This note was written by Neelam Khan, MGUH Internal Medicine Alumni (‘2017) and Georgetown School of Medicine (M’ 2016). 

Dr. Khan is currently a PGY3 dermatology resident at SUNY Downstate.

I just wanted to send a quick note of genuine thanks to you and all of the Medicine Department teaching faculty at WHC for preparing me so well as a dermatology prelim, with a strong foundation of adult medicine during that one year. Who knew that all the studying, memorizing, and preparing for my ICU block and that test, using portions of the blue book to help me understand and not embarrass myself in front of Dr. Shorr, would become invaluable knowledge for a derm resident in Brooklyn to have during this pandemic. I was deployed to work in the COVID inpatient unit at Kings County Hospital and SUNY Downstate, and while it was of course overwhelming and distressing in many ways, I was at least constantly comforted by the fact that the knowledge I gained during my prelim year at WHC came back pretty quickly, because it was very much there in the back of my brain from over 2.5 years ago. It gave me confidence to be a physician first, knowing that I had the basic medicine training to be doing what I was doing to help take care of our COVID patients (despite being a “deployed derm resident”).

So thank you. I am so grateful to you, all the faculty/staff, the entire dept of medicine at WHC for so much right now. I was blessed to learn all that I did during my prelim year, mostly from the fact that the teaching/academic environment was just so good that no matter what your specialty, you absorbed important/useful information and it stuck. I am proud that I trained with your program for my prelim year and that it gave me the ability to do my part here in NYC to help save patient lives. Please send my appreciation and thanks to everyone.