Interview with Dr. Alexa Mieses, family medicine resident, mentor & writer [Show Summary]

Do you want to be a clinician? Are you concerned about your ability to gain acceptance to med school? Listen in to today’s interview with the author of The Heartbeat of Success: A Med Student's Guide to Med School Admissions, Dr. Alexa Mieses.

The journey of a family practitioner, author, advocate [Show Notes]

Our guest today is Dr. Alexa Mieses, who has an MD and MPH and in her own words, "strives to have influence beyond the confines of the examination room." She is a resident physician in the Department of Community and Family Medicine at Duke University Medical Center. In addition to providing clinical care to marginalized patient populations, Dr. Mieses' interests include population health, increasing diversity in the physician workforce, mentoring premedical students, writing, and research.”

Dr. Mieses graduated from CUNY magna cum laude in 2011. She then studied for her MD/MPH at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai from 2012 to 2016 and graduated with distinction in Research and Excellence in Family Medicine. She has been a Family Medicine Resident at Duke University since 2016 and has earned the Harvey Estes, MD Memorial Award for Leadership and Advocacy.

Can you tell us about your background outside of medicine? Where you grew up? What do you like to do for fun? [2:45]

I am a native New Yorker. I grew up in NYC in Queens and had a very interesting childhood. I am bi-racial - my dad is from the Dominican Republic and my mom is American of Italian/Irish descent, so I grew up in a very ethnically diverse family and neighborhood, which shaped who I am and what I have done in my career. I have been a writer since childhood and have incorporated that into my career and leisure time. I really enjoy spending time with friends and family, and I am a mom of three pets – two cats and a dog.

How did you know you wanted to be a doctor? [3:57]

I really feel like medicine is my calling, and it’s something I’ve thought about since I was a kid. I was first interested in science when I was 3 or 4 and told my parents that I wanted to be a marine biologist. I was a big nerd and loved watching National Geographic specials, and I would read encyclopedias. I was always fascinated by life science. My mom actually got me interested in medicine – not because she is a doctor, and in fact neither one of my parents went to college. My mom had diabetes, but I remember helping her check her blood sugar and going with her to her doctor and seeing the positive relationship she had with her doctor and wanting to have that same positive impact on someone’s life.

What was the hardest part of the med school application process for you? [5:26]

I remember that it was a marathon and not a sprint. In hindsight I feel like I lived, breathed, and slept my dream of becoming a physician, which meant I was very intentional about what I did. For example, I was accepted to both a science high school and a performing arts high school. I probably would have been fine going to either, but at the time it felt do or die, and so I chose the science high school. As another example, in my first and second years of college I was working fulltime in addition to going to school fulltime so I had to make serious decisions about the type of job I took that would allow me enough time to...