans, we tend to get very single track minded and we get in our heads so easily, me included. I overthink everything I do, every action that I make, every conversation that I've had, and acting as a way to break away from all of that and just become someone who you're not. And I absolutely love that aspect of acting. So getting to bring that into the community and just have such a fun time with the community members and being able to make your mark, I think that is something so special. That and it's an experience I will never forget. It's something that I probably would not have been able to done had I not gone to Assam. So I am very thankful for the Freeport community to allow me to get to do something that I love, but is also a necessary thing that they wanted the community members to experience. Well, it just goes to, you know, along the lines of, we hear this from students over and over again that the that, the Freeport community is really embraced our students and vice versa. And I think, you know, with, with that type of, of expression, of teaching that that the, the acting workshops, you are giving the part of your mind that deals specifically with, you know, with, with coursework and with facts, etc., you're giving that right that, that portion of your mind to break. And and again, it's part of self-care for the soul is what I was asking when I started. Look at that's that's tremendous. Fantastic. By the time this, this, this airs, you would have started your, your new clinical rotation. So talk to you about what you're looking forward to and what and what you'd like to do. Yeah. So I actually get to start with pediatrics. We had nine options that we could rank. And, the nine options I got my number one choice. So I am very, very stoked for that. I really wanted to start off with a rotation where I could be with a friend that I haven't seen since December. Marlena. So we are going to be in pediatrics together starting July 8th, and part of Peds is what I want to do with my life. But overall for my residency, to do a thing called med Peds. So it's a combined internal medicine and pediatrics, and I think that's something that's so special that for me as a physician, I want something that gives me continuity of care and long term care, where I get to see people for years at a time, because building relationships with people is one of the things that I knew as a physician would be paramount to just my enjoyment of the field. So with med Peds not only could I see patients who are diagnosed with early childhood illnesses, but I could continue seeing them into adulthood because one of the things that is really difficult is that you find a doctor you really like as a child, and then, oh, all of a sudden, once you become an adult, get a new doctor. So that's one things that I wanted to try to avoid. And by having med Peds is my background, it allows for that. And then after my residency, I would love to do pediatric hematology oncology because that is really where my passion lies. So I could help those kids who are diagnosed with cancer and follow them throughout their adulthood as well, and just keeping an eye on them, seeing if there's any remission or if they get a go ahead or clear. So just having the continuity of care in general is just so important to me. And I think that the combination of med Peds with pediatric hematology oncology is just the perfect path for me. Oops, I lied. I have one more question for you. What what bit of advice would you give students who are about to embark on your journey, to, you know, to to make it their own expression of what what what bit of advice would you give them? The advice that I would give them before they're starting their experience. Don't study right beforehand. Truly enjoy the time that you have with the people that you care about the most. Because coming into not only a new medical school, but just the fact that you're going into a new country, it can take a toll on you that you would never expect. And that extra bit of studying you did right beforehand, it's not worth it, and it's not going to make you any better. You can start from ground zero first day and you will be okay. You don't have to feel like you have to completely outperform and be the best right from the get go, because we're all in the same boat. We're all just trying to do our best. So I would say as you're trying to embark on this journey, don't take any of your experiences for granted. Enjoy the time and the place that you are because you can worry about the future all you want. Nothing's going to change. Just be present and enjoy what you're doing right in the moment. Because there's no other way to live. You can spend all your time worrying about the past and the present and the future. Just stay in the present. That's something that's overrated and it's something that people forget to do, so don't forget to do that. Very well stated. Very well stated. Well, I like to thank you. I like to thank you, Matthew Manfredo for your time to see this evening. It was hopefully it's been a very, enriching and worthwhile discussion from the standpoint of those listening. I know for myself, I greatly enjoyed speaking with you. I want to wish you all the best. And, again, thank you so much for your time. And we will, we will see you next time on Vital Signs. Of course. Thank you so much, everyone, and thanks for listening.