Pub 5 2021 Issue1

Student Spotlight Nick Longe First, a bit about Nick … I grew up in Holladay, Utah, with my parents, Wendy and Jamie, and my younger brother, Alex. Even before we could walk, my parents worked hard to instill a love of the outdoors in us. We went camping every weekend, backpacking, skiing, or biking. It was a running joke among my parents’ friends that no matter where they camped on Friday night, they would wake up to Wendy and Jamie there in the morning. It was a ton of work on their part, whether it was packing up after a long day at work or four- year-old me giggling in the bike trailer as I shrieked at dad, “faster, faster!” as he peddled up a steep hill. My parents’ hard work paid off, though, and I developed a deep love of the wild places around us. After undergrad, I even took off on a backpacking trip across the country, where I covered 1,200 miles of trail in 26 different parks over six months. There were so many memorable trips — solo horse packing through Yellowstone, picking wine barrels in Napa, deciding I could travel faster cross country, and being terribly wrong — it ’s hard to pick a favorite, but that ’s part of the fun. Besides being outside, I love picking up new hobbies and absolutely diving down a rabbit hole. One of my favorites that ’s been put on a bit of a hiatus with school is woodworking. I love building furniture and use mostly hand tools — some of them even belonged to my great grandfather — because of how meditative the process is. When school started, I was in the middle of building a bed, and though I haven’t managed to get much further, I ’m looking forward to completing it and starting another project. My other recent hobby is dog training. I have a two-year- old wirehaired pointing griffon named Sevro, who is my adventure buddy. He loves biking, backcountry skiing, hiking, frisbee and is absolutely obsessed with birds. It has been so much fun to dive more into training, learning about the different approaches, and working through the many challenges of having a dog. Sometimes the progress is slow, but Sevro loves to work, and it is so rewarding to see the progress he’s made. The only problem is now my entire camera roll is pictures of my dog. The journey to medical school My interest in medicine first stemmed from my parents. My mom is a physical therapist, and my dad is a family medicine doctor, so in the eyes of tiny Nick, they could solve anything, and who didn’t want to be like that. Through school, I began focusing more on the academic challenges of medicine, and found a way to turn almost every school project in my K-12 education toward medicine. Why I thought it was warranted for a fifth grader to have Netter and the Merck Manual on my desk for a school project, I’ll never know. College took me to the East Coast, where I was ecstatic to attend Johns Hopkins University and receive my BS in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. I loved both the breadth and depth of the subjects we covered and the problem- solving skills they taught us. While I probably won’t ever need to tune a controls system for a chemical reactor, it was an invaluable experience that helped shape the way I approach problems. While at school, I began working in a lab exploring the effect of cellular senescence on cancer development. It was a fantastic experience, and I learned a ton about the academic process, different lab procedures, and the fact that I did not want to do benchwork in a lab for the rest of my life. After school, I took some time off and waited tables, volunteered, and applied to medical school. It was volunteering at the Maliheh Clinic during this time that showed me why I really wanted to go into medicine; the people. After volunteering there for three years, I knew many of the patients and was able to celebrate their accomplishments and see just how much it meant to them to have support and help in the medical challenges they were facing. I loved that interaction, and it really focused my drive to become a physician. Why Family Medicine? My decision to pursue family medicine is again because of the people. I love getting to know patients over time, understanding many of the challenges they are facing in their lives, and working on aspects of health that may not be strictly medical. That close relationship family medicine physicians build with their patients over time is something UtahAFP.org | 18