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Journeys User4February 26, 2025February 25, 2025Clinical Training Experience, My Story, Words of WisdomLebanon, PGY3, Public Health and General Preventive Medicine, Texas

A Brighter Chapter After Beirut’s Darkest Day

By Dr. Alaa Rihan

My name is Alaa Rihan. Before 2020, I was simply Dr. Rihan, living a fulfilling life in Beirut. I graduated from the School of Medicine at Beirut Arab University in 2011, then joined the American University of Beirut, where I completed four years of family medicine training in 2015. Those 11 years had been the longest chapter of my life, but I was finally ready to embrace the joys of family life and a growing career in family medicine. Blessed with a daughter and a son, my husband and I built a peaceful life amid the beauty of Lebanon.

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Journeys User4November 22, 2024March 5, 2025Clinical Training Experience, Cross-cultural Experience, My Story, Post J-1 ExperienceAlumni, Headache Medicine, Kentucky, Neurology, Pakistan, Returning Author, Texas

Growth is Best When Shared

By Dr. Muhammad Ismail Khalid Yousaf

“Serve well and learn more—they’ve given you a place in their country, and it takes a big heart to do that,” my paternal grandmother, Jamila Begum, told me during our family’s ritual prayers before I left for the airport to begin my training in the United States. This 7,500-mile journey from Pakistan to Kentucky came with its own uncertainties and challenges, but the belief that “there is a blessing when you migrate to study abroad” was deeply rooted in my cultural and religious values. I was determined to carry forward these virtues with pride and dignity, as my parents had sacrificed everything to ensure I received the best training, and my wife’s support to get me to the United States to train was monumental. Thanks to the BridgeUSA J-1 Exchange Visitor Program, I was fortunate to match and start my training at the University of Louisville (“UofL”) School of Medicine’s Department of Neurology.

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Journeys User4May 31, 2024May 31, 2024Clinical Training Experience, Cross-cultural Experience, Host Institution, Well-being GrantsChief Resident, Internal Medicine, Mexico, PGY4, Texas, Well-being

Navigating the J-1 Journey Together

By Dr. Martha Maricela Solis

Recipient of the 2023 Grant Opportunity for J-1 Physicians: Well-being Projects Supporting Foreign National Physicians

I grew up in a town in northern Mexico, 20 minutes from the U.S. border, with a population of fewer than 5,000 people. I lived in a very small world back then, but my aspirations were big. I always dreamt of becoming a doctor, and through hard work and my parents’ support, I was able to go to medical school with a full ride. During medical school, I didn’t stop dreaming; I still wanted more. I wanted to train in a place where I could access the newest technology and resources, so I could deliver the best evidence-based medicine to my patients. That’s how training in the United States became my next dream.

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Journeys User4October 13, 2021October 5, 2021Cross-cultural Experience, My StoryCOVID-19, Mexico, Neurology, PGY2, Texas

Life After Cardiac Arrest: Surviving My Intern Year

By Dr. Samantha Fernandez Hernandez

“This cannot happen… I just started my career. Open your eyes. Move your fingers. Wiggle your toes. Do anything you can to let them know you’re ok!” These are the things I said to myself as I heard the commotion around me. As I felt the excruciating pain of the freshly inserted chest tube between my ribs, I heard someone say, “She might need to go on ECMO, let’s call the team.”

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Journeys User4November 24, 2020November 24, 2020Clinical Training Experience, My StoryCOVID-19, Neurology, PGY3, Texas, United Kingdom

Coming Full Circle: Training During COVID-19

By Dr. Jonathan Paul Donnelly

Unlike many of my colleagues in the medical field, I took a very unconventional path through my postgraduate training. Throughout medical school, I was convinced I was destined to be a surgeon. I loved anatomy, loved my surgical rotations, and thought that this was my destiny. Then on my first day as a house officer in general surgery, I stood for 9 hours in a laparoscopic hemicolectomy, without any breaks for eating or going to the bathroom, and suddenly my life choices became much less clear. I struggled a while longer, but eventually I put away my scalpel, took up my neglected stethoscope once again, and I took up a formal internal medicine training post in New Zealand, starting on another journey. Everything started to make sense for a change. The flow of hospital medicine, the critical thinking, the lack of having to stand in an OR for several hours with a full bladder and an empty stomach, it all finally came together. As it turned out, one shake-up was not enough, and as I rotated through stroke and neurology, I found a hidden interest that I wished to take further. Being inspired by some American mentors, I decided to apply for training in the USA, and began residency at the University of Texas (UT) Health Science Center, San Antonio Texas in June 2018. After all my continent hopping and specialty changes, at last I seemed to be on the right track.

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