Ryan was an intern in 2011—the second gap-year intern to bless Grace Medical Home with his service and time. Like most gap-year interns, he had just graduated with his bachelor’s degree and was applying to medical school. Since then, he graduated from medical school, finished his internal medicine residency at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, and is currently in a fellowship program for nephrology at Montefiore in the Bronx. On top of all that, he’s currently reaching for a one-year training position in critical care. Since interning at Grace, he has climbed higher and higher in his academic and professional careers.
“Grace was an amazing experience. It made me a better human and a better doctor.”
Ryan has endless praises for the myriad of services that Grace provides to the community. “I loved Grace,” he admits, “and I think it really influenced my social and political views.” But interestingly enough, he also confesses that the kind of medicine practiced at Grace isn’t exactly his speed. “I’ve found out that I can’t stand working in a primary care setting. I need the adrenaline.”
That is remarkable in itself. Even a person who can’t stand working in a primary care environment—who needs the rush of critical care—absolutely loved working at Grace. The medical home model (if you weren’t aware), is probably the exact opposite of critical care. Still, Ryan reports that Grace did nothing but provide opportunities for growth and development.
“Grace prepared me for taking care of people from different cultural backgrounds with limited access to medical care.”
Ryan goes on to describe how Grace set him up for success in his residency. It eased the culture shock as he was thrown into training in one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the country. (That hospital center set the record for most unique languages in a calendar year while he was there—156!) He says Grace was the primer for his residency. Not only did it help him empathize with the social situations that give context to patient’s medical needs, but he says Grace taught him “how you have to go the extra mile to find a way to get the best care you can for them.”
Ryan reminisces on one particular patient from Grace. It was a young man who lost his job as a waiter due to a back injury. He had been struggling for months or weeks before finding Grace. For part of his internship at the time, Ryan was in charge of the referrals department for specialties Grace couldn’t offer in-house—such as spinal surgery. Ryan worked for a couple months submitting applications to various city and county programs, reaching out to surgery centers, and contacting hospital groups. Eventually, Ryan was able to coordinate a surgery at no cost to the patient. The patient actually made a full-recovery!
The patient eventually left Grace because he was no longer qualified to be a patient at Grace—he was back to work. Ryan and his dad went out to dinner one day and were surprised to find the former patient serving them. “The expression on my dad’s face when he met the guy was priceless, and I think that was the first time my dad understood why I was going down this ridiculously long and hard path.” The work the interns do at Grace is incredibly rewarding, and it doesn’t take a long look to see how fruitful their work here has been.
In the years since leaving, Ryan has worked hard to succeed in the area of medicine that he is passionate about. But Grace Medical still has a home in his heart. “[The staff] exemplified the compassion that made Grace so special. Working in NYC isn’t like that. Here everybody is rough and rude and burnt out. But working at Grace was never like that. Everybody was so loving and happy to be there. I miss that.”
