Today at 11 a.m., the College of Medicine class of 2015 will learn where they will spend their residency training after graduating from medical school this May. The following is one in a series spotlighting several of the medical students who will be matching.
- Name: Jery Inbarasu
- Hometown: Vellore, India/La Vista
Match Day live link
To access the live link for today’s Match Day, click here. The link will allow you to watch the live presentation Friday from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CDT. The ceremony also will be archived here following Friday’s event.
What key events influenced your path to medical school?
As a young boy, my first exposure to medicine was accompanying my father to his work at the hospital. He was a chaplain and would often see very ill patients and their families. I remember that there would be a lot of uncertainty about the disease, but the people who worked at the hospital would provide comfort by translating the science into meaningful answers.
As a child, my parents could tell my curiosity in figuring out how things worked by me taking apart perfectly good toys and putting them back together. My parents fortunately indulged my curiosity, and I took an interest in science. After moving to the United States, science was a subject in school I could comprehend more readily, as there seemed to be something universal about it.
In high school, I realized I most enjoyed my time in volunteering and shadowing in our local hospitals. This is when I decided that medicine was another universal language I wanted to understand and use to help others.
How will your experience influence you as a doctor?
I have realized that the patient experience is a scary time when patients are not sure what is happening to their own body. I have seen the role of health care providers change as they identify and prioritize the most immediate needs of the patient by listening to their story. It has taught me to be more ready to listen and less eager to talk. Seeing the hospital through my father’s eyes has taught me that there is still a lot of comfort that can be provided even after every medical intervention is exhausted.
I have since had the opportunity, during medical school, to return to the hospital in India where my father worked. Seeing how medicine can be practiced similarly with a different amount of resources helped me appreciate how we can all learn from each other.
What is the most interesting thing you were asked during residency interviews?
“If you could be any vegetable, which one would you be and why?” It caught me off guard, but I answered that I probably would be a carrot because I like to eat them and my wife tells me I look good in orange. I guess Match Day will reveal whether that was a good answer.