Marketing and Communications Intern for the Loeb Center Dian Kun Yin ’28 chats with Alumni-in-Residence guest Stefan Breitling ’13 to discuss his career journey in pediatric medicine, and the lessons and advice he has to share with students interested in exploring the healthcare space.
The transcription below has been edited for clarity.
Dian Kun
Welcome back to everyone who is listening. My name is Dian Kun, and today I’m here with our guest of honor, Stephan Breitling, class of 2013. We are absolutely delighted to welcome you back. To start off today, I want to continue the tradition of our podcast by starting with the question: Give us your elevator pitch. Basically, if someone you really respected jumped in an elevator with you or a street interviewer came up to you and asked “what do you do”, what would you say and how would you explain yourself and your work?
Stefan
Yeah, so currently I am an attending physician in adolescent young adult medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital and also an instructor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Practically, what that looks like from an adolescent medicine standpoint is I take care of patients, mostly aged 12 to 24 (a little bit of variance on the end). I see them for primary care, but also for a range of different teenage problems. So, that’s things like mental health, eating disorders, reproductive and sexual health, substance use, weight management, and also work in juvenile justice in the foster care system.
I have a particular interest in working with underserved populations and vulnerable groups, and in working with and mentoring youth in general. From an educational and academic standpoint, I work with medical students in residence and teach them about adolescent medicine and some of those topics. I also have an interest in medical education in general, and so I do some research in that as well.
Dian Kun
Wow, that sounds like a really broad range of areas that you cover. Branching off what you said earlier about being interested in patient advocacy, your alumni in residence profile mentions that you have a specific interest in serving underserved and marginalized adolescent patients, and also advocating for policies to address structural health care disparities. When you consider all the different careers in the healthcare space, what drew you to medicine in particular, as opposed to other practitioner roles or even in public health?
Stefan
Yeah, I think for me, it was that advocacy piece. I actually had a very strong interest in public health when I was here as an undergraduate. I was at the part of the founding of the Amherst College Public Health Collaborative, and actually, the way I kind of got interested in medicine was through a public health lens initially. What I found, at least for me, is that when I was only looking at things from that really zoomed-out view from the public health policy view, it felt a little abstract. I really liked the chance to have some of that direct contact and then be able to, in the moment, apply some of those broad picture principles of public health understanding. Like, this person is coming from a background or an environment where they have limited access to resources; how can I help provide them with resources? It’s like applying that public health knowledge on an individual basis.
Then, from an advocacy standpoint, justified or not, I also felt that you end up having people listen to your voice a lot more when you’re coming from that physician role specifically. That was something that I wanted – to have a chance of being able to share my expert opinion and have policymakers listen to that.
Dian Kun
Yeah. Well, it sounds like your pathway to medicine started in some ways at Amherst, and I’d love to rewind a bit and talk about your time here. At Amherst, did you always have a clear sense of direction, and were you always drawn to medicine in particular?
Stefan
I would say no, not at Amherst specifically. As I said, I did a lot of public health work. I was also really interested in education as well as education policy. I was a neuroscience major because I liked neuroscience. Then I realized it also gets all the pre-med requirements done, so I just don’t have to think about them, since I’ll be passively completing them as I do these things that I am interested in. So, if I get to the end and I am still interested, then maybe I’d apply to medical school.
But meanwhile, while I was here, I was mostly like this education policy group sounds interesting, let me do that, or, this public health opportunity sounds interesting, let me do that. It was mostly going from one thing I liked to something else I liked. It was only later, towards the end of senior year, that I looked back and realized that a lot of this did make sense for me, and that maybe I am more interested in medicine. That’s where I put together the actual application and started thinking about applying.
Dian Kun
Yeah, that’s awesome! As a doctor, I’m sure you’ve seen many things in the industry working broadly across pediatrics. Based on the challenges that you’ve seen in the area, do you have any specific area or career that you’d encourage students to explore beyond medicine?
Stefan
Absolutely. I think one of the nice things about adolescent medicine is that we work very closely with a lot of different fields. For example, I work very closely with a lot of dietitians. We also have an amazing social work department, and I work very closely with a lot of them, too.
If there was one area that I would encourage people to go into and think about, from a mental health standpoint, it would be therapists. You can go into that through a social work angle, but we also have some PhD or master’s level psychologists who then go into therapy. There’s a huge mental health need, particularly in the adolescent and young adult population, and there’s also a huge need for mental health providers. If you want to have a really big impact, especially in that population of vulnerable patients, that’s an area that has a huge need.
Dian Kun
Since you went into pediatrics immediately, were there any conversations or experiences that really helped to narrow down your interest in this field?
Stefan
Yeah, I think for me, I had a few that I was picking between. When I was reaching that time in medical school, I remember looking at emergency medicine, ob-gyn, and also pediatrics and family medicine. Emergency medicine – After experiencing emergency medicine a little, I felt like I liked it, but I didn’t want to be in that environment every single day, although I liked it in short doses. Ob-gyn – I realized that I was actually more interested in reproductive health and sexual health, and not so much in some of the surgical stuff that they do.
So that’s how I narrowed that down. Then, it was really down to family medicine or pediatrics. I think I would have been happy in and would have felt really fulfilled in either field because they both are focused on serving and building up the health of communities and working with vulnerable patients and populations. So, they’re both great. I think the final deciding factor was my interest in working with young people, and the idea that if you can address some of the challenges that young people are facing, then you can really change the trajectory of their lives. It was the chance to have that really big, long-term impact that can help them before these negative things really cause disparities in their health later on. So that was ultimately the deciding factor. But I think both of those fields are amazing.
Dian Kun
Stemming off of that – Do you think there are a lot of crossovers between a career in medicine versus, say, a career in policy work when trying to address these structural inequities and disparities?
Stefan
Meaning like crossing from medicine into one of those different paths?
Dian Kun
I guess a better way of phrasing that would probably be, how do you address these structural inequities and disparities through a career in medicine?
Stefan
Oh, yeah. Especially in fields like family medicine and pediatrics, advocacy is kind of built in, on a certain level. It’s a major fundamental part of that training. That can look different for various levels, whether that’s on a community level where you might be doing community outreach, doing presentations within your local community, or reaching out to a local elected official. But, it can definitely go to higher levels, where you may beht be meeting with state or national level representatives and giving your expert opinion on various policies.
You can also be involved in other ways, like writing op-eds and things like that. For all these things, coming from a medical background carries a lot of weight, especially if you’re in one area for a long time and are known in that community, where you can build up relationships with these people and have a really significant impact. And in that way, you can shape policy and the health of the community.
Dian Kun
Yeah! So, one of the goals of the health care community at the Loeb Center is to broaden students’ understanding of the different areas of health, in addition to medicine, and so on. With that in mind, if you could go back in college time and give advice to a student interested in health, what would you tell them?
Stefan
You definitely shouldn’t feel like medicine is the only way to have an impact. I think there’s sometimes this belief of like, I wouldn’t be using my degree from this liberal arts place fully if I’m not doing something like medicine or going for that highest level of degree. I think that’s definitely a false and inaccurate way of viewing it. You can have an incredible impact through nursing, and that doesn’t just mean being an RNN or a bedside nurse – there are a lot of advanced degrees within nursing where you can do independent practice. There is actually a lot of nursing research if you’re interested in the academic side of things. Similarly, if you want a clinical role that’s larger but don’t necessarily want to go through all the medical school level stuff, a physician’s assistant role is a field that is expanding incredibly rapidly, and a lot of them are incredible providers. That’s definitely another very financially positive approach to getting heavily involved in healthcare and having a really big impact.
Dian Kun
And conversely, for a student who’s interested in medicine in particular, what would be your advice for them?
Stefan
I think medicine is a great career path. I think my main advice would be to go and do the activities that you find interesting – Whatever it is in medicine that is drawing you to it, try to do activities that let you explore that more, regardless of whether they look like classic pre-med activities. You don’t need to box yourself in, and you don’t have to be afraid of doing other things outside of just a very straight and narrow path. You can still be a very competitive applicant, since you would also be a more well-rounded person. I think ultimately, if you do choose medicine, you will feel more secure in that decision because you’ve explored some of these other interests.
Dian Kun
That’s great, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today, Stefan.
