{"id":12856,"date":"2024-09-12T15:04:24","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T19:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=12856"},"modified":"2024-09-18T09:04:17","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T13:04:17","slug":"to-be-a-great-doctor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=12856","title":{"rendered":"To be a great doctor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joshua Lerman \u201924 aspires to be a good doctor, and he is working diligently to become one. But early in his training, he\u2019s learning that being \u201cgood\u201d is more than acing the MCAT.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile a good doctor might have an intellectual mind, surgeon\u2019s hands, or years of experience, a great doctor also has heart,\u201d Lerman says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a value he recognized firsthand when, for a week last year, he accompanied a team of doctors and nurses from Healing the Children New Jersey on an ophthalmology mission trip to the Dominican Republic. The team performed 37 eye surgeries and prescribed nearly 100 pairs of glasses to pediatric and adult patients who visited the hospital in La Romana on the island\u2019s southeastern coast.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As the only college student on the team \u2014 and having completed the Spanish for Healthcare Professionals certificate at TCNJ \u2014 his job was to serve as an interpreter between the English-speaking medical staff and the Spanish-speaking patients and their families to bridge the gap created by the language barrier in a hospital setting. He\u2019d help with necessary work like setting appointments, explaining procedures, and interpreting questions and answers between medical staff and patients. But his real impact transcended translations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When patients would arrive for surgery, he\u2019d sit with them in the pre-op room and chat with them in their native language to ease their nerves. For one pediatric patient, Lerman shared his favorite Spanish playlist on Spotify. For another, he helped her select the perfect emotional support stuffed animal \u2014 an ostrich \u2014 from the pile. He says these interactions allowed him to extend beyond the role of interpreter and acknowledge what the patients were experiencing in the context of their own culture and beliefs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I was making a difference by assisting with the language barrier, I learned to also make a difference in the lives of the patients,\u201d Lerman says. \u201cMy experience in the Dominican Republic revolved around treating patients, not their conditions.\u201d He says his role was as vital to patient success as the actual medical procedures. \u201cI can certainly say any child or parent who stepped into the pre-op room left with a smile on their face.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s this humanization of medicine, particularly across cultures, that motivates Lerman as he begins medical school. A biology major enrolled in TCNJ\u2019s seven-year medical program, he\u2019s spent the past three years at TCNJ and started his first year of medical school at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in August. He hopes to one day be a surgeon.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To provide care that supports language and cultural differences, Lerman won\u2019t always have to travel abroad. He noted Latin American and Latino populations at home also benefit from culturally thoughtful health care.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m definitely going to encounter that in medical school and in my future career,\u201d Lerman says. \u201cThis opportunity definitely showed me how important it is to make patients feel more welcome and more accepted, stepping into a medical setting where their beliefs, culture, ideas, and ideals are respected and intertwined in the treatment they\u2019re receiving.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joshua Lerman is not leaving his goals in medicine up for interpretation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12856"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12997,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12856\/revisions\/12997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}