Our guest today is a newly minted internal medicine intern at NYU Langone. He just graduated from the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and is starting his residency in Internal Medicine at Langone almost as we speak. He is also an accomplished artist, cartoonist, and writer who uses his “doodling” as a study tool. Welcome, Mike Natter!

Can you tell us a bit about yourself? [1:15]

I was born and raised on the Upper West Side of New York City. I did my undergrad at Skidmore College in upstate NY. At the time, I was geared towards the arts and humanities, so I chose a small liberal arts college.

I did a postbac premed program at Columbia, worked for a bit, and then went to med school at Jefferson Medical College (now called Sidney Kimmel Medical College). And I came home to begin my journey in residency at NYU.

How did you decide to pursue a career in medicine? [2:32]

I grew up much more inclined with the humanities – drawing, painting, history, writing – things that came naturally to me. Math and science were things that were quite daunting. I was told numerous times in school that math and science weren’t my strength – I was put in remedial classes. It wasn’t my thing.

I was diagnosed with Type-1 Diabetes at age nine. You get a window on this amazing biochemistry in your body – and it’s a big responsibility. It gave me an appreciation and sparked my interest. But I was still dealing with my fear of the basic sciences, so my interest in medicine seemed unattainable.

When I went to Skidmore, I was creating a lot of large scale figure drawings. My parents gently expressed a concern that I should add a second area of study in addition to art.

I started taking psych classes – and I didn’t really like it. Until I took a course on the brain. I found a mentor there who brought me into his lab – and I loved it. I was excelling in it.

I’d always needed to do medicine, but I was scared of it.

I finished undergrad with no premed classes – so I enrolled immediately in a postbac program at Columbia. It was such a different experience from my undergrad: a large class size, and the learning style was very different. The premedical sciences are very abstract. I also struggled with the cutthroat atmosphere – it was my first experience of grading on a curve.

I sent out a whole batch of applications, and I was collecting rejection after rejection. It was sobering, but also upsetting – I felt like med schools were flattening people into their GPA and MCATs. I was saddened by the process and becoming embittered by it.

I had been working on a comic book about a diabetic superhero – it was so fulfilling, but I’d left it off my applications.

I went to a med school fair and met admissions officers. I felt dismissed by most of them (they asked me my scores right away). But when I stopped at the Jefferson table, it was a different feeling. The admissions director treated me like an individual. She said, “Your numbers don’t bother me that much – what else do you do?”

Jefferson was my only MD interview. I went to Philadelphia and loved the campus immediately. I was grateful for the interview, and I got in the following year off the waitlist. I truly had a wonderful experience.

Have you always been an artist? [19:30]

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t draw.

I think with practice,