Episode 6: JOSH KANG

MAY 9, 2024

INTERVIEW BY ERICA THOMAS

Photo by Ivan Dominguez

Edited by Erica Thomas

I need to do a quick mic check before we start. Usually I’ll have people read the back of a book or something but, if it’s alright, I’m gonna hand you my guitar and have you play something for me instead.

Where are you from? 

I was born at Albert Einstein Hospital in the Bronx, but moved pretty much right away with my parents to Massachusetts. I mostly grew up in Lexington. Like… American Revolution. Shot-heard-‘round-the-world Lexington. I was there pretty much until I finished high school. And then I went to college in San Diego. I throw that in there because I feel like San Diego is where I really, like, leveled up. It made sense for me to be there. Like, “Oh yeah, you’re definitely a Cali boy.”

Where are your parents from?

My parents are both from Korea. My mom moved to LA when she was in high school and my dad moved to San Jose when he was in elementary school. They both went to UC Berkeley for college and that’s where they met. They’re both physicians. Actually, originally my mom was an architect and switched it up to pursue medicine like a year or two after she graduated college. She went to school here at NYMC.

She went here?!

Yup! She had me during her fourth year of medical school. There’s a photo that we have of my mom holding me as a baby outside the Basic Sciences Building. After I got accepted here, my parents came down and we kind of recreated that photo. I have it up on Instagram. A little back-to-back photo of me and her, then versus now. 

Super cute! Do you remember getting the acceptance notification? Was it kind of the dream to go here?

It was definitely a top choice. I felt like it would be perfect to go here. When I got the acceptance letter, I was in disbelief. I remember just being pretty stressed out in general from the application process. It was pretty late in the cycle and I was kind of mulling over having to apply again and all that. I had just woken up from a stress nap one day and there were a bunch of emails on my phone from NYMC just saying “Congratulations!” I had to have my roommate read it. Just to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. And it was just like, wow, dream’s do come true. 

Did your parents being physicians influence your decision to pursue medicine as well?

My parents did want me to become a doctor, for sure. When you grow up like that, with both parents as physicians, the idea of going into medicine is always going to be there. It’s always going to be on the radar. I know the next question is always, “Well how much of it is your own decision?” To be quite honest, I don’t think that you can make it this far on someone just telling you to do something. I’m not the kind of person that can do years of schooling and training if I haven't bought into the idea on my own terms as well. So yeah, my parents definitely played a part. But at some point, I realized that this was what I wanted for myself as well. 

What were you like as a kid in school?

In school? Quiet. Very soft-spoken and quiet. I definitely had friends but I was also a little bit of a loner. I’m an only child and, as I’m sure you know, you kind of had to make your own fun in a way. I remember having to go to this math tutoring thing when I was a kid and, whenever we’d get a break, the other kids would hang out outside with each other and talk and I would go walk around the woods. I’d take the same path every time and would just have the best time, like, counting the rocks or counting how many steps it took to complete my route or something like that. I don’t know… I was pretty good at entertaining myself like that. 

Were you a nerd as a child?

Absolutely not. I was naturally bad at school. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever been great at school to be quite honest. 

Really? What’s your secret for making it so far?

Pure grit, pure work ethic, and being a glutton for punishment. I have crazy persistence and I don’t get discouraged. Most of the time at least. That’s the literal reason I’m here. 

What kind of only child hobbies did you have growing up?

I had a lot of, what I would call, weird hobbies in high school. Like I downloaded a cracked version of Adobe After Effects and really got into video editing. I’d watch all these tutorials and just mess around for fun. I was also really into, like, robots. Don’t tell my parents, but I would dissect old electronics and stuff to build things. I once made this ladybug robot. It was kind of like a Roomba. Like it could move and turn 90 degrees and everything. 

I feel like the way you’re describing yourself as a kid and the way you are now are two very different people. What happened there?

I had two pretty big switch ups in high school. One of them is kind of hard to explain. I sort of just started to really think about and question what kind of life I wanted to live. But the second big change happened after I went to this camp. It was the National Student Leadership Conference and it was at UC Berkeley. This happened between my sophomore and junior year of high school. When I got there, I made friends with this guy, Kevin, and we just hit it off with everyone together. We were just super talkative, well-liked, people knew who we were, and all that. I was like, “Wow, is this what being popular is like? This is pretty cool.” I learned a lot about myself during that camp. When I came back, I was a changed man. I realized I could just go up to people and strike up a conversation. It was a skill that I didn’t know I had. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t suddenly become the most popular kid in school or anything. I just went from being a quiet, peripheral character in some friend groups to a much more confident version of myself that was able to get along with people in a lot of different circles. 

Did you play any sports? 

I did. I wrestled and I played volleyball. A lot of my friends were playing volleyball so I decided to hop in on the fun. Wrestling was because, once again, I am a glutton for punishment. The practices were pretty intense. But I enjoyed it. I really liked pushing myself. But my number one hobby at the time was actually dancing. 

Oh yeah? 

Yeah. That was definitely my biggest thing. I picked it up from my cousins who were into breakdancing. I got into it too and then branched off into more hip hop stuff. I liked to create my own choreography. Truthfully, it was more than just a hobby for me - it was my stress relief and was basically how I got away from everything else that might have been going on. That’s something I have kept with me even now. 

You ended up pretty far from home for college, didn’t you?

I did. Actually, I think I literally ended up as far away as I could while still remaining in the mainland U.S. I was super thrilled about UC San Diego though. I was really excited for a new chapter. 

Did you feel homesick at all? Was there an adjustment period?

Honestly, not really. I felt like I was thriving. I lived in a suite initially with, like, twelve other students and I got along really well with a lot of my roommates. I met a lot of really cool people and had really good conversations. I had a core group of friends. It was a really good crew and we went out a lot and were all very social. This was new for me. I think I got to really learn about myself and just thriving socially gave me a whole lot of new confidence. 

Tell me about your fraternity. 

It’s funny because when I started college, I never really understood fraternities. I was like, “What’s the point? Why would I pay to make friends when I can make friends for free?” At some point though, I realized that it was a great way to learn skills and meet tons of people and learn how to introduce yourself and how to communicate. I joined Tau Kappa Epsilon and those guys were my family. My fraternity was something I poured my heart and soul into and I just learned how to be a better man. We were just a bunch of guys who didn’t take ourselves too seriously and just loved experiencing all that there was to experience. 

Do you have any memories from your fraternity days that stand out to you?

Something that will always stand out to me was something my little told me. My little and I were tight. We’re still tight. When we met, we hit it off right away. We did everything together - eat dinner, study, all of that. My little had grown up in rough circumstances and his parents had passed away recently and he had just transferred into my school. I loved hanging out with him, but, at the time, I also kind of felt that he was getting almost too excited about our relationship, like really early on. I’ve always believed that you needed to put time and effort into relationships before you could ask and receive more from each other. So I told him that one day and he told me one of the most heartfelt things anyone’s ever told me. He was basically like, “I know - but it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care how you see me. But when I look at you, you saved my life. You’ve pointed me in a direction that I want to take my life in. So it doesn’t matter what I am to you. Because to me you are my best friend and you are my brother. I don’t care if it takes a million years or whatever, I’m going to be right there for you and I’m going to pay you back one day.” 

And the rest was history for us. He’s gonna be there with me right till the very end. There’s a lot of moments I’ve experienced like that with people as a result of being in TKE. But that’s definitely one that stands out. 

Can you tell me a little bit about how music became a part of your life?

I got put onto music by someone I met at the end of college and I was kind of made to realize how simple music is, but also how complex it can be. That set off a lot of sparks in my brain. I didn’t even know I had this ability to create music. There was one time where they had taught me this C minor root scale and they were like, “If you play any of these notes while I’m doing these chords, it’ll sound good.” So they’re going through this really simple chord progression and I’m just playing these notes and I’m like, “Wow, that really does sound good.” So then I’m just, like, switching up the tempo or I start repeating notes. And the sounds just felt like they conveyed a different message with every change I made even though I was playing the same notes. So I just started looking at music through a different lens. And then lyrics came into play. Lyrics don't actually change the sound of the song, but the lyrics change the meaning of the song. So now if I interject intention with these basic fundamentals of how music works, I realized I can create, like, super crazy things.

That's kind of where my mind was at. I always kind of knew how to play songs on the guitar, but I didn't know how to play the guitar, if that makes any sense.  But now when I picked up the guitar, I was learning, like, actual theory. It's like, okay, “What is a G chord actually? What is an F chord? What is an F major 7th?” And then it became, “What are the feelings that you get when you play this chord next to this other chord?” So then it all kind of trickles down into this whole language of music.

Were you a natural?

Not at all! I sucked [laughs]. I was so bad. I listened to some stuff recently. Old recordings of me just playing straight nonsense. But then I’m like, “That’s how babies learn to talk, right?” Like they babble and they're just having a good time. And eventually, it all comes together. 

What does being creative mean to you?

There’s this quote - and I don’t remember exactly what it is word for word or even where I heard it - but it’s been commented that “creative” people are just like “uncreative” people, except “creative” people just need to get something out and creating something is the only way they know how to get that release. That’s kind of what it feels like to me. I don’t consider myself a guitar player. I’m just someone that has some stuff to say and I only know how to play the guitar or use music software to get it out there. 

What made you realize that medical school was in the cards for you?

There was a point after college where I felt like I was neglecting my body. I’ve always been health conscious, but I think I was following traditional metrics of health. Like, especially if you go to the gym, if you look healthy, if you look jacked, then you must be good, right? But that’s not true. Like your mobility, your athleticism, how you feel, what you're able to do when you wake up in the morning, and all these other metrics are so much more important. And then once I got more invested into my health from a more holistic standpoint, I became more interested in the science of it all. And I guess, like, the basic science of things is kind of like driving your car. You know, most people can drive a car, but they don't know how the car works. If you want to drive like a professional race car driver or something, you have to know how the car works and how the engine runs and things like that. If things are breaking, you gotta know how to address that or else you’re going to end up with a bigger bill down the line. That’s kind of how I started to view medicine and how it came into the picture for me.  

I know you’re interested in PM&R [Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation]. Why do you feel like that’s a good fit for you?

To sum it up in one word: movement. I love movement so much. I have so many little hobbies that came out of that one big passion. Like AcroYoga and climbing and running. Just doing things to explore what the human body can do and what my human body is capable of doing. I’m amazed by that stuff all the time. I think PM&R would give me the ability to help those that have difficulty moving. And movement accessibility is a big passion in my life. That's where I want to take my career. 

I feel like PM&R is definitely one of those specialties that gets relatively little exposure. What’s your sales pitch to people who may not have considered it?

PM&R was actually the very first service I was on when we started clinical rotations. And it just made so much sense to me. I was like, “This is what it’s all about,” you know? It was the very first thing I did and I loved it. And I made sure to hesitate a bit. Because I knew I was also just excited to finally be in the hospital so I wanted to keep my mind open. But then the rotations that kept coming after that just didn’t hit the same. I feel like PM&R is super evenly balanced between IM and neuro and psych. You’re getting a little bit of all those specialties. You’re working with patients with significant deficits from major surgery or strokes or movement disorders. And when people are dealing with stuff like that, you’re also gonna have to think about how they’re handling it psychologically, so you get some psych in there as well. I feel like with PM&R, you spend a lot of time with your patients. You spend a lot of time talking to them. And while people will always have problems because of their circumstances or overarching socioeconomic issues, with PM&R, you’re focusing on the things that you can make a plan for and things you can actually help someone tackle. You might not be able to completely cure someone or have them go back to the way they were before 100%, but you plan with your patients and set goals and work towards something together. 

How do you respond to criticism? 

Pretty well. At least that’s what I’ve been told [laughs]. I think I almost seek it out. Especially on rotations this year, I really ask for and appreciate verbal feedback. I want to know what I can improve on. I feel like that’s always really valuable. I also have pretty thick skin and don’t mind when people just say things however they want to say it. There’s always something to be learned when you ask. 

What's one future goal of yours that’s not career or medicine related?

Honestly, all my goals kind of coalesce into the same one big thing.

What's that? 

I want to create something. I don't know what that something is and I’m not sure what it’s going to look like, but I want to create something that's going to help my community. Wherever I am, I just want to be as helpful as possible. I feel like I’m pretty lucky. I feel like I’m very fortunate and lucky and I’ve seen so many people that aren’t fortunate and lucky. Sometimes people need somebody to be a catalyst for them. To help them get out of whatever funk they’re in. I’d like to think that I can be a catalyst for the people around me. That’s always the goal. 

Contact Josh at jkang11@student.nymc.edu.

Want to get involved? Fill out this Google form or send us an email at humansofnymc@gmail.com.