June 2023
Jacob Tallman, Chief Resident
Thanks for meeting with me for this interview! With only about a month left of residency, what are your thoughts as your approach graduation?
Time moves so quickly and you’re experiencing it already. Intern year feels insurmountable in so many ways and there are many days where you aren’t sure you are cut out for it. I feel that way this year too, but time also lends perspective. Now that I have that perspective on residency it has gone by so quickly and is an incredibly formative experience. The experience I have had at Vanderbilt will inform everything I do in my career and almost all aspects of my life. It is very bittersweet for this to be ending. Alli and I love Nashville and are sad to leave all the faculty, staff, residents at Vanderbilt. So many folks have been incredibly kind to me here and I’ll never be able to repay that.
We will miss you at Vanderbilt next year! You spoke about how your time as a resident has been very formative, and I think that is probably especially true as a chief resident. What are some ways you have grown as a leader and surgeon this past year?
On a professional level, I’ve learned the technical skills of how to be a dangerous surgeon, and hopefully one day I’ll be a good one. I’ve learned the ins and outs of how to be hopefully a good urologist from my time in this program.
On a more personal level, I think people would describe me as an even-keeled person. I also think that also happens with most people throughout residency training because you tend to see the extremes of what can happen in the hospital. Once you’ve seen horrible complications or even the opposite with an amazing medical success story, it gives you great perspective on life. Residency has given me personal and professional perspective and has allowed me to understand how best to take of other people and myself.
As your time in Nashville winds down, what are you going to miss about the city and the people you’ve met here?
It is obvious to all my readers and fans that I’m going to miss the Vanderbilt family dearly. Beyond that, we have cousins that live close by and a great community that we’ve made in Nashville that we will be sad to move away from. Nashville is also such a special city with great food, culture and so many things to do. We’ll miss having a house and the conveniences that come with being in a smaller city.
In summary, I’ve made lots of wonderful friends that I’ll keep in touch with forever and I’m extremely thankful to all the faculty, staff and residents that have helped me along the way.
On the opposite spectrum how are you feeling about the move to New York?
There is so much we are excited about for New York. Alli is pregnant and that will be the biggest life changing event for us. We’re looking forward to being parents and New York will now go hand-in-hand with raising our child. Twenty years from now I’m sure we’ll talk about how we raised our child in New York and that’s special. We’re also excited to be near family and friends in New York. The program is fantastic and I’m going to learn a ton and be a better oncologist for it. More than anything we’re bringing a child with us and that will be the most important thing that happens to me over the next several months.
Finally, for intern like myself moving into second year or any of my resident colleagues who are about to move up the ranks, what advice do you have for us?
You’ll keep getting older and the interns will stay the same age (*apparently that is a Dazed and Confused quote*). I think there are three main things I would impart to you all.
- Take every opportunity to work and operative with your classmates and co-residents. We’ve taken advantage of opportunities to double scrub cases, and it’s been wonderful. You’ll get to learn how your classmates think about patient care and urology and will learn from critiquing each other.
- Kill everyone with kindness. It can be so challenging as a member as a house staff to treat everyone with kindness when you are sleep deprived. I’ve been victim to being rude or unpleasant at times and it only ended up hurting me. Spite doesn’t win out in the end and sometimes you need to find the deepest corner of kindness within your soul at 2AM to be kind to people. It will always work out in your favor.
- Savor every moment. It can be easy to say that and not really be sure what that means. Practically, I think it means trying to be as intentional and deliberate with your residency training as possible. Taking a little bit of extra time every day, or most days particularly when you are tired, to reflect on what you learned and who you helped will make you a better urologist when you are done training.
That is great advice and thank you for a great interview! To finish off we are going to do chief resident superlatives for our rapid-fire questions. Feel free to answer with any of the chief residents (including yourself):
Who is the funniest? Bola is quietly very funny but I will say George
Who has the best OR playlists? Big B. He also takes the most time curating his playlists, which makes them good
Who is the best chef? I wasn’t going to give myself any of these but this is definitely me
Who is the best singer? Rohan for sure. He sang a beautiful song to his wife at his wedding, it was incredible
Who is the best dancer? Also Rohan. He’s an excellent dancer
Who is the pickiest eater? Bola for sure
Who can handle the spiciest food? Rohan
Who thinks most creatively in the OR? Definitely George. He’s very creative in the OR
Who is most likely to fall asleep staffing a consult? There’s a very real chance it could be me, even though I haven’t done that much. I’ll give that to all of us
Interview conducted by Veerain Gupta, MD