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Youthful doctor on fast track to help others
By JAMIE MALERNEE © St. Petersburg Times, published May 16, 2001 Sandra Nathan has always been competitive. At 16, the Brooksville native graduated as valedictorian of Hernando High School, Class of 1995. Last week, at the ripe old age of 22, she was this year's youngest graduate of the University of Miami School of Medicine. True to form, as she waited to receive her diploma, Nathan couldn't help but be a little proud -- and impatient. "It was wonderful," Nathan recalled on Tuesday. "This was what I've been waiting for -- to finally get my degree." Nathan, the daughter of Brooksville physicians M.P.R. Nathan and Susheela Nathan of the Hernando Heart Clinic, said she has wanted to be a doctor for as long as she can remember. Next month, she will start four years of residency and training at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, where she plans to specialize in neurology. There, she will have to get used to competing with newer forces -- disease, death and the unknown. Although she does not regret taking the fast track through college (as part of a special honors program, she completed two years of undergraduate work before going into four years of medical school), Nathan said her increased responsibilities will take getting used to. "In a way, it's almost bittersweet," she said. "You've come to the end of being a student, and all the medical consequences of what you are doing are over your head now. All the people in your class, who've sweated and slaved together, go off in different directions." During the past few years, Nathan said, she has found time to squeeze normal college-type activities into her studying schedule, which included from four to 10 hours of studying a day. She now lives in a house only a few minutes from South Beach with three other medical students. They go to movies, hang out at the beach, frequent coffeehouses and go to parties just like other students. Nathan, who is of Asian-Indian origin and has always loved folk dancing, also picked up salsa dancing as a favorite activity. However, if she could do anything different, Nathan said, she would have studied more. "I would have probably focused harder. The hardest thing is time management. It's hard to pick one thing to focus on, so at some point you flounder," she admitted. While being a doctor at age 22 seems unusual, Nathan says she's not much of an oddity around campus. Because the University of Miami's accelerated program allows students to earn both their undergraduate and medical degrees in six years, many of her fellow classmates are relatively young. Medical students who are on the normal track refer to the students in Nathan's program as "baby docs." "I got a lot of that at the beginning," she said with a chuckle. "And I have a young-looking face, so that doesn't help. But I think most people take me seriously when they see I'm professional." Betty Monfort, registrar at the University of Miami's medical school, agreed that more students are becoming doctors earlier. Still, the average age of a medical school graduate remains at 25 or 26, she said. Regardless of her age, Nathan's parents say they are proud of all their daughter has accomplished in her young life. "She's been our pride and joy," her mother said.
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