2011 Class Speakers

Isha Mehta is a medical student at Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education at CCNY. She is also the Pre-Med Track Coordinator and Lecturer at the Baruch Leadership Academy. In a recent interview, she tells us a little about her experiences.

What are some of the most challenging aspects of studying medicine?
Studying medicine requires a lot of personal sacrifices. The most challenging sacrifice for me is time with my family. My family is extremely supportive. When I go home, they drop me off at the library in the morning and pick me up for dinner [that night] so I can still get that family dinner in with them even though I didn't spend the whole day. The biggest challenge is definitely the sacrifice you have to make.

What can students do to overcome these challenges?
The first thing is that you have to be very passionate about it. A lot people go into medicine because maybe their parents wanted them to become doctors or maybe because they wanted money, (which doesn't really happen these days) but I think that if you have such a strong passion for it that going home to study at the end of the day is a thing you're really interested in.

How did your interest in medicine develop?
I've been really fortunate that I've had a lot of exposures to medicine over time. I started out really young because my aunt and uncle had their own practice. I first moved in with my aunt and uncle when my parents came to this country so I was surrounded by that community a lot, and my young days were spent in their clinic. Every day I would observe them practicing. That kind of sparked my interest in medicine.

What's the best part about working with pre-college aged students?
I really respond well to adolescents. One of my first research opportunities was working on a study about birth control administered in a high school clinic. This high school was an alternative school for students who were kicked out of their original high school. Some had been to juvie. So I got to reach out and relate to teenagers. That's something I like about the students here [at the Baruch Leadership Academy]. I'm not too far away in age from them. Some of them remind me so much of myself when I was in high school. If I came across a program like this back then, I would have done it in a heartbeat. A lot of them have that drive already that I can relate to.

How are role-plays useful in preparing for a career as a doctor?
Role-playing is something you do in medical school, too. It's important to train yourself to deal with different kinds of patients, different difficult situations you might come across. Today the role-plays will focus on alcohol intervention. It's really difficult to make changes to your patient's life-styles: diet, exercise, alcohol use, other drug use. This is something I wanted to get the students thinking about because they will inevitably come across it later in their futures in medicine.

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