Career Advice for a Future Doc

Medical Q&A [Moderated]
1

Drs. Baraki and Dr. Feigenbaum,

My name is Stewart Glenister. Just a quick background on me:

  1. Rising MS2 at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) School of Medicine
  2. Graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and served as a US Army Infantry Officer for 8 years (now contracted to serve as a doc in the US Army Reserves following residency training)
  3. Former NCAA swimmer at West Point- swam for 14 years competitively
  4. Started barbell training in earnest, following BBM templates/guidance about 1.5 years ago
  5. 31yo, married to a Pharmacist, 1x 2yo son Naturally, throughout my first year of medical school, I spent a fair amount of time pondering how I want to shape my vocation as a care provider following graduation. I am most interested in a hybrid career as a physician like the one you guys have that blends a passion for both medicine and strength/fitness training. I’m interested in a little mentorship in this regard since those doing what you guys are doing are few and far between. I’m not sure what the best method of contacting you guys is since I don’t have social media other than LinkedIn, hence why I’m posting this random message on the BBM forum. Any advice you can provide would be much appreciated.

All the best!

Respectfully,
Stewart Glenister

P.S. Do you guys ever present at medical schools? I’ve mentioned to some of my fellow classmate lifters that it would be awesome if we could get UTMB to bring you guys out for a lecture/clinic of some kind. I was thinking of going through the UTMB Sports Medicine or Lifestyle Medicine Interest Groups.

2

Hi Stewart,

Thanks for your post. There are a few med students who help us with projects here and there, but we don’t have a formal mentorship program currently set up. That’s something that I could see developing in the future, though.

And sure, we are happy to present at schools. I’m work out of San Antonio, so not too far from you.

3

Dr. Baraki,

I know you guys are swamped with work, so I appreciate the reply. Not long after posting this, I noticed a questionnaire from BBM discussing the potential for a mentorship/certification program. In many ways, I feel that would provide much more value than some of the poorly crafted, early clinical exposure learning opportunities we have at our institution currently.

I’d love to provide any help with ongoing projects you guys have as a volunteer if possible and will look into ways we could get you guys out to UTMB.