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Every summer, BWH welcomes a distinguished and diverse group of residents to its training programs. Three of this year’s new residents shared their unique stories with BWH Bulletin.
George Lin, MD, PhD Pathology
George Lin, MD, PhD, received a phone call after his freshman year at Harvard University that changed his life. Lin was invited to intern at the National Cancer Institute in Maryland. As he worked on vaccine research, Lin became inspired.
“I loved immunology and molecular biology,” Lin said. “What better way to apply this interest than to developing a vaccine for AIDS?”
After completing his biochemistry degree and entering medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, Lin wanted to continue researching vaccines. At age 22, he joined with two of his colleagues at the NCI to form a vaccine development company in Frederick, Maryland, called Biological Mimetics, Inc.
“It was a wonderful learning experience,” he said. Lin took time off from medical school to get the company off the ground, which aims to find vaccines for illnesses such as HIV/AIDS, the flu and the common cold.
After a year, Lin went back to continue his medical education. “For a moment, I considered a law or business degree, but I truly missed medicine,” he said. He returned to UPenn, finished both his medical and doctorate degrees in 2003, writing his doctoral thesis on HIV envelope glycoprotein-receptor interactions. He returned to work full-time for the company, where he stayed for four years as the COO and CFO. During this time, he researched vaccines in collaboration with the Department of Defense, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and pharmaceutical companies.
Once he chose to specialize in anatomic pathology, he decided to begin residency at BWH. “While my interests are broad, I ultimately want to specialize in pathodermatology,” he said, noting that he would like to research melanomas, wound healing and hair regulation with a continued interest in HIV pathogenesis. “I definitely see myself doing clinical work in the future but it’s hard to say where,” he said. “There are so many options that it’s hard to predict what the future will look like.”
Beth Riviello, MD Internal Medicine
Beth Riviello, MD, has worked in several different jobs since graduating from college, but one theme has remained common in her work: she loves to help people. This passion has taken her half way around the world in her effort to give everything possible to those who need it.
Riviello fortified this passion just after medical school while working in a new hospital in Angola, Africa.
“I learned how to be a doctor there,” she said, adding that she did not know the language, and many of the hospital staff had received education only through the fourth grade. “It was the hardest year of my life. My experience makes me really grateful to be back here because I am so motivated to learn more.”
Riviello said joining BWH’s Internal Medicine residency this summer has made her “unnaturally happy” because she is working directly with patients and alongside people who share her enthusiasm and interests. “I’ve met people who I click with because we have so much in common,” she said of her fellow residents.
Before choosing medicine, Riviello earned her undergrad degree in government at Harvard and took a job with the Massachusetts Housing Alliance as a political advocate for homeless people. She then worked on social service policy and economic research, focusing on welfare, low-income housing and social security.
Riviello then traveled to Kenya and Uganda for economic research work. She also spent time in hospitals with her husband, Robert, a surgery fellow at BWH.
Soon after, Riviello began medical school at Vanderbilt University. “I chose internal medicine because I really like working with patients,” she said.
Riviello, who also spent time on HIV research in Botswana and Zambia while in medical school, aspires to return to Africa after residency to work with patients and find ways to impact health care policy.
Jonathan Hargreaves, MD Radiology
Jonathan Hargreaves’ path to medicine wasn’t direct from college; he pursued both journalism and teaching before finding his way to medical school.
After the Atlanta native earned a dual degree in chemistry and English at Williams College, he took a job as a high school chemistry teacher in Maryland. “It was a very exciting job, but also very challenging,” he said. “Trying to involve every student in what you teach and devising a plan that won’t leave some kids out but also challenges others was a big part of planning lessons.”
After three years, Hargreaves moved on, determined to find a way to practice both science and writing. That search manifested in a job writing for the trade journal The Gray Sheet. “I reported on House legislation affecting the medical device field,” said Hargreaves, whose work at the journal took him everywhere from Capitol Hill to medical conferences around the country.
He particularly enjoyed reporting on the panels that determined whether a device should gain FDA approval. “It was exciting to watch 10 doctors in one particular field debating whether a device merits approval into the market,” he said.
After four years of covering the medical world, Hargreaves decided it was time to enter it. He applied to and was accepted to George Washington University, and, after an internship in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center last year, he was thrilled to join BWH’s Radiology Department this summer.
“We don’t get a ton of radiology experience in medical school, and I think for everybody choosing a residency is kind of an act of faith,” he said.
So far, it’s everything he hoped it would be. “The program at the Brigham is phenomenal, and I’m really enjoying it,” he said.