He’s a science buff with a passion for music and looking forward to marrying the two. Ross University School of Medicine (RUSM) student Dmitriy Milkis fell in love with pathology after his first RUSM lecture.
“Resolution is a musical term that denotes the progression to a final chord, which makes the listener intuitively feel that a piece has come to an end,” said the piano, guitar and saxophone player who’s enrolled in this year’s National Resident Matching Program® (The MATCH ℠) process. “As a musician, I strive to give the listener a sense of resolution with all my performances. As I grew to love science and medicine, my drive to find resolution has persisted and led me to wanting to become a physician who will find resolution for my patients.”
Dmitriy enjoyed microscopy, tissue dissection and staining during his undergraduate years and remembers being intrigued at RUSM when asked to decipher clinical correlations to associated conditions and treatment plans from a microscopic slide or gross specimen. “I knew I enjoyed the finality of pathology and the answers that it provided.”
Enrolling at RUSM for its rigorous curriculum and the Caribbean backdrop, Dmitriy was also lured by the school’s successful residency placements. “Graduates matched at institutions all over the country which made me feel confident that the door to matching was wide open should I commit to working hard and prioritizing my education.”
Accepting Change
While Dmitriy admits the switch to online learning last year, due to the pandemic, brought challenges, he said adaptation is something he learned early on in his tenure. “My classmates and I were on Dominica as the Category 5 hurricane hit the island and campus, displacing us permanently from that island. Our semester was completed on a ferry ship during a ‘semester at sea,’ where we lived, attended lectures and took exams. Despite this interruption in our normal routine, we as Rossies adapted and overcame, confident that our experiences would shape us for the better.”
Dmitriy is prepared but a bit nervous about the pending interviews, though he’s practiced mock sessions. “I’m confident that my enthusiastic personality will take over and allow me to give a good impression of myself when the time comes.” Living in New York since his infancy years, Dmitriy was born in Ukraine and remembers spending summers with his grandparents milking cows, gardening and tending to chickens.
The bilingual future physician hopes to expose others to the pathology field, perhaps integrating mentoring into his career. He’s also eager to dispel the pathology stereotype of working solo in a locked room. “It has transformed into one of the most collaborative, interdisciplinary and diverse fields of medicine and I plan on using these developments to both advocate for and advertise my future specialty. I’d love to be involved in projects that expose medical students to pathology and laboratory medicine and show them the role we play in a patient’s care.”
To Dmitriy and all 2021 MATCH students, we support your journey and look forward to celebrating your achievement.
Inspirational Notes
Send classmates a MATCH-Gram — a quick note of encouragement that will be distributed before MATCH week begins on March 15. Submit a written or voice/video message.
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