EPISODE 12: ELIAS KAHAN

Interview by Josh Shin
Photograph by Nadiv Hossain

February 23, 2020

My two big passions outside of medicine are sports and traveling. I want to do something that allows me to link medicine to those passions.

I love to travel. I love being out of my comfort zone. We started traveling as a family my freshman year of high school. The first trip with my family was to Italy. We did one big summer trip abroad for two to three weeks every summer from the time I was thirteen until I went to college. My parents really instilled in us that the world was bigger than where we lived, and the importance of learning about other cultures. Ever since I’ve been bitten by the travel bug. One of my favorite trips was to Vietnam and Cambodia, not only because I had never been to Asia, but because I had the chance to really get to know the Vietnamese people. My dad, a Urologist, had recently started volunteering there, so it was a blast to meet all of his colleagues. He continues to do mission trips there, I would love to do something similar eventually.

When I went to college I knew I wanted to study abroad. I wanted to be somewhere completely out of my comfort zone, so I studied abroad in Hong Kong. I loved it. When I was in Hong Kong I would get out of class and I would just explore. I would walk around the city with no idea where I was going and without a plan. Just walking around for three hours taking in the city; I never knew when I would happen upon a monastery in the middle of skyscrapers. I had class Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, so I traveled almost every Thursday night and came back on Monday night. I traveled as much as I could: Mainland China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore. I went everywhere I could, I had a great experience.

After school had ended I wanted to go to Laos. I wanted to do some real exploring by myself, which my parents weren’t too happy about. I started in the capital of Laos, Vientiane. It’s a really cool French colonial city with great banh mi’s. From there I went to Luang Prabang which was a staging point for me to go spelunking, which is like hiking in caves. From Luang Prabang I took a bus 4 hours to the middle of nowhere. Imagine a school bus filled with a bunch of livestock. When I got out, I realized how alone I was. “Town” was just a small dirt road. There were a few hotels, but they were all empty. I was the only foreigner there. There was no internet, no cable, nothing. This is like 2012, so definitely no Wi-Fi either. And I remember for the first time being like “Shit. I am alone.” My parents don’t know where I am, nobody knows where I am, I was a bit scared. But that night I grabbed dinner at a stand with some people grilling outside, like street food. When I sat down there was another foreigner there who lived in Laos. I ended up staying up drinking beers until super late at night with him and like 10 other people. He was translating between me and the other people; I was just chit chatting, learning about their history and learning about their lives, it was really cool. And that’s the stuff I love. You know, Mark Twain has a quote. It’s like “the biggest antidote to bigotry is traveling, just like learning what’s out there.” I love learning about other people’s cultures and that’s what I mean by putting myself out of my comfort zone.

I was lucky to find friends and a girlfriend who loves exploring too. A few years ago my friends and I created the Adventure Club. We would go abroad once or twice a year on a two-week trip, we’ve been doing it since 2014. We’re trying to do Madagascar this summer. My girlfriend and I have been able to go to some cool places as well. It’s great being able to share those experiences with others. Even when I’m not traveling abroad, I love exploring. I’m from New Hampshire—well Cleveland to New Hampshire, but after being in NYC for 6 years I’m pretty much a New Yorker. I love going from neighborhood to neighborhood and getting a feel for the city. There’s so much variety and culture to learn about without even having to leave NYC. My girlfriend and I recently moved to Downtown Brooklyn, so we’ve been focused on exploring a bunch of different neighborhoods in BK. What I love about New York is that variety; nowhere else in the world can you meet so many types of people and experience their culture, especially the food.

My other passion is sports. I wish studying was as easy as remembering useless sports facts. I shouldn’t know Lebron James’ career 3-pt percentages, but I do. My mom is a school psychologist; my dad is a doctor. Both my parents are huge sports fans, and I get it from them. I’m a diehard Cleveland sports fan, I live and breathe it. I love being able to believe in something greater, be part of a community. I love playing and watching sports too. Soccer is my favorite sport but I ran track and played Ultimate in college, which was a blast.

I was always interested in medicine as a kid, probably given my proximity to it. However in college I was an economics major. I loved economics more than the basic sciences. For me, economics was a thought process and things just clicked. After graduating I worked in consulting for 6 years. I was interested in medicine, but I loved consulting too, so I wanted to try it out before committing to the long road of medicine. Unfortunately I got a bit jaded by consulting. I realized that at the end of the day I wanted to do something where I was able to look back at my career and be like “I’m proud of what I did.” That’s something that is important to me. I wanted to be more hands on doing something, that’s why procedural work is so captivating to me. And that’s what interests me about medicine. But that’s my path to get here. When it's all said and done I would like to do something in medicine that incorporates my passions for traveling and sports, finding a way to link everything would be great.

What are your 5 Most Recently Played Artists on Spotify? 
Big Gigantic, GRiZ, Hamilton (Original Soundtrack), Yo-Yo Ma (I love cello when I study), Queen

If you could have any superpower, which one would you choose?
Apparition- teleport but apparate because Harry Potter is awesome.

Pick something or someone from NYMC to give a shout-out to!
The Litty Committee, Green Rocky’s bubble chat.

If someone wants to talk to you, they should lead with: 
Favorite NYC restaurant.