I blinked and realized that it had been six months since I was last here with an update.
I'm really getting bad at keeping up with this lol. When I first started the blog, I told myself that I would be consistent with my posts and that I would never let myself fall off. Throughout my time as a blogger, I've seen many well-intentioned blogs come and go, with a small minority of them remaining consistent with posting content. I always took pride in how consistent I was with providing new content and I used to always wonder how and why people became less consistent with posting over time.
Well, now I know why. Life just gets really busy with a never-ending stream of new priorities creeping in and I've found myself having much less free time and energy to dedicate to keeping up with the blog as frequently as I have in years past. What's crazy is that I don't even have a kid yet, so I can't imagine what life will look like once that variable is thrown into the equation. With all that said, I'm not going anywhere and the blog is obviously here to stay. So I'm just going to have to rethink how to prioritize what I'm doing with this platform and how to integrate it better into my evolving life and career. It is way too important of an entity to allow it to fall by the wayside. Plus I now have followers of the blog calling me out for going so long without a post. Man, I really appreciate y'all 😂🙏🏿
As you can imagine, I've lived a lot of life between the time of my last post (late May) and now.
To start off, I transitioned into my third year of fellowship back in July and am now closing in on the halfway point of my last year of fellowship!
And you know what that means….I'm less than a year away from completing my final year of fellowship and becoming a full-fledged attending in pediatric nephrology!
It feels incredible to have finally reached the point in my training where I can literally see and feel the finish line approaching. You can bet your bottom dollar that this will be the last year of clinical training that I'll ever do; I'm so ready to be done with this trainee lifestyle man. Between college, medical school, residency, my chief year, and fellowship, I've been at this for 14 freakin' years. And by the time I complete fellowship, it would have been a full 15+ years between graduating high school and starting my first full-time attending job.
FIFTEEN YEARS MY GUY. FIFTEEN YEARS.
I'm sitting here in awe that I've really spent that much time on this journey in medicine and I haven't even seen my first attending paycheck yet. For those of you not in medicine, I'm sure this all sounds so wild because although I've been living it, it does sound crazy to me whenever I talk about it. But even having said all that, I truly have no regrets about my career path and would do this all again in a heartbeat. As challenging as this path may have been, it has been an incredible ride full of unforgettable and life-changing experiences, education, encounters, and relationships that have molded me into the man I am today. I really don't know what my life would have looked like had I not gone into medicine. The fact that I get to make such a positive and palpable impact on the lives of patients and families everyday is priceless in and of itself. Couple that with my ever-growing influence that I've leveraged to uplift countless others outside of the clinical setting and I have myself a home run of a career. It certainly doesn't hurt that I'll make a comfortable income and if done the right way, can use my credentials to explore an endless array of opportunities to help pay my student loans off and achieve financial freedom.
As ready as I am to start my life as an attending physician, I would be lying if I told you that I wasn't feeling the slow creep of good ol' anxiety starting to trickle into my psyche as I inch closer to this monumental transition from trainee to attending. I'm feeling pretty confident in the clinical setting and have become comfortable in my role as a fellow, but with each passing day I feel myself wading more into the territory of “oh crap, soon I won't have the comfort of falling back on my attending anymore“. Best believe that this realization has put some pep in my step when it comes to crystallizing the knowledge fund and confidence I'll need to have if I want to be the attending I've always imagined myself to be. This upcoming transition is a bit nerve-wracking just like all the other past transitions in my life have been. However, if the aftermath of all those other transitions are any indicator of how I'll fare after this next transition, then I know I'll be just fine.
Although I'm laser-focused on being as ready as I can be for the next phase of my career, I still need to ensure that I'm adequately fulfilling my duties as a senior fellow. Being one of the most senior fellows in the program has been a great experience so far, one that sort of reminds me of my chief year. My co-fellow and I have had to take on some admin responsibilities such as managing the clinical and lecture schedules of the fellows in the program. Over the past several months, I've had the pleasure of serving as a guide to the newest fellow to our program and helping interview several prospective fellows who applied to our fellowship program. Additionally, I've worked a number of inpatient weeks, call weekends, call nights, and clinic days throughout this time period, where I've further honed in on molding my personal clinical style and leadership skills as it relates to nephrology.
In my time outside of the clinical setting, I've been working on wrapping up my manuscript for my fellowship research project (arduous process but I'm making good time in getting it done 😁) and have been gaining ground on the implementation of my QI project, which has amazingly evolved into a system-wide initiative. I've remained involved with the ASPN's Public Policy Committee and was officially accepted into the JELF Advocacy Scholars Program this past summer after two years of persistently applying to the program!!
As a JELF Scholar, I've been able to join monthly webinars designed to expose us to influential people heavily involved in helping shape health policy throughout the country and to educate us on various ways to become effective advocates. I also have to design and implement a project throughout my two years in the program, that of which I'm brainstorming now. I've already been able to jump in and get involved with the advocacy efforts of the ASPN by volunteering to be part of our vaccine workgroup and helping draft an op-ed regarding the importance of vaccines in the midst of an ever-growing dangerous chorus of vaccine resistance echoing throughout our country. I'm really excited to remain engaged in this program over the next couple of years while making fruitful connections and learning practical skills I can use as a physician advocate!
I've also remained involved with the Emory's HEAP Track and ended up joining the Medical Association of Atlanta, where I got the chance to attend the Medical Association of Georgia's annual House of Delegates (HOD) meeting in Savannah last month. This was an eye-opening experience where I saw firsthand how policy resolutions of all sorts were proposed to the delegates of the organization. These resolutions were announced and debated on before an official vote was held that either allowed the proposed measure to move on towards becoming an official policy measure that the organization supports (+/- some amendments to the measure), or killed the proposed measure which meant that the organization would not officially support it at this time. The policies that are ultimately accepted by the association then have the chance to be actively advocated for by our lobbyists to state senators and representatives, where they have a real chance of becoming state law. There were some great resolutions proposed but I must say, I was shocked at the ferocity of debate on some of the topics that I thought were straightforward and would pass without any issue. I was also floored at how many policies affecting medical professionals were in place that I was simply unaware of. Attending this HOD session underscored how influential and powerful organized medicine is, and how important it is for medical professionals of all specialties and subspecialties to get involved in organized medicine in some capacity to ensure that their voices are heard so that their respective patient populations are adequately advocated for.
When I wasn't doing fellowship or medicine related things, I was busy having a blast in my personal life! Soon after my last post, I took a vacation where I went to Vegas with a small group of people and then took a trip to Hilton Head with my wife. Shortly after that, I spent 4th of July admiring a spectacular fireworks show and relaxing at a pool party. Then a few weeks after that, it was onwards to Toronto where my fellow groomsmen and I celebrated the groom at his bachelor party. It was my first time in Toronto and I absolutely loved my time there. It was also Caribana season, so we had a great time walking and dancing in the parade too! Sidenote: the CN tower is SUPER tall. We were in there at top of it and it was almost nauseating to look out and see how high we were.
After Toronto came D.C., where my wife and I hung out with some friends and my brothers for a weekend. Before I knew it, it was my birthday weekend, which coincided with Labor Day weekend this year! My wife took me out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in the city (La Grotta; definitely check it out if you live in Atlanta and love Italian food), which I really appreciated. We also rented out a cabana at a pool with some friends and had ourselves such a fun time. My wife and I celebrated our anniversary the week after that with another fancy dinner in the city (Lyla Lila for you foodies out there), and then a couple weeks later we found ourselves in Newport, RI for my frat brother's wedding! Newport was strikingly beautiful and idyllic, and the wedding weekend was wonderful overall. It has been so awesome to see so many of my friends find their significant other and tie the knot over the past several years, and I'm looking forward to celebrating love in the coming years as more of them get engaged!
Not too long after the wedding, I got flown out (for the first time ever 😮) to Miami to participate on an alumni panel hosted by the Office of Academic Enhancement, which was the same office that gave me the scholarship that allowed me to go to UMiami for college. The four-person panel was geared towards students who were interested in healthcare and/or fields adjacent to it. It was such an honor to be asked by my alma mater to come back and engage with current students, most of whom seemed to really enjoy and appreciate the information being shared with them!
I took some time to walk around campus while I was there; it is SO unrecognizable now. I thought it looked like a resort when I was in college, but the campus I remember has nothing on what they got going on now. Funny enough, I got to come back to campus several weeks after the panel for homecoming, which was also the school's Centennial celebration and the ten-year reunion of my class! Now THAT was a fantastic experience!
Campus is so unrecognizable from when I graduated ten years ago…..these kids have NO idea how good they have it now 😅
Canes Lounge during Homecoming is ALWAYS a great time! Incredibly loud too 😬🫨
This year's homecoming tailgate was super thick! Had such a great time catching up with old friends while getting pumped for the game! 🧡💚
Wouldn't be a UMiami Homecoming without a DAZZLING fireworks display!!!
The past six months have been a whirlwind of fun, which has been a very welcome escape from the constant despair that we are all having to face in our country every day. I'm looking forward to having some more fun during the upcoming holidays where I'll get to see more family and friends and make some more great memories. And before we know it, 2026 will be here!
There's so much to look forward to in the New Year, but I'll save those thoughts for my next post, which I promise will not take another six months 😂. Before I wrap this post up though, I would like to shoutout the winners of The 2025 Desire To Inspire Scholarship! There were SOOO many applications to review this year and we gave out the most money that we've ever given out at once, so this cycle was certainly one for the books! It has been such a blessing to be in a position to give out scholarships on a yearly basis and I'm looking forward to continuing to do so in the years to come! 🙏🏿
That's all I got for you today! Thanks for reading and I hope that you all have such a wonderful Thanksgiving break with your loved ones!
“The most important day is today. The most important person is the one you are with now. The most important work is to be the person you wish to be.” – Jack Kornfield
– Black Man, M.D.
P.S. – The Falcons look terrible…..but hey, at least the Miami Hurricanes are playing decent enough to hopefully secure a playoff spot! They just need to not throw away another game at the last minute 😅🙄
P.P.S. – If you need gift ideas for the upcoming holiday season, check out the Black Man, M.D. Merchandise Store and the Gifts for Students & Professionals in Healthcare page!