Throughout college, my volunteer experience had thoroughly impressed upon me the therapeutic and empowering nature of storytelling as well as how physicians can profoundly improve patients’ quality of life. Going into medical school, I was unsure of what specialty I wanted to pursue, but I knew that I wanted to empower patients to reclaim control over their livelihoods, health, and bodies.

In the first few weeks of medical school, I asked every upperclassman I met, “What specialty do you wish you had known more about earlier on in medical school?” Nearly everyone mentioned urology, so I eventually decided to shadow to learn more about the specialty. In my first week of shadowing, I was immediately impressed by the range of conditions treated and procedures performed by urologists. Ultimately, I was inspired by how urologists provided safe spaces for patients to finally voice their silent suffering, from the patient bound to his home due to his incontinence and freed by an artificial urethral sphincter, to the couple struggling with male factor infertility. As I continued to shadow and learn more about the field, my newfound interest in urology eventually led me to Dr Mohit Khera and his work in sexual medicine.

Dr Khera immediately became an important mentor as he set an amazing example of what it means to be a physician through his ability to listen to the complex stories of patients’ lives and health, to empathize, and to counsel. I watched Dr Khera hold thorough conversations with patients about current research to help patients both understand the current knowledge in urology and make the most informed decisions for their health. Through these conversations, I saw the integral role research played in not only advancing the field of urology but also in conducting good, empowering patient care.

Additionally, in my first year of medical school, I took a course on medical advocacy for patients with disabilities and was intrigued by the prevalent health inequities experienced by patients with spinal cord injury, especially regarding their sexual health. With this interest, I worked with Dr Khera on my first urology project, “Current Concepts, Therapies, and Recommendations to Assist Fertility Outcomes in Male Patients with Spinal Cord Injury,” a narrative review of the management of erectile dysfunction and infertility in this patient population. From developing a research question to eventually submitting the manuscript, I learned what the research process truly entailed from beginning to end.

Inspired by this project, I was hungry for more research opportunities and met Michelle Dai, a prior Urology Care Foundation™ (UCF) Summer Medical Student Fellow. By helping Michelle with her fellowship project on predictive factors of response to collagenase Clostridium histolyticum for Peyronie’s disease, I learned how to conduct retrospective chart reviews and build databases. After reading through patient charts for this project, I was able to eventually meet and speak with some of these patients about their experences with Peyronie’s disease and collagenase Clostridium histolyticum. Being able to connect the encounter notes and lab values from chart reviewing to the actual clinical experiences of these patients reminded me that clinical research is truly based on and for patients and their experiences.

Through my continued research with Dr Khera, I joined the Baylor Andrology Research Consortium, where I could learn about other andrology and sexual medicine research projects. By joining more research projects through this research group, I developed a solid knowledge base of foundational research concepts and eventually built more projects of my own.

By my second year of medical school, research became integral to my perspective on medicine and to my future career as a physician. I also knew that urology was the most appealing specialty through its breadth of patients, pathologies, procedures, and profound impact on patients’ quality of life. Given my dedication to urology and research interest, I ultimately decided to apply for the UCF Summer Medical Student Fellowship. With the mentorship of Dr Khera, I crafted and submitted my project proposal, “Identification of Predictive Factors for Semen Parameter Improvements Following Varicocelectomy.”

In a full circle moment, I received notification of acceptance as a UCF Summer Medical Student Fellow minutes after I finished presenting the findings from my first urology research project on patients with spinal cord injury at the AUA South Central Section Annual Meeting. I was thrilled and am incredibly excited to pursue this project to shed light on the variable improvements following varicocelectomy and its effects on male factor infertility. This fellowship provides an amazing opportunity to dive even deeper into research, and I am grateful for my mentors who have supported me along the way.