Why did you choose medicine?
Choosing medicine as a career seemed like an obvious choice for me. I come from a family of physicians—my parents and maternal and paternal grandfathers are all doctors, so truth be told, I never really considered an alternate path.
My fascination with the art of coming to a diagnosis by gathering and piecing together information from several avenues led me to internal medicine and, by extension, rheumatology. (Internal medicine on steroids? Pun intended.)
Why did you choose the Yale Department of Internal Medicine for your fellowship?
Several factors made this decision easy for me. I worked closely with my mentor, Monique Hinchcliff, MD, MS, during residency and was fortunate to be awarded the prestigious Rheumatology Research Foundation Resident Research Preceptorship award. She was instrumental in guiding me during this process, and I wanted to continue this relationship during the next step of my training.
Apart from this, Yale offers unprecedented access to various avenues of academic advancement. I was excited to learn from leaders in the field of rheumatology. It also helped that New Haven wasn’t too much of a move from Hartford, where I completed my internal medicine residency, and that I have a lot of family in the area.
What was your path to Yale?
I am fortunate to have grown up experiencing many different environments and cultures. I was born in Bahrain and completed much of my schooling there. I moved to India to complete high school and medical school, then to the U.S. to work as a visiting research scholar in the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Indiana University. I completed my internal medicine residency at the University of Connecticut and matched at Yale to pursue my dream fellowship.
What is a fun fact about you?
I’m an avid gamer. My gamer handle on the PS5 is still the same one my best friend and I came up with in elementary school while playing games on the PS1.
The Department of Internal Medicine at Yale School of Medicine is among the nation's premier departments, bringing together an elite cadre of clinicians, investigators, educators, and staff in one of the world's top medical schools. To learn more, visit Internal Medicine.