Greetings! My name is Evan and I am a PGY-2. I’m originally from Baltimore and attended medical school in New York City. I keep working my way up the east coast and now I live in Cambridge near Central Square.
When I was originally deciding where to go to for residency, there was not a bone in my body that wanted to leave New York. That is, until my MGH/McLean interview day. I was taken aback by the kindness, humor, and thoughtfulness of everyone I talked to. I remember ending the interview day feeling super conflicted. I had built an entire life in New York. Did I really want to start all over?
I took the leap of faith. And I’m so grateful I did, because it did not feel like starting over. From the moment I stepped foot in Boston, I was wholly embraced by an amazing community of like-minded individuals. One of the main draws of MGH/McLean for me was not only the breadth but also the depth of expertise in virtually all domains of psychiatry. This was particularly important to me because I have a variety of passions within psychiatry (CL, child, psychotherapy), and I wanted to be exposed to and learn about my interests from the foremost experts in their subspeciality. Want to learn about catatonia? How about you talk to the psychiatrist who was one of the first to give Ativan to a catatonic patient! Interested in psychotherapy? Attend monthly dinners at the homes of Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute psychotherapists and discuss the psychodynamic processes underlying couple’s therapy! The world is your oyster, and need I say MGH/McLean is definitely the capitol.
It’s true, we work hard. But I could not imagine being more prepared for each step of the way on my journey to becoming a full-fledged psychiatrist. As a PGY-1, we rotated on an exciting, dynamic med-psych unit at MGH on Blake 11 where I was challenged intellectually, professionally, and personally. My attending, the medical director, struck the perfect balance of autonomy and support. I truly felt that I was my patients’ psychiatrist and patients clearly felt the same. I have grown in ways I had no idea I was capable of, and my rotations have prepared me for all of the unexpected and rewarding experiences of being a psychiatrist and physician.
The icing on the cake, of course, is the tight-knit community of kind, empathetic, brilliant and hilarious co-residents that help make Boston and Cambridge my new home. I’ve already made life-long friends, and I could not be more honored to work with incredible co-residents trying to make patients, and psychiatry as a field, better every day.
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