Send us Fan Mail

Getting into medical school felt like the finish line. It wasn't.

In Part Two of our conversation with Dr. Ayman Youssef, Chief Resident of Quality Improvement in Internal Medicine at Harborview Medical Center, we pick up where we left off in medical school in Galveston, Texas where his sense of belonging had to be earned all over again.

Ayman takes us through the culture shock of medical school, a formative summer in Amman working with Palestinian refugees through UNRWA, and a residency match that didn't go according to plan. He wanted Stanford. He got Seattle. He's grateful.

We get into what Harborview revealed about the kind of doctor he actually wanted to be, the chronic illness he had to reckon with mid-residency, and why he's still on his own timeline — deliberately, and without apology.

And we end where the whole conversation has been pointing: information. Who has it, who doesn't, and the additional work needed to navigate medicine without the hidden curriculum that gets quietly handed to people who already belong. Ayman is honest about what he did and didn't have, what he wishes he'd known earlier, and what he tries to pass on now.

This is Part Two of a two part series. If you haven't listened to Part One (Episode 31), start there.

Visit EthnoMed.org for additional resources. Follow us on YouTube and Instagram @EthnoMedUW