Alumni in Medicine: Matthew Brown ’13

• Medical Student, Emory School of Medicine ’23
• Incoming Psychiatry Resident at Columbia University
• M.H.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
• B.A. in Public Health, Johns Hopkins University

Describe your responsibilities and day-to-day work.
As a medical student, I am constantly on different clinical rotations. Whether it’s scrubbing into the operating room for an appendectomy, or rounding on patients in the psychiatry inpatient unit, my duties and experiences change with the rotation that I am on. The time I spend in the hospital or clinic is very dependent on the rotation I am on as well as the team I’m working with. In the outpatient setting, my days are rather consistent in terms of time (normally from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.). However, during my surgery rotation, there were many days that required me to be at the hospital by 5 a.m. and I wouldn’t leave until 7 p.m. My responsibilities normally require me to look after three to four patients, obtain histories regarding what brought them into the hospital or clinic, perform physical exams, present my findings to my team, call consults, order labs, follow up with their families, and write notes. Outside of the clinical setting, I have to study for clinical rotation exams as well as board exams. I’m also very involved in activities related to medical school including Student Government, the Curriculum Committee, and our school’s chapter of the Student National Medical Association.

What is the most rewarding part of your work?
Getting to know patients has always been most rewarding for me. While they come to the hospital or clinic for the health concern, you invariably learn about their life outside of their health issue. Those moments are what provide me with the most joy, especially knowing that many patients feel the same way. It’s also part of the reason I was drawn so much to psychiatry as the field inherently requires you to really get to know the patient outside of their psychiatric condition.

How did your passion for medicine/health care begin and were there any specific experiences that had an impact on you?
For me, the first exposure I had to medicine was the pre-med seminar that Mr. Newman offered as an elective. I didn’t even know what pre-med meant at that time but signed up for the course. Each week we got to hear from a different physician about their specialty and their path to get there. While at the time I had not seriously considered a career in medicine, it did allow me the opportunity to hear about the field broadly. Mr. Newman then sent me to a recruitment program for underrepresented students in medicine to attend at Cooper Medical School. That experience made me contemplate a career in medicine as a reality and from there I pursued the idea during my time at Johns Hopkins University.

How has your Moorestown Friends education served you in your career and life?
Moorestown Friends gave me a solid foundation in terms of study skills, the freedom to explore my interests, as well as a supportive community to foster my growth not only as a student but as a person. While every step of my educational experience has helped me to get to the place I am today, MFS served as the springboard from which every other step for me was made possible.

Do you have any additional MFS stories or memories you would like to share that were influential in your life?
I can’t think of one memory in particular that sticks out amongst the rest, but that’s a good thing. MFS was a very positive experience for me and I’m grateful for the robust amount of experiences, memories, friends, and faculty that helped to shape me and  provide me with some of the most fundamental points in my life.

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