Havemeyer Hall. Unrelated to article.

At Columbia, we all know pre-meds (or maybe we ARE one). Pre-meds have a reputation for their busy schedules, insane work ethics, and a seemingly built-in sense of delayed gratification. In this post, new Bwog staff writer Ezra Lerner explores what it means to be pre-med at Columbia. 

His laugh after the question is telling. Leaning comfortably on the small table, Martin Kyalwazi (CC ‘19) draws on experience for this answer. “I grew up in a lot of white spaces,” he explains, referring to his experience being black in the very not-black city of Sacramento. “There are just some things you gotta work through.” Despite these challenges, he was the only student at his high school to attend an Ivy League School. He brushes off the feat. “It was what it was,” he explains. One cannot help but look, however, at his background when thinking about why he is where he is now.

Kyalwazi, the son of Ugandan immigrants, has an identity that is inextricably linked to his desire to be a doctor. He speaks of the looks on his parents’ faces when they learned of family members that had been lost to the HIV epidemic. Despite not knowing them, Kyalwazi felt a kinship through his “parents’ emotions and expressions.” His grandfather, an oncologist in Uganda, has also been a motivating factor. Sebastian Kyalwazi, referenced by a Ugandan newspaper as the “greatest surgeon” the country has ever had, worked for the World Health Organization, led the surgery department at Makere University, and was Pope Paul VI’s surgeon during his 1969 trip to Uganda. Martin has a simpler description: hero. He learned of the man through childhood stories. Through these motivating factors, Kyalwazi has developed “a desire to heal,” as well as a social-justice approach to medicine.

Perhaps that is why Kyalwazi is not fazed by Deborah Mowshowitz: Columbia’s infamous intro biology professor who is notorious for her blistering exams. “She has this lore,” he explains, “that is more intimidating than she probably actually is. I thought she was a good professor.” He states this despite the fact that he did not “get that shiny A-” at the end of the semester that others might have been looking for. When it came time for the MCAT, however, he felt prepared. Mowshowitz had given him a foundation to “build off of.” With a strong familial legacy and a mission in front of him, one course was not going to throw him off.

Dr. Mowshowitz’s class came up often in my interviews with pre-meds. Another fellow pre-med, Mika Aly (CC ‘20) also enjoyed Dr. Mowshowitz’s class. A first-generation immigrant and a California resident (from between Venice and Santa Monica), Aly’s desire to go to medical school comes not from a historical legacy, but from an internal drive. “I’m passionate for human experiences,” Aly explains. “I love talking to people and being with people on personal levels.” Maybe that’s why, even 3000 miles from home, she speaks highly of her time here. “I have a crazy opportunity to do research, and it’s such a great university,” says Aly.“I’m really glad that I’m here and finding good stuff.” (She does admit, however, that it is “ weird” that she is “actually hyping Columbia up.”) As for Mowshowitz, Aly acknowledges: “she deserves the reputation for teaching one of the hardest bio classes—at least more than usual,” At the same time, Aly was grateful for what she got out of the course. “I loved it. I loved the class. […] That’s why it gets you. Because it’s really difficult, but […] so interesting.”

To preemptively answer a potential question: yes, the pre-meds may be having more fun than you—one that comes from gripping experiences. Operating rooms in Nepal, governmental bureaucracies in New York City, and hospital beds across the street. While the requirements of medical school were definitely present in my interviews, none of the four people I spoke with suggested that the only thing they got out of their experiences was a résumé boost. Their passion seemed to suggest real commitment. Their work is hard, and their path long, but yet they still endure. Below are their stories.

Death, Helplessness, and Magazines: Life Inside the Hospital Room

Natalie Kolba (BC ‘19) is focused–she’s all business. Training to become responsible for the health of human beings is a task that requires her full focus and attention. With Kolba interviewing for medical schools when we spoke, it’s not clear if she adapted this demeanor for the next phase of her life, or it has always been there. Regardless, her desire to be a doctor and to reduce inequity in healthcare is anything but new. She recalls telling her two parents, both in finance, about her career plans as a young girl. “I was probably like five when I told my parents that I wanted to be a heart doctor. They honestly never really knew what that was, but they were like ‘okay, do your thing.’”

Having spurned an NY-to-CA-college move for one within the same city (she hails from Queens), it seems fitting that Kolba would work in a hospital close to the University: St. Luke’s on 114th and Amsterdam. Talking about this experience, she becomes animated. The childhood passion comes rushing forward. One of her main responsibilities as a volunteer is patient comfort. Be it bringing them fresh water, magazines, or newspapers, she was responsible. If someone had not gone to the bathroom in a while, Kolba was there to tell a nurse.

Beyond that, her responsibility in bringing comfort to the patients was centered around talking to those being treated. “I’ve sat down and had long conversations with patients, and this obviously helps destress them,” Kolba explains. “Sometimes they want to rant at you, and get angry […] but it’s important to sit there and listen.” She sees the task of helping difficult patients not as a burden but an opportunity. When I ask about how she felt dealing with violent patients, her only frustration stemmed from “feeling helpless as a pre-med.” Upon seeing a patient having a stroke, she thought, “‘what can I do, other than telling someone else?’” And when experiencing the fallout of a deceased patient, something she encountered early on while shadowing a resident group, Kolba was focused on how the residents interacted with the patient’s family.

Kolba acknowledges that her interest in helping patients is not just altruism for its own sake. She enjoys how it feels. “Although self-satisfaction is not the main reason you go into medicine, it’s also important,” says Kolba. “That’s what keeps you going back.” She fleshes that out, explaining that physician mental health and resident burnout are both issues plaguing the medical community. Yet, she imagines that if she places the patient first and truly listens to the patient, the thrill of one day having a patient say “you know, you’re the first doctor I’ve ever trusted” will balance the hardships of this profession. Kolba is clear, however, on the primary reason she believes pre-meds are pre-meds: to assist others. “I think the reason all of us go into pre-med is genuinely to just make a difference in the people’s lives that we encounter.”

If Kolba defines her medical persona through focus and empathy, Aly demonstrates it through commitment. While she is easy-going, true to the Southern California stereotype, her animation is clear when talking about her past experiences. A two week trip she took to Nepal, for example, that “blew her mind.” Happy would be the wrong word to describe her as she recounts witnessing flashlights, a lack of anesthetics, and the difficulty of medicinal triage. Rather, she is passionate about being that close to the action: that close to being a doctor. “I’ve actually seen three abortions—live,” she explains. “It was crazy. My friend fainted.” Aly’s words subtly make clear that she does not view the experience from the perspective of a gawker. She does not judge the Nepalese healthcare system as we talk, nor position herself as some sort of savior. Instead, whenever her comments could be perceived as harsh, or condescending, she brings it back to the beauty of the hospitals she saw over there. Aly stresses their focus on maintaining sanitary conditions in less-than-ideal circumstances. “It’s not the end of the world—[…] everything is clean. And everyone is trained.” When I asked how the experience changed her perspective on being a doctor, there was also no requiem on how much she will be able to offer as a licensed physician. Rather, she explains that experience drove her to learn more about Public Health. She would eventually like to practice medicine abroad, but that’s down the road. “I love Doctors Without Borders,” she notes, “but […] I need to get established as a doctor first before I can do any of that.”

So A Couple of Ivy Leaguers Fly Into Africa

The nature of knowing potential doctors is to become familiar with volunteer trips to Africa. Cover photos and snap stories of teenagers and young adults “helping” in developing countries. Small, brown children climbing on a White American in board shorts and flip-flops is a common image. Despite claims from these future doctors about their new friends, and new perspectives on life, one cannot help but see the image as a self-congratulatory resume boost. Alex Boubour (BC ‘19) is trying to change that.

A senior from Long Island, NY, she is acutely aware of the strengths and limitations of her hometown. “It was definitely not a very diverse place,” says Boubour. “It was kind of like living in a bubble.” Boubour still cites the experience as a positive one overall. Undoubtedly, her mother has to be part of the reason why. A healthcare administrator, Susan Boubour “definitely set an example for [her] in terms of seeing a prominent female leader at home, and having that in [her] life,” the senior says about her mother. This was in addition to being a teacher and an advocate for her daughter.

This led her to become the co-president of GlobeMed at Columbia University. The chapter that Boubour leads “focuses on long-term sustainable partnerships” regarding issues of “global health equity.” For Boubour, that means concentrated efforts to promote “maternal and sexual health,” and reduce “gender-based violence” with the Gulu Women’s Economic Development and Globalization (GWED-G): a Ugandan organization founded in response to the country’s civil war. Intrinsic in that, Boubour says, is “teaching students how to work with an organization abroad.” GlobeMed wants to “dismantle the vestiges of colonialism” when it comes to offering assistance.

At first, she defines this effort with buzzwords about partnership and collaboration. “Stand with not for” is the motto of the organization. Boubour is aware, however, of the problems that occur from the average White pre-med in Africa. “Oh yeah. Oh yeah,” she laughs knowingly. When pressed about why her organization is different, she fleshes out her organization’s unique take. “It really translates to not imposing your voice. […] Listening to what the needs of the community are, and how we can help them meet those needs […]” The main way they do this is by developing a budget centered around issues and interests raised by the community and their partner GWED-G.

In the 2018-2019 budget, for example, the largest portion of funding is dedicated to buying bikes for the Village Health Team Workers. When I ask how that expenditure could possibly be centered amount a community need, her explanation is startlingly simple. Transportation is limited and fuel is expensive. The bikes are faster than walking and make it easier to carry things.

In order to pay for bikes, or anything else that GWED-G stresses is important, GlobeMed fundraises. Even that, Boubour explains, does not promote “voluntourism”—the practice of seeing and assisting a developing country for one’s own edification. “We emphasize that every single dollar we raise goes directly to our partner organization […] and goes directly to our budget,” she says. Their efforts are not about taking 20-somethings from Bayonne on vacation.

For Kyalwazi, the quest to find genuineness on the African continent was more straightforward. His identity and experiences defined his trip to Kenya. “I’m Ugandan, Kenya’s right next to Uganda, so […] being in the East African region,” was meaningful he explains. It was more than just proximity, however, that made the trip worthwhile for Martin. The issues that he faced hit close to home. ICAP, the organization he worked for, “was founded around HIV prevention and treatment, so that was kind of full circle as well.” His efforts there were in line with his “motivations to be involved with health.”

He is quick to make clear, however, that it was a “learning experience.” The senior does not want to suggest that he was “helping anyone necessarily.” Nor did he emerge from the situation with a “heightened” understanding of his own abilities. Rather, he came home with a renewed conception of where he wants to go and how he’s gonna get there. I’m “gonna push through” classes, Martin explains, and “this [the experience in Kenya] is why I wanna do it.” So Kyalwazi toils on, past gen chem and bio and physics, towards his goal of dealing with healthcare as an issue of societal disadvantage. Eventually, he will need a Ph.D. in health policy, in addition to an M.D. It will be one of his major qualifiers as he looks at programs this spring. For right now, though, he is focused on grinding out his final year at Columbia. As he does so, he will require support, and others will require his advice. For that, he turns towards Charles Drew.

Actively Forgetting to Grin and Bear It: Columbia’s Pre-Med Society

Boubour has GlobeMed. For Kolba, Aly, and Kyalwazi, there is the Charles Drew Premedical Society. An organization designed to inundate college kids with everything they need to be successful pre-medical students. This includes career advice from “medical professionals,” Kolba explains, like Dean Hutcherson from the Columbia University Medical Center. For Kolba, the result was “three notebooks” full of tips from “random events from freshman year.” In addition to attending to the rigorous Bronx High School of Science, she attributes joining the society early as one the reasons she has had an easier time at Columbia than other pre-meds.

Charles Drew, however, goes beyond just offering strategy sessions. It is a “support group,” Kolba explains, designed to offer students a “family environment.” They try to lift each other up when they are struggling with everyday stresses. For Aly, this means discussing issues that run the gauntlet of everyday life. “We talk about taboo things and we talk about regular things, but we just talk about everything,” she says. “Regular things” would be orgo labs that students should avoid or chem professors they should gravitate towards. When I asked her about taboo subjects, partly hoping for University gossip, Aly’s answer was more profound. “We would talk about stress culture […] Like how our research is doing. […] It’s always a question— ‘oh, what research are you doing?’” That query is a continuous source of tension. “Just constantly being questioned on what kind of research you’re doing or what kind of internship you’re doing,” Aly explains. “I know it causes a lot of anxiety to me, and I think it causes a lot of anxiety to a lot of people, and people speak on that” at Charles Drew. Most Columbia students can probably relate to that.

Kolba says succumbing to those types of resume pressures is one of the stumbling blocks that pre-med students set up for themselves. “Many pre-meds just take on too much because they keep seeing people saying ‘oh, I’m doing this. My resume is four pages long,’ and they think ‘uh-oh, I don’t have that,’” she explains. Joining Charles Drew taught her to focus her attention elsewhere. Her three notebooks were not just filled with notes from practicing physicians. They also included advice from older students about how to spend her time. Certain classes that she should prioritize her freshman year, and events that should be of interest to her as a sophomore. Critical to that was “finding something to relieve stress.” After her lab Friday morning, Natalie takes the rest of the day off. If she can she likes to get out of the “Columbia bubble,” and do something else. It is not that her resume is not extensive—to destress Kolba also enjoys volunteering with nonprofits—it is just that the piece of paper is not her main motivator.

The value in Charles Drew for Kyalwazi is not about making the time to relax, but finding to strength to power through. The Pre-Med society affords him a platform to set an example for younger black students. “For […] a first-year student to see a fourth-year, or third-year, student still hustling down this same track. It’s like ‘oh they did it, I can do it as well,’” he explains. “And that’s very powerful […] seeing that from another Black student.” It makes sense that Kyalwazi believes in the power of leading by example. His time as a college student has been marked by for working prestigious doctors of color. Mary Bassett, the commissioner of the New York City Department of Health, and Atul Gawande, a physician famous for his books about “transforming healthcare systems.” Like the trip to Kenya, these internships “grounded” his thinking about medicine. They focused Kylawazi on what comes after Columbia, and clarified why he continues to push through classes right now. As a upperclassmen in Charles Drew, he hopefully will be able to do the same for someone else.

Facedown in a Coffee Cup

Aly, Boubour, Kolbar, and Kyalwazi all acknowledge the challenges of being a Pre-Medical student. Aly, in particular, mentions that she has been going to bed at 4 am [the week of our interview], and still has not been getting as much work done as she would like. Pre-Med is a hard row to hoe; no one is denying that. But among the people I spoke to, medical school did come up, but not as much as I would have initially thought. When I asked Korba why she stood apart as a medical school applicant, she simply referred me to the experiences that she had already detailed. Those events humbled her— they made her feel lucky to be pursuing a profession that means so much to her. In addition, they proved she is able to balance many things at once.

Boubour is not even going to medical school next year. She wants to get involved with the global health issues that mean so much to her before she seeks another diploma. She will spend two years doing work akin to what she is already doing in Uganda. That path distances her from those entangled in the medical school chase. She is happy about that.

Kyalwazi has perhaps the most concise answer. He knows what he wants to do with medicine and the perspective that he brings to it. “That’s enough,” he says. The underlying idea being that if a school wants what he has to offer, they will accept him. If they don’t, they won’t. It will not change what he is focused on.

Image via Columbia Facilities