Our guest today is a fourth year medical student at Stony Brook who graduated from UC San Diego with a bachelors in Physiology and Neuroscience. Nothing too unusual there for a medical student. However, things start to get interesting, maybe even enchanting, when we learn a little about his hobby: magic. He has been performing magic since middle school. He performed at the well-known Magic Castle in Hollywood and at parties and events in the LA area. He retired from performing magic at age 20, but by then had founded MagicAid. Let’s learn more about that initiative now. Welcome, David!

Can you tell us a bit about your background – where are you from? [1:25]

I’m a fourth year at Stony Brook. I grew up in LA, and did my undergrad at UCSD.

How did you come to medicine? [1:55]

I actually had a pretty circuitous path. Since a young age I knew I was interested in science and medicine, but I wasn’t sure in what capacity.

I was actually a dance major my first three years in college, and then switched to physiology and neuroscience in my fourth year. After graduation, I worked in entertainment (casting, etc.) and in tech, before applying to med school.

How many years were you out of college before coming to med school? [2:58]

I graduated in 2011, and took three gap years. I took the MCAT my senior year and applied to med school in the last year of my MCAT eligibility.

How did you get into magic? [4:06]

My mom would buy me magic tricks when I was a kid. And I had a magician perform at my Bar Mitzvah – and I was hooked!

I had a group of friends in middle and high school who would play card games and do magic. Later I auditioned for membership in the Magic Castle.

What’s MagicAid? [5:30]

It’s dedicated to relieving stress and anxiety for the pediatric population (in the hospital setting) through performing magic and teaching them magic. We call it “magic therapy.”

It started when I was in high school. I was volunteering as an orderly at a hospital. I saw a girl crying in her room – she was anxious about an upcoming surgery. I had a deck of cards on me, because I often carried cards to practice magic tricks. I spent time performing magic for her, and she completely forgot about her surgery.

I went to my supervisor and asked if, in addition to my other volunteer duties, I could spend time each week performing magic for the patients.

How has MagicAid grown? [7:30]

One of the nurses on the peds floor nominated me for a “cool kids” segment on the local ABC news. And later I was invited by the head of Magic Castle to be on his innovation committee.

But it wasn’t until I started med school that I revamped it and started performing magic for kids at Stony Brook Hospital – and training other med students and healthcare providers to participate as well.

We now have 60 med students trained to perform magic.

Are the participants all from Stony Brook, or are you branching out? [9:50]

Right now, all from Stony Brook. But we’re getting a lot of media attention (we were featured on the NBC Nightly News), and interest is spreading.

Looking back at your med school application process – what was the hardest part for you? [11:20]

The essays – you have to write a lot! The