One last graduation

Graduations are always memorable.
I still remember my elementary school graduation, where I received a special award. It was a Thesaurus and Webster's hardcover dictionary. For a skinny little brown kid who recently moved back from Bangladesh, this was an incredible moment.

High School. College. Medical School, Residency.
And now one last graduation.

I just completed an 16 month fellowship here at Stony Brook School of Medicine titled "Leader's in Medical Education." It's a course designed to give us the knowledge and tools to prepare us as future leaders and educators in Medicine.

It was a wonderful enriching course that I never expected to take. A few years ago, near the end of the my residency when I was deciding what to do, "Leadership" and " Medical Education" were the last things on my mind. Medical school and Residency had left me skeptical, cynical and in debt. I simply wanted to work and take care of my family. I really had no direction or long term goals with my career.

Fast forward 5 years, everything has changed (except the debt of course!). There have been many twists and turns to this point in my career. Ultimately, I feel quite fortunate to be where I am, having completed this course with some terrific colleagues.
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Although this was the smallest graduation I've been apart of, it's possibly the most important. For the first time, after graduating, I think I can finally comfortably answer this question.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

And with that, now it's finally time to really get to work!


Here's our class photo!
I'm the one on the top row, far right!

Here's a shot of my poster for our final project. I'll write a post about this, hopefully soon