EPISODE 28: VINCENT GALEA

July 27, 2020

My parents moved to the US from Italy the year before I was born, so for the first few years of my life, while they got their careers and lives in general on track, I spent probably half my time in Italy – with my mom’s parents in Milan and my dad’s parents in Calabria (Southern Italy). I would say altogether North of Italy, South of Italy, and the Bronx make up my “hometown”. Today, my parents and my little brother (and, as of this year, me) live in the Bronx, and the rest of my family is in Italy. I’m sure it’s not that unique but if your parents are immigrants and you have one sibling, the four of you get really tight. My family is always tight.

I started school at a small catholic middle school – 12 kids per grade, itchy uniforms, detention with the nuns for untied shoelaces kind of thing. I don’t think it matched well with what my parents envisioned for an ‘American’ education because as soon as they could, they sent me to a much bigger private high school. I remember it was one of the hardest transitions I had to make- from a small community where people were from different backgrounds but still middle class or immigrants to a high school with people of a ‘different’ socioeconomic status. It wasn’t bad necessarily, but it was a real transition for me. It was very obvious that these places, and the people in them, were different: different clothes, food, hobbies, life goals... I didn’t completely get it back then, but I at least recognized it as more than just a coincidence. It bothered me. My parents came here for equal opportunities. I was always very cognizant of that and would ask, “Why are we here and my cousins are there?”. The answers they gave me were some variation of, “We want the best for you”. Going from one environment to another - it made me take notice of how– it’s still America but people experience it differently.

I started swimming in high school because my best friend was doing it, so I kind of stumbled into it. Through swimming, I learned how to be diligent, work hard, define and hit goals. My personal growth parallels my growth in swimming. I learned how to take things seriously. If you work hard, you can reach your goals – obvious, I guess, but I needed swimming to show me that.

Swimming is a sport where you compare yourself to others – you know your time to the hundredth of a second and the smaller time wins. It’s very concrete. No grey areas. You know who’s better. You realize you can work hard and beat someone, but there’s always gonna be someone faster. That’s true for swimming but it’s true for everything – school, work, whatever – even if it’s not always as easy to measure as it is in swimming. It’s about finding your niche and what you care about, and then work as hard as you can to get as good as you can. At a certain point that just clicked for me - if you’re trying to be Michael Phelps, you’re not gonna win. That can’t be what motivates you. You’re racing other people but the most important thing is racing yourself and trying to get better.

Sociology was a big thing for me during pre-med. It is a weird subject and it seems soft, but I wanted some outlet to think about/ write about things with no numbers. You get to think about things more broadly. It became a part of medicine for me. You can study the Krebs cycle but if I can show how your income is tied to your health outcomes and how/where you grow up is tied to your health access, that matters too. Yes, you need to know biology if you want to be a doctor, but other things are important too. Some people are unhealthy and it’s not a biology problem. It was too clear of a connection to let go of – social forces/circumstances and health outcomes. I want to improve people’s health and that’s something you can’t ignore. That concept doesn’t get a lot of respect in medicine.

I knew I would take time off between college and medical school. I didn’t think I had enough hard science and research experience, so I was intentional about doing some sort of research coordinator job. I applied to medical school after 2 years and the best I got was some waitlists. It sucked. When you don’t get in to medical school, there’s moments of anxiety and you think something is wrong with you. 

I don’t want to undersell how terrible it made me feel when I didn’t get into medical school, but at the same time, I was really enjoying the research day to day and doing things on my terms. Being able to say, “I’m curious about this and what can I do to answer it?”. I enjoy making figures and writing papers. I was bummed to not get into medical school, but most days I just liked doing what I was doing. I ended up at a place where I loved what I did and had people, my PIs/mentors, supporting me. They valued what I did and didn’t care that I didn’t get in- they wanted me to stay and gave me the option of doing a PhD. For the next few years, I was taking night classes and volunteering and working on my application. I worked hard. Swimming was my first taste of working hard but this was different, this was working hard while sitting at a desk. At the end of the day, if you’re lucky enough to be able to do the work to get better instead of feeling sorry for yourself, it’s just not that difficult.

The next couple months happened really fast. I had to finish writing my thesis. I had a week off between submitting the thesis and starting school. A week into school, I had to fly into Copenhagen to defend my thesis and that was on the day of the first exam. It was crazy. Just now I’m lifting my head up from first year. I never really had time to take a break. Somewhere in that, I lost sight of what I had realized coming into school – I’m better when I’m feeling lucky/grateful than when I’m focusing on how hard I’m working. Of the million things you need to learn to do in med school to be a good doctor, finding a way to remember that - even when I’m feeling buried in it - is probably one of the most important for me.  

What are your 5 Most Recently Played Artists on Spotify? 
Queen , Daft Punk, Dillon Francis, Chance the Rapper, The Doors

If you could have any superpower, which one would you choose?
Flying

Pick something or someone from NYMC to give a shout-out to!
To you, Nicole because it’s nice of you to do this

If someone wants to talk to you, they should lead with:
Anything not related to what’s on the next test