Match Day 2021

Leading in tough times

BY EMILY AYSHFORD

It’s been a strange year for medical students, the Pritzker Chiefs will be the first to tell you. But it has also brought some unexpected opportunities to serve. During a recent Zoom call, MS4s Gena Lenti, Jamila Picart, PhD’17, and Madison Wilson talked about dealing with anxieties, building community and learning about leadership in a challenging time.

You became the Pritzker Chiefs after the beginning of COVID-19. You knew this year was going to be different.

Lenti: We’re supposed to both support students and be the boots on the ground for the administration. Usually students could find us in common spaces, where they would just come up to us and express their concerns. But this year, nobody is around. We’ve done lots of emails, texts, Zoom calls and phone calls. There have been the usual concerns, but this year students also had anxieties about COVID-19, especially when it first hit—taking care of patients who might have COVID, how their coursework was affected and being socially distant.

How have students fared?

Wilson: I’d say it was a bit easier for MS2s, MS3s and MS4s. They have already gone through the transition of medical school, moving to Chicago and meeting new friends who they can go to for support. It was difficult for MS1s to move to a new city during a pandemic and not be able to meet the people they are in class with. It’s also difficult to see the nuanced parts of people on Zoom. It can be isolating seeing how well people are doing on Zoom while feeling like you are struggling yourself.

Pritzker Chiefs Jamila Picart, left, Gena Lenti and Madison Wilson

On top of the pandemic was a year of social unrest.

Picart: When you compile COVID-19 and isolation with so many students feeling the social unrest without the support of family members or their Pritzker community, that made it very hard to study for tests, especially when there were protests literally down the street. We were thinking about it as future community care workers. What can we be doing?

Part of the experience of medical school is building a community with your peers to have the support you need. Normally students attend events —

Wilson: Talent shows, White Sox games, the formal— Picart: Conferences, wellness activities, holiday celebrations— Lenti: We had to get very creative about community building this year. We still went apple picking and had a big kickball game—the most socially distant sport we could think of. We’ve done a lot of virtual events. Trivia night, individual class virtual get-togethers. We brought our third-years goody bags in the hospital, and made sure first-years could get a goody bag after one of their classes. Wilson: People had expectations that this year would look a certain way—that we would get to travel, for example, or that we would be able to celebrate big milestones. It’s been difficult to find new ways to make memories to replace the memories we thought we would have this year. Picart: The third- and fourth-year students really stepped up to attend virtual events. Usually students are food-motivated. Obviously we couldn’t provide that, so they came because they wanted to. They wanted to support our first-years and make them feel like they are part of our community.

Ben Yang and Annie Zhang are headed to Cleveland. He matched in thoracic surgery at the Cleveland Clinic and she will do an internal medicine residency at Case Western.

Christopher Awounou matched in anesthesiology at Weill Cornell. Madison Wilson, left, and Nicelio Sanchez-Luege, PhD’18, couples-matched at the University of California, San Francisco.

Abena Appah-Sampong, AB’16, will do her residency in general surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Top 5 specialties Internal medicine

(23 percent of the class)

General surgery

(12 percent)

Emergency medicine

(9 percent)

Anesthesiology

(8 percent)

Otolaryngology

(8 percent)

Top 3 institutions University of Chicago Medicine

(23 percent of the class)

University of California system

(9 percent)

Harvard system

(8 percent) Other popular institutions for the graduating class of 2021 include: Northwestern University,

the University

of Pennsylvania,

the University of

Washington,

Denver Health Medical

Center and Duke University.

It has been a tough year all around. Any upsides?

Lenti: Students were really amazing when COVID-19 first hit. They volunteered to help call patients at home, to see if they were okay or to get them scheduled, and they helped deliver food. Wilson: It’s been really nice to see our school community come together to support our larger community on the South Side. Some students have been working on an effort to help get the word out about vaccines, since Black and brown people in Chicago are not getting vaccines at the rates they should be. Students have been calling people to help get them signed up.

What lessons from the past year will you take with you?

Picart: We practiced a lot of gratefulness this year. I found a passion for community building. When we first got kicked off the wards last spring, one of the ways we could connect with patients was by calling them. We got to be part of these teams that still had the opportunity to serve. It was a reminder that community is so important. Wilson: It’s been nice to see how invested our administration and faculty are in the well-being of the students and the sacrifices they made to make sure our institution stays running and that students have the resources they need. Lenti: Leadership in medicine is hard. That’s what I’ve learned. But at the end of the day, it is so, so, so rewarding.

Gena Lenti matched in medicine-pediatrics at the University of Washington, Jamila Picart in general surgery at the University of Michigan and Madison Wilson in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.