Episode 02: Jules Kronen

October 11, 2023

Interview by Erica Thomas

Photo by Ivan Dominguez

Edited by Erica Thomas and Michael Fortunato

What’s your name?

Jules slash Sophie Kronen.

How old are you?

I’m 23. 

…what?

Oh my god. I don’t know why I said that. I’m 28. 

All right Jules. Do you have any siblings? 

I do not have any siblings. 

Only child? 

Yeah. 

Me too.

Wow. Shocking information for the both of us.

So what does a kid growing up in Miami do for fun?

God. What did I do for fun? It's not like I went out to party. People definitely ask me that a lot since I’m from Miami. They’re like “Oh, that must have been crazy,” and I’m like “You know, I was like, 12 years old.” I don't know…I guess I just did pretty regular stuff. Hang out with friends in the local strip malls. I wasn’t the most exciting child. And I transferred schools a bunch.

How come?

It was just due to circumstance. When we moved to Miami from Orlando, it was the middle of the school year. I think I was in 7th grade. I did a year at a school before going to a charter school for 9th grade, and then another one for 10th grade. In Miami, there are a lot of these magnet and specialized charter schools that you can opt into. So there’s an architecture school and a marine biology school and a bunch of performing arts schools. The schools I attended in high school were for orchestra. 

Wait, so you had to audition for these schools? How’d you get into music?

Yeah, it was a skill that I had already. When I was younger, my parents wanted me to pick up an extracurricular activity. I have no idea why I picked the violin. I think they showed us instruments in elementary school and one of them happened to be the violin. I started taking lessons when I was six and continued with that. It was definitely something I kind of just fell into. I realized pretty early on that I wasn’t as committed to it as some of the other people I went to school with. Playing an instrument was definitely a fun skill to have though, and I wish I was better at it. Definitely glad I had the opportunity to learn and pursue it for as many years as I did. 

How did your parents meet?

They met at a book reading of my father's poetry! I wish I had more details. The rest is history. My dad was a librarian and my mom was an English professor. They’re both retired now. But yeah, they’re both in the books business. I guess they decided on a theme and stuck with it.

Wow, what happened to you?

I don’t know. We’re all kind of confused. I think my mom thought I was going to be an English teacher too. It’s kind of funny. When I was a kid, I would sit there reading regular kid stuff and my mom would be like, “Wow, is that what you’re reading? You’re not going to read Wuthering Heights? You should read Wuthering Heights sometime,” and I’d be like, “I’m 8.” I’ve always enjoyed reading, but I don't think it was ever something I wanted to do as a career. 

Do you have a favorite author?

I do, yes. My favorite author is Donna Tartt, who wrote The Secret History of the Goldfinch, which is my favorite book. Probably a bit of a yellow flag choice for people who are really into books. But that's okay. 

Why yellow flag? 

I think her books have a reputation for being pretty heretic with pretentious characters. But I think that's part of it - it's a satire of pretentious people. If you want to read something that's really long with really interesting characters that explores the reasons why people make the choices they make or whether it’s even their choice at all, you should read this book. 

What are you reading right now?

…The Secret History of the Goldfinch. For about the third or fourth time.

Tell me about your college experience.

Yeah so I went to Northeastern for college. I started out as a communications major. I’m not really sure why, but I did that for a year and a half before switching to psychology, which I really enjoyed. 

I hear Northeastern has these co-op programs for their students. Can you explain what those are?

Yeah! They’re basically these internships that the university organizes for students. You can do two or three of them throughout your time at the school so you end up graduating with a year and half or so of work experience. It’s a really good program. Only good things to be said about it. For my first co-op, I worked for a pretty interesting non-profit. It was like a financial management non-profit that helped other nonprofits and I got to work specifically with one client, the Center for Black Male Achievement. For one of my other co-ops, I worked on the floor of a psychiatric hospital, which was kind of a wild experience. I basically did safety checks and made sure patients had everything they needed. You’d do stuff like take them outside and chat with them. I got to work with the kids there too and just spent time entertaining them and coloring with them. Stuff like that. It was a really eye-opening job. I guess it was my first real job in medicine. 

Is that job what got you interested in medicine? Or did you have another moment where you realized that you wanted to be a doctor?

Honestly, I didn’t really have a moment like that. It was kind of like a slow realization. And being like, “oh my god what am I doing with my life?” Because I was about to graduate and I didn't know what I was doing other than getting a psychology degree. I didn’t really want to be a therapist. With my last few credits, I took an EMT training course and it was one of my favorite classes. I really enjoyed it and thought “Okay, maybe I should consider medicine.” I was definitely reluctant at first because it’s obviously notoriously very difficult and very long and very expensive. But after working in healthcare for a while, it became apparent that this was the way I wanted to go. 

Where else did you work?

After my co-op, I actually kept working at the psychiatric hospital and continued for a bit even after I had graduated. At that point, I knew I wanted to go into medicine but wanted to explore other settings so I got a job scribing at a prominent LGBTQ+ health center in Boston. People definitely have different experiences with scribing, but I got to learn a ton really quickly and it ended up being valuable knowledge for me once I started medical school. The doctor I scribed for was a family medicine physician but they had a bunch of specialties in that clinic. They also had services like gender affirming hormone therapy and LGBTQ+ family planning. I was really grateful to be able to work there. Accessing healthcare is often not a super comfortable experience for queer people and this was a place that they could go where they knew they would get competent care without having to answer certain questions or have assumptions made of them. Everyone who worked there was really committed to the mission and that made it a really positive experience.   

You were able to study abroad in quite a few places. Where’d you go?

Let’s see. I went to Rome for a semester. It was a great time. It’s gorgeous. I like history a lot, so it was really cool to be able to go to a place with such a rich culture. Spain was also great. And Ghana as well. 

Which was your favorite?

Definitely Ghana. 

Tell me about Ghana.

So the time I spent in Ghana was more of a directed field trip type thing. It was focused on healthcare and health services in Ghana and basically helped us, as students, see a different kind of healthcare system and how it functions. It was really cool and definitely more of an educational experience than my time in Spain or Italy. At that point, the idea of going into medicine was something that was on my mind and I figured that I really wanted to learn what medicine is like and how it’s practiced in other places. We got to tour different hospitals in Ghana and had professors from various universities give us lectures on how the national healthcare system worked there. 

Did you have a specific experience during your time there that stood out to you?

I think kind of seeing how limited access to resources affected patient care was something that really stuck with me. There was this one point where I was shadowing a psychiatrist and, in Ghana, psychiatrists practice in a way that sort of combines psychiatry and neurology. They would diagnose and treat some conditions that would technically fall under a neurology scope here and a good number of the patients I saw were there for what we would consider neurological issues. I just remember us having a really frank conversation with the psychiatrist where he was like, “Yeah, you know, I study medicine. I know all this stuff. And then people come to me and I can’t help them because I just don’t have the things that would help them.” It’s extremely frustrating to see. Obviously, everybody knows about limited resources and how it can affect the care that patients receive, but it was wild to actually see it in action and talk to someone whose daily practice was being affected by it.

What’s your vision for your future medical career?

I’m thinking about doing family medicine! I like the variety of it. You need to know a good amount about a lot and have a broad knowledge base. I like the idea of having longitudinal relationships with my patients and just serving as a filter or guide for the healthcare system. People come to you for anything ranging from a mild cold to a very serious illness and it’s your responsibility to direct them through the system and get them to where they need to be. I think as far as location, I definitely want to stay on the east coast. Maybe stay in New York. I’d consider going back to Boston for sure. 

Tell the audience about the Red Mango. 

Oh man. The Red Mango was a frozen yogurt shop I worked at when I was in college. 

Sounds like it was a time. 

It definitely was. There used to be this one woman who would come in and ask for a milkshake with no ice. But the ice is what makes it cold. So she just wanted a room temperature milkshake. And I was always like, I’m going to have to replace all of the ice with yogurt. So it was basically 85% room temperature yogurt. And she was always just like, “perfect.” That was really weird. That one’s always going to live rent free in my head. 

Do you have a favorite musical artist? You saw Beyonce recently.

I did see Beyonce recently and she is insanely good! I genuinely think she’s one of the best artists right now. I wasn't a mega-Beyonce fan before I saw her in concert. I liked Beyonce, who doesn’t like Beyonce? But then I saw her in concert and, actually, I think she’s a god. 

What kind of music gets you dancing?

Honestly…Renaissance by Beyonce. I just have to say it. 

This is turning into a plug for this album. 

Beyonce doesn't need me to plug her. She's doing so fine.

What are you looking forward to in the next couple of years?

Definitely looking forward to graduating and having an income! After doing school for almost 30 years, I'm pretty eager now to explore all sorts of different things. I’m looking forward to directing energy to other things I want to commit to. Maybe a family. Hopefully. We’ll see. 

Contact Jules at skronen@student.nymc.edu.

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