Dave Braak, MD and Julia Nelson, MD Resident Spotlight First, a Bit About Julia and Dave Julia: I was born and raised in eastern Tennessee, and then went to college in the mountains of South Carolina. I definitely had that desire to combine being away from home but wanted an easy/short drive back. I moved even farther when I went to medical school at the Medical University of South Carolina at the beach in Charleston. I had a sister who was finishing her last year of radiology residency there, as well as several college friends in the area — again, kind of staying in that comfort zone of the familiar. Growing up in the eastern mountains, I had a huge love for the outdoors. My summers were full of camps, backpacking trips, hiking with family, etc. It was definitely something I missed when living at the beach, and I couldn’t wait to get back to the mountains for residency. Dave: I grew up in Pennsylvania about 20 minutes outside of Philadelphia. None of my family was in medicine; most of them are interested in theatre and art. I used to swim and run cross country when I was in high school, and I was a so-so student. I enlisted in the Army out of high school, and I served in Afghanistan from 2009–2010. After I came home, I went back to school at Temple University in Philadelphia where I majored in Psychology and Neuroscience. I’m pretty jealous of my spare time, but I don’t really spend it all that productively. I play video games and hike, and I like to pretend that I run sometimes. The Journey to Medical School and Family Medicine Julia: So, my family is full of doctors — mom, a pathologist; dad, a radiologist; older sister, also a radiologist; and cousin and grandfather in internal medicine. It was always an obvious option, so obvious that, for a while, I actually intentionally ignored it because I didn’t want to fall into that trap of the “family business.” But I was immediately drawn towards science, particularly chemistry, through high school and actually picked my college, Furman University, because of their superb chemistry program. But I ultimately realized I couldn’t see myself as a PhD, writing grants my whole life. A roommate of mine in college introduced me to plantbased diets and I started a huge investigation into what I now recognize as lifestyle medicine. It was this focus on nutrition and the benefits it could have for patients that finally drove me back toward medicine. I planned on taking a gap year after college and knew going into medical school that I wanted to be a primary care physician. At that point, I’m not sure I knew what family medicine was, but every time | 12
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