EPISODE 6: JUSTIN NATHAN

Interview by Josh Shin
Photograph by Nadiv Hossain

December 27, 2019

I really like interacting with and getting to know people. You could say I’m addicted to it – to the process of getting to know them. That’s why I wanted to do Humans of NYMC! I think that’s also part of my interest in the medical field – an interest in people and interactions.  It's especially nice to have the potential to help people.
 
I get that from my mom, undeniably. She’s funny in that she attempts, often successfully, to make friends with every single person she meets. It can get annoying at overpopulated grocery stores, though. For instance, when I go to the grocery store in my hometown with my mom, say we’re only getting 4 items, it’ll take an hour. We have to say hello to the butcher, to the cashier, to the people helping with the bagging, and to the people putting up the produce. I guess I got that from my mom.
 
I would say that I’m very much a family person. My family is very important to me and my parents are definitely my role models. Maybe that feels too easy, too cliché, but they raised me and I’m fond of the majority of said raising. It’s interesting because I feel like I’ve always sort of felt that way, like you can 100% tell which of my behaviors and parts of my personality stem from each of my parents.
 
Both of my parents do good in the world, in my opinion, and I just hope to emulate that. My mom does a lot of work with cancer public policy and things like that. She’s a professor of sociology; that’s her primary thing. I think that the more scientific aspects of myself come from my dad, whereas the more humanistic side of me comes from my mom, no offense to either of them. My mom would probably argue that she had a minor in Chemistry in college, which she did. And my dad would argue that he’s nice too, which he is. Maybe they would agree; it’s hard to say.
 
So, yeah, I have these role models and through the conglomeration of lessons that I’ve gleaned from them, and their lives, and how they live their lives, I would say that I’ve developed my life goal: to put out as much good into the world as I can. For me, that comes in two forms: medicine (well, hopefully!) and the second stems from conversations, interactions, and telling and hearing stories. My day to day goals are to learn a little medicine, but also to make people laugh. I really like making people feel better after having a conversation, so that’s my goal. Also, that’s 100% in my secondaries for medical school…
 
I think that’s part of why I love interacting with new people. You get to hear the stories of people’s lives, which are extraordinarily interesting. For instance, [Josh] and I, sitting in this room, we’ve come to the same place in our lives. Yet we’ve obviously come to this room through very different paths. Maybe there’s a variety of similarities and differences, but in the end, they’re different paths. I think that’s a fascinating conversation.
 
I would say that if you ask any of my friends they’d say, “Yeah, he does like telling stories. We’ve heard them all a million times.” But yeah, I do get some sort of thrill out of it. I ask them their stories and I like to share other people’s stories too, if they let me.
 
For instance, and you can just start off the interview with ‘Justin spent the whole time telling me superfluous stories, and here are a few…’, my favorite childhood memory was in 8th grade. I would skip track practice with my friends and we would go to this burger place in town called Flipper’s Burgers. No one would purchase a burger; I don’t even know if they served burgers, truth be told. But, we would go and just hang out in these booths for hours on end. You know, just lifetimes spent, day by day, at Flipper’s Burgers.
 
We would drink this energy drink called Bawlz. We would just chug these things, man. Just like, pulsating with caffeine, we would run around this man’s restaurant, who I’m not so sure wanted us there. Unfortunately, we were his only business as far as I could tell. He kept saying, “You guys want a burger? Like, excuse me, this is a burger place” and we were like, “We’ll have one more energy drink, please!”
 
I think a lot of us from my middle school look back very fondly at our time at Flipper’s Burgers because life was so simple. I always tell people that I peaked in middle school. I had long, flowing, shoulder-length, blond hair in the California sun. And despite my retrospective take on said hair, at the time it felt like the world was the oyster of both me and my hair. I miss those times.
 
I think that in life I consistently yearn for those times. When I throw myself into the middle of nowhere, into a different country or onto a beach or a mountain, I think that it’s Flipper’s Burgers and the feeling thereof that I’m searching for. In our brief periods of respite as medical students, it is Flipper’s Burgers that I want. That I need, maybe. I don’t know.
 
Anyway, I guess with stories or with conversation, if I can make other people feel as if, at least for brief periods of time, that we, together, are sitting at a booth in Flipper’s Burgers, chugging energy drinks or tea... I’m more of a tea person in my later years…I think that’s the goal.

What are your 5 Most Recently Played Artists on Spotify? Lana Del Ray, Flipturn, Greta Van Fleet, Treetop flyers, and Rayland Baxter

If you could have any superpower, which one would you choose? Teleportation. I could teleport all over the world. Why would I stop? I could go from Nevins to the Beach, to Bangkok for some food. Teleport to my mom! Etc.

Pick something or someone from NYMC to give a shout-out to! To the best of friends: Mademoiselle Meconium, Finger-Lass, Sasha, R-Dawg, “StErick,” and Jonah (who is a pretty good roommate tbh)

If someone wants to talk to you: Tell me your favorite story from your life. A sick anecdote. Or your favorite thing about me, if you really want to… (jk)