KARIM SHARES HIS EXCITEMENT FOR 3RD YEAR ROTATIONS, WHY HE ELECTED TO GO TO JERSEY, AND ALL THE PEOPLE WHO HELPED HIM ALONG THE WAY...
Interview with the Delightful,
Karim Abdel Jalil, COM '21
I'll be going to Newark, New Jersey for third year. There are three different hospitals and a few associate groups that I'll work with, especially for family medicine. In Newark, I'll be at St. Michael's, and then in Paterson at St. Josephs, and then Hackensack. I will rotate between them, but spend the majority of time at St. Michael's.
I used to go to Paterson all the time, as a child. Paterson has a very large Arab minority population. St. Josephs is right in the middle of that, kind of like the Arab district. It’ll be very cool to go back to a lot of spots that I used to go to, and experienced as a child. It looks a little nicer now. I don't remember the hospital, I just remember all the shawarma places across from it. I went there about two weeks ago with my dad just to kind of see the area, and it's literally a three minute walk from this grocery store that we used to buy all of our Arabic food from. So we thought, okay, I guess I'm going to end up going here every single day. Paterson is only about an hour and a half from my sister's place in Connecticut, so it'll motivate my family to come visit me now.
Medical school has a very interesting way of making you redefine what is really important to you. Being in Maine for the last two years has taught me a lot about myself. It's taught me what I like and what I don't like. There's so many great memories I have from being in Maine, and I'll be forever thankful for the lessons I've learned here, but something that I realized is super important to me, is trying to connect back to my culture, and trying to connect back to my family. Newark, I think provided me an opportunity to expand upon both of those. It actually taught me how important my culture was to me. Working in the Biddeford Middle School, seeing my mentee and the amount of Iraqi refugee populations here, and seeing the impact that had on the community, and the relationships I've built with them, has really refined my purpose of how I can really impact these communities, especially communities who look like me. Going to Paterson and New York, where I might have more opportunity to interact with these populations, practice my Arabic a little bit, will, I think, allow me to connect a lot of those dots. I'm really excited to have the opportunity, and then again, I can get my family to
Third-year rotations Begin… in Jersey
Redefining What’s Important
come see me. If I miss my mom's cooking, I can go right over there. I think it was important for me to have all those options. Oh, and get this on the record. There's no pizza better than New Haven pizza, and I'll gladly say that to anyone who wants to argue with me. It is very good pizza!
Building Human Connections
Sharmeen and Omar are the ones who started the Muslim Student Association here on campus. I remember, it was like the first day of school, and Sharmeen was very excited about starting up an MSA.