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Academic Advising

Yale School of Medicine recognizes the special importance of academic advising and career counseling for medical students. The Academic Advising Program provides academic and career guidance to medical students while contributing to their professional development. Academic advisors are knowledgeable about the Yale System of Education, as well as curriculum and graduation requirements. They are informed and up to date about student assessment, board examinations, residency application processes, extracurricular opportunities at Yale, 5th year options, joint degree programs and the thesis requirement. Your advisor is a valuable resource who will follow your academic and professional performance, offering guidance and feedback throughout your time at Yale.

Career Development

Deciding on a career path in medicine is a process that can span the entire time you are in medical school and is all about self-discovery, connecting with good mentors, exploring your options and making a decision.

The Office of Student Affairs is strongly committed to assisting you find the right career. We are here to help every step of the way, from finding mentors, choosing electives, deciding on a specialty, to applying for residencies, and more.

Academic Advisors

  • Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine; Director, Emergency Medicine Clerkship

    Dr. Jubanyik was born in Camden, NJ, raised in Philadelphia, but now lives in the Westville section of New Haven. She went to Brown University for undergrad, did a post-baccalaureate Pre-Health program at UPenn and worked in Neuropsychology for five years between college and medical school. She received her medical degree from Yale School of Medicine and completed residency training in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Women’s Health, both at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Subsequently, she entered the first residency class for Emergency Medicine at Yale New-Haven Hospital and upon graduating, was hired as faculty for the Department of Emergency Medicine, Education Division. In addition to working clinically in the Emergency Department, she supervises students in a clinical outpatient setting for undocumented patients at the HAVEN Free Clinic. She serves on the Yale-New Haven Hospital Bio-ethics Committee, has obtained additional training in End-of-Life and Palliative Care, and is the National Chair of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine’s Palliative Care Interest Group. She is a section leader in the Professional and Ethical Responsibility course taught to pre-clinical students and continues to teach student workshops devoted to recognizing and treating survivors of Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Assault. Dr. Jubanyik had two small children when she started medical school, had a third during medical school and a fourth during her EM residency, so is happy to help anyone with questions about work-life balance during medical school and beyond. In her spare time, she enjoys swimming, hiking local trails, going to all New Haven’s great restaurants, and going to the beach with a good book. Dr. Jubanyik loves serving as an Academic Advisor and looks forward to meeting all of you and welcomes anyone who is interested to shadow her in the Emergency Department.
  • Associate Professor of Medicine (General Medicine); Academic Advisor, Student Affairs

    As a clinician-educator based at the VA primary care clinic, I spend the majority of my time providing primary care for my panel of veterans. I enjoy caring for this remarkably complex population and feel fortunate that my position also allows me the opportunity for collegial learning and teaching with residents and medical students in the inpatient setting and in clinic. Over the past decade, I have become more involved with undergraduate medical education at the Yale School of Medicine, mainly through the Clinical Skills Committee and teaching small groups of medical students on various topics ranging from Professionalism to Intimate Partner Violence. I lead the Problem-Focused Patient Examination Workshop, an extremely well-received workshop during the Primary Care/Psychiatry clerkship which uses role play to teach all third-year medical students how to do a focused visit. Due to my background in clinical skills and assessment, I was selected to serve as a Clinical Assessment Coach focusing on direct observation and formative feedback and have used these skills as Director of Remediation for Yale Medical students and now as an Academic Advisor in the Office of Student Affairs at the School of Medicine. My academic interests have always been grounded in medical education, and include undergraduate medical education, clinical skills teaching, coaching and remediation.
  • Assistant Clinical Professor of Surgery (Gastrointestinal)

    Dr. O’Brien earned a B.A. from St. Anselm’s College in 1979 and a Ph.D. in Anatomy and Neuroscience from Wake Forest University in 1988 where he was the recipient of the Norman Sulkin Scholarship Award in Neuroanatomy. Dr. O’Brien completed his studies at Wake Forest University with an M.D. in 1991. After an internship at Waterbury Hospital Health Center, he completed his residency and chief residency at The Yale School of Medicine in the Department of Surgery at Yale-New Haven Hospital in 1996. Dr. O’Brien then joined Surgical Associates of New Haven, P.C. and received his Board Certification in General Surgery. Since his appointment as Assistant Clinical Professor of Surgery in 1996, Dr. O’Brien has been teaching the Gross Anatomy course in the Yale School of Medicine in conjunction with his surgical practice. He has helped create an entirely new course “Clinical Anatomy” that emphasizes a clinically relevant surgical approach to anatomy. He has been a mentor to medical students on their third-year rotations in Surgery since its inception in 2001. Since joining the Yale-New Haven Hospital medical staff, Dr. O’Brien has been asked to serve on a number of Hospital Committees including YNHH OR Committee, Co-Chair of NSQIP Subcommittee on Surgical Site Infection, Temple Surgical Medical Board, YNHH Medical Board, YNHH Administrative Medical Board, and he is the President-Elect for the Yale Surgical Society. In 2000, he was elected Associate Chief – Section of General Surgery. Dr. O’Brien has been an academic advisor in the medical school since its inception several years ago. Dr. O’Brien is involved in the International Education of Yale Medical Students in that he brings a Yale medical student with him on his annual two-week surgical rotation in Mwandi, Zambia. In further demonstration of his commitment to teaching, he serves as a Fellow of Yale University’s Trumbull College where he also serves as a Freshman Advisor. Dr. O’Brien was awarded the Bohmfalk Teaching Prize 2005-2006 for Clinical Sciences at Yale School of Medicine and inducted into the Yale School of Medicine’s Society of Distinguished Teachers.
  • Dan Adams and Amanda Adams Professor of General Medicine; Chief, Section of General Internal Medicine

    Dr. O’Connor is a Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Yale Section of General Internal Medicine. He came to Yale as a fellow in the Yale Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program after completing his training in Internal Medicine at The University of Rochester. Dr. O’Connor’s research and scholarly work have focused on the interface between primary care and addiction medicine including the integration of primary care and drug abuse treatment services and strategies for treating opioid and alcohol dependence in primary care and other generalist settings. He has written nearly 200 scientific papers on these topics and his work has been published in leading medical journals including The New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA. He has served as President of 2 major national organizations that focus on addiction medicine. As Section Chief he has built one of the leading such programs in the United States which includes over 100 Yale clinician-educators and clinical investigators who focus on areas such as HIV disease, vascular disease, cancer, quality and safety, occupational and environmental health, and medicine and the humanities. He is an active teacher in both inpatient and outpatient settings at Yale and has his own primary care practice. Dr. O’Connor and his wife have 3 sons and he has been at Yale for almost 30 years. He loves everything that Yale, New Haven, and New England have to offer including the arts, great food, skiing, sailing, and the best sports teams in the country including, of course, the Yale Bulldogs. Although he was born and raised in Albany, NY, his parents grew up in New Haven and he especially enjoys having lots of family in the area.
  • Associate Professor of Therapeutic Radiology; Vice Chair for Clinical Research, Therapeutic Radiology; Chief, Thoracic Radiotherapy Program, Therapeutic Radiology; Assistant Medical Director, Clinical Trials Office, Yale Cancer Center; Head of College, Purple College, Office of Student Affairs

    Dr. Park was born in Baltimore, MD, and raised in Edison, NJ. He came to Yale as an undergraduate in 2003, and remained there for medical school and radiation oncology residency before joining the faculty in 2017. He serves as associate professor, vice chair for clinical research, and chief of thoracic radiotherapy for the Department of Therapeutic Radiology, where he specializes in treating lung cancer and head and neck cancer. He has previously been associate residency program director, medical student electives director, and continuing medical education director. During medical school at Yale, he had a rich extracurricular experience as class president, director of the second-year show, conductor of the Ultrasounds a cappella group, football coach and chamber musician for Hunger & Homelessness Auction events, clinical and referrals volunteer for the HAVEN Free Clinic, and interviewer for the Admissions Committee. He took a 5th year, simultaneously completing a master's in public health degree at Harvard and a one-year clinical research fellowship at Yale. In his spare time, he enjoys playing tennis and golf, playing and singing classical music, watching sports, and spending time with his wife, two children, and Yorkie.
  • Professor of Medicine (General Medicine); Program Director, Addiction Medicine Fellowship, Internal Medicine; Academic Advisor, Office of Student Affairs; Associate Director for Education and Training, Program in Addiction Medicine, Internal Medicine; Vice-chief for Education, General Internal Medicine; Professor, Chronic Disease Epidemiology

    Dr. Tetrault is an Associate Professor of Medicine and a clinician educator in the Section of General Internal Medicine at Yale School of Medicine. She is the Program Director for the Yale Addiction Medicine Fellowship. She is a primary care physician and addiction medicine specialist at the APT Foundation, which is a large, open access treatment program in New Haven CT which provides care to over 6,000 patients. There she provides primary care services and chronic disease management, including HIV and Hepatitis C treatment; assessment and ongoing treatment of alcohol, opioid and other substance use disorders; ambulatory detoxifications; and harm reduction services. She is co-director of the Addiction Recovery Clinic at Yale New Haven Hospital St. Raphael’s Campus Adult Primary Care Center, which is an addiction treatment clinic embedded within primary care practice which serves a dual clinical and educational mission for Yale residents and medical students. For the past 10 years, Dr. Tetrault has served as the Internal Medicine Team Leader for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration-funded Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) initiative at Yale University School of Medicine. She is the president-elect of the American College of Academic Addiction Medicine. She is certified in addiction medicine through the American Board of Preventive Medicine, co-chair of the Society of General Internal Medicine’s (SGIM) Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Use Interest Group, and past- president for the New England Region of SGIM. In June 2017, Dr. Tetrault was selected as a Macy Foundation Faculty Scholar to develop an interprofessional longitudinal addiction curriculum at Yale Schools of Medicine and Nursing. She was recognized by the Association of Medical Education and Research in Substance use and Addiction (AMERSA) with the W. Anderson Spickard Award for Excellence in Mentorship in 2018. Her academic interest focuses on improving care of patients with substance use and the chronic diseases associated with addiction and her work has included epidemiologic investigation, investigation of unique delivery care models, examination of safety of addiction pharmacotherapies, and addiction medicine curriculum design, evaluation, and dissemination.