Adam Isacoff, MD, a 2008 graduate of AUA College of Medicine, has talked with us about his life choices, medicine, and AUA.

“I’ve always enjoyed working with children. When I was at AUA and doing my rotations at Wyckoff Hospital in Brooklyn, I realized that pediatrics was my calling and something that I wanted to continue with for my specialty.”

It was a combination of his volunteer experiences in hospitals, and his work as a camp counselor while in his teens, that first piqued his interest in working with children.

Dr. Isacoff’s father is a clinical psychologist whose physician friends mentioned Caribbean medical schools to him. He chose AUA because of the U.S.-based learning system, as well as the opportunity to do rotations in his home state of New York.

Dr. Isacoff emphasized what he liked about AUA, “The small class sizes, the professors were always available to help us and they prepared us to be ready to take the USMLE Step 1, and for our clinical clerkships in our third and fourth year.”

Recently, AUA was able to catch up with Dr. Isacoff on his cell phone during a busy morning following a conference at his residency to ask him about his pediatric emergency medicine fellowship and how he had obtained it.

“It’s the same as applying for a residency. It’s a Match process. Fellowships in pediatric emergency medicine are competitive. I attended many interviews that I was invited to and was successful in matching into a fellowship position. It’s advanced training in an area of medicine and a subspecialty (emergency medicine) within pediatrics. After this year, I will be eligible for board certification as a pediatrician.  After three years of fellowship, I will be a pediatric emergency medicine physician.”

He summed up the spirit of AUA by adding, “No matter what your aspirations are, you can reach your goals by continually trying hard and staying focused.”

A pediatric emergency physician cares for acutely ill or injured children and teens and is trained in a wide range of serious and possibly life-threatening conditions that require emergency medical treatment.