Forget Being Good. Be Great.

Students sat with classmates and family members, envelopes sealed until they were opened together at noon. Each one contained the name of the hospital where the next three years will be spent.

Before that, Dean Dr. Michael Trepal spoke about how training moves in stages, each one defined by the next goal.

“When you’re in college, the prize is getting into medical school. When you’re in medical school, the prize is getting into residency,” he said. “And then when you’re in residency, the prize is ultimately where you’re going to be in practice. Sometimes we just focus on the destination, on the prize at the end, and don’t enjoy the trip. I hope you enjoyed your trip, as a medical student, to this moment.”

He told students that residency will feel different from anything they have done so far, with longer hours and less separation between work and study.

“If you thought you worked hard as a medical student—studying, cramming for exams, having to be in clinic and then go home and study—you ain’t seen anything yet,” he said to laughter from the audience.

Dean Ronald Soave followed with a more direct focus on what comes next, telling students that residency moves quickly and that what they take from it depends on how they approach it.

“Be a sponge, learn everything,” he said. “Don’t be an employee, be a resident. Being a resident means you want to learn.”

He also told students that how they treat patients will define their work.

“Don’t be satisfied with being good, be great,” he said. “Respect your patients. Treat patients like you would like your loved ones to be treated.”

In the audience, Anna Lam Wilson waited with the rest of her class. A Brooklyn native who graduated from City College in 2022, she said the moment still felt uncertain.

“Today we find out where we’re going,” she said.

Wilson said she had originally planned to pursue a traditional medical path before learning about podiatry through a pre-med advisor. She had been considering pediatrics but was unsure about committing to a single specialty.

“I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician because I love working with children,” she said. “But the idea of just being in the office every single day, doing the same thing, seeing the same types of pathologies, it drove me crazy.”

Part of her attraction to podiatry was the novelty of the field.

“There’s a lot of room for innovation, and for new surgical techniques to be found and discovered,” she said. “There’s just so much left to do here.”

Jamie Dee, who matched at Kent Hospital, said her interest in podiatry started with years of sports injuries. Growing up in New Hampshire and competing in track and field at Connecticut College, she spent time as a patient before deciding to enter the field.

“I went to a lot of podiatrists, got inserts and orthotics,” she said.

One of the main draws for her was how quickly some treatments work.

“With other medical fields, sometimes it takes months to get results, but with podiatry sometimes we’re able to treat and help them during their appointment,” she said. “The patient satisfaction is incredible.”

Amélia Vadeboncoeur, who matched at Yale, began her training in Canada before coming to NYCPM. She said the scope of practice there is more limited and that she came to the United States to expand what she could do for her patients.

“Podiatry in Canada is mostly not surgical,” she said. “I knew that some of my patients could only be helped with surgery.”