WCMC-Q alumnus appointed assistant chief of service

July, 2015

A WCMC-Q alumnus has been honored for his residency work by one of the best medical programs in the U.S.

Dr. Shady Nakhla, of the Class of 2012, has been appointed assistant chief of service for Johns Hopkins internal medicine residency program. The role is the highest honor that the residency program can bestow upon a resident, and will mean that once he takes up the position, Dr. Nakhla will not only be involved in clinical care but also with resident education and mentorship, both inside and outside of work.

Dr. Nakhla said matching with Johns Hopkins had been one of the biggest things to have happened to him, and that the course at WCMC-Q had prepared him for the rigors of residency.

He said: “The Johns Hopkins internal medicine residency program is arguably the best in the country and to have matched there was a great honor. Going to work there everyday is quite humbling especially when I appreciate the magnitude of accomplishments people around me have obtained. 

“Of course, the environment WCMC-Q provides is certainly unique. Focusing on the clinical years at Cornell, our ability as medical students to spend time both in New York and in Qatar exposed us to a variety of patient populations, disease varieties and styles of practicing medicine. That certainly paid dividends throughout my residency career.” 

There are major changes between being a medical student and a resident, though, and for Dr. Nakhla one of the biggest has been the realization that career progress as a doctor is not linear – one has to make decisions about which direction to go – whereas as a student, there was more structure.

He said: “As a medical student and early trainee physician, your path in the field of medicine is fairly pre-defined - you take a bunch of tests, try to do well, decide what specialty you want to do and start residency. As you progress through residency, you realize that being a doctor isn't as structured; you need to decide on the type of career you want: primarily doing research, primarily teaching or primarily doing clinical medicine only - or potentially a mix of all three. There is only so much advice people can give you on how to make these decisions.”

There also comes a point when you become the person that others turn to for advice, a challenging prospect for anyone in any career, but even more so when a patient’s health is at stake.

 “As a student, your main goal is to learn,” Dr. Nakhla said. “As a resident, you still need to learn but you quickly realize that you are it, you are the doctor and no one else will get work done if you don't do it. You are the person your patient will call when they get sick, you are the person the medical team will turn to when things turn south. The sooner you realize that, the easier that transition becomes.”

Dr. Nakhla will now move to Cleveland Clinic in Ohio to start his fellowship in cardiovascular disease, before returning to Baltimore and Johns Hopkins in July 2016 for a year to take up the position of ACS. He will then return to Cleveland for to years to finish his fellowship.