A Day In The Life: Kimberly Fasciglione

A Day in the Life

Kimberly Fasciglione

D.O. (4th Year)

My name is Kimberly Fasciglione, I am a 4th year student at NYITCOM - Old Westbury and I am currently applying to Internal Medicine residencies! I am from Mahopac, NY, a suburban town about an hour north of NYC. I went to Binghamton University for my undergraduate studies, where I graduated in 2018 with a degree B.S. in Cell & Molecular Biology. I took a gap year from 2018 to 2019 when I applied to medical school, during which time I worked as a medical scribe in an Emergency Room and orthopedist’s office, as well as a Simulation Technician. I matriculated to NYITCOM in August of 2019, prior to the onset of the COVID pandemic! Outside of medicine, I love taking care of my house plants, playing PokemonGo and candy crush, taking long walks, doing puzzles and paint by numbers, and couponing!

During my gap year, I applied to many medical schools on the East Coast. After much deliberation, I ultimately chose NYITCOM, and I am so glad I did! As a native New Yorker, it was important to me to be close enough to home to easily travel back whenever I had some free time or to attend a family gathering. Having interviewed pre-COVID, I was able to tour the campus and I really liked the area. All of the Student Ambassadors I met on campus that day were so friendly and supportive of each other. The faculty and staff that we met with were also really welcoming. Since we have such a large student population, I knew I would be able to find my niche and meet plenty of friends who would make me feel at home. I was also intrigued by the Academic Medicine Scholars Program and the opportunity to learn from them in our different labs, as well as from the Emigre Physician Program students! For all of these reasons, I decided that NYITCOM would be the right fit for me.

Fourth-year is full of lots of different rotations and experiences, depending on the time of year and what field you are applying into for residency. The beginning of this academic year was full of sub-internships and audition rotations in Internal Medicine, where it was my job to function as if I was a first-year resident. On those days, I typically arrived around 6am and stayed until 5 or 6pm, unless I was on-call, which required me to stay until 8pm! It was tiring but a great experience to see what a residency in Internal Medicine will be like. It’s currently “Interview Season,” as we call it, and so I scheduled in a rotation that I knew would give me more time and flexibility to prepare for and schedule my residency interviews. I am currently on my Outpatient Neurology rotation working with an NYITCOM alumnus on campus! On Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays, my main student responsibility is attending Rock Steady Boxing (RSB). RSB is a nation-wise exercise program for people with Parkinson’s Disease, and we are fortunate enough to have an RSB gym on our campus at the de Seversky Mansion. I really enjoyed volunteering at the RSB gym when I was a first-year student, and so it has been great to come back and work with boxers and coaches as a fourth-year!

6:30 - 7:00 AM: Wake up, get ready, make some instant oatmeal to take with me on my ride from Queens, NY

7:00 AM: Get on the road, drive to NYITCOM’s campus while listening to an audiobook

8:00 - 12:00 PM: Rock Steady Boxing classes

12 - 12:30 PM: Review a recently published Neurology article and discuss interesting findings

12:30 - 1:30 PM: Drive home, find somewhere to park my car on the busy Queens streets!

1:30 - 2:30 PM: Prepare and eat lunch, decompress

2:30 - 3:30 PM: Exercise, typically a walk around the neighborhood and some light weights

3:30 - 5:30 PM: Research residency programs (especially wherever my next interview will be), work on responsibilities for my various extracurricular activities, including the Gold Humanism Honor Society and the Council of Osteopathic Student Government Presidents

5:30 - 6:30 PM: Prepare and eat dinner

7 - 8:00 PM: Resident Question & Answer or Meet & Greet sessions with potential residency programs

8:00 - 10:00 PM: Shower, watch Netflix, spend time with my boyfriend

10 - 11:00 PM: Skincare routine, clean up around the apartment, pick out my outfit for the next day (usually scrubs), and watch TikToks

11:00 PM: Bedtime!

On Tuesdays and Thursdays on this rotation, we see patients both in the office and via telemedicine. My daytime schedule is a little different on these days, but they usually end the same way. While the main patient population is patients with Parkinson’s Disease (PD), we also get to learn about their different comorbidities and how this affects their PD.

7:00 - 7:30 AM: Wake up, get ready, make some instant oatmeal to take with me on my ride from Queens, NY

7:30 - 8:45 AM: Get on the road, drive to NYITCOM’s campus while listening to an audiobook

8:45 AM - 1:30 PM: See a variety of patients in the Parkinson’s Disease Treatment Center

1:30 - 2:15 PM: Drive back to Queens

2:15 - 2:30 PM: Change out of my clinic clothes and eat a quick lunch

2:30 - 5:00 PM: See patients virtually via telemedicine from the comfort of my apartment

5:00 - 6:00 PM: Exercise

6 - 6:30 PM: Prepare and eat dinner

6:30 PM onward: Same as above

My days are also filled with residency interviews! On early interview days, I take time off from my rotation to attend the virtual interviews. Sometimes, the interviews could be scheduled in the afternoon, and so I would attend my rotation in the morning and then the interview in the afternoon. These days are action-packed but really exciting. Being busy helps keep my mind off of the interview stress, and ultimately makes me calmer during the interview.

It feels so surreal to be at this point in my medical career! It truly feels like just a few days ago that I began my medical school journey, and yet at the same time, feels impossibly long ago. At NYITCOM, the world was truly my oyster. I was given a great medical education with plenty of autonomy. The asynchronous lecture style allowed me to utilize my time however I wanted to. As long as I could get my work done and effectively prepare for lectures and labs, I had plenty of time for multiple extracurricular activities. Over my four years at NYITCOM, I have been fortunate enough to be a Student Ambassador, a host and panelist on The Scope Podcast, serve as Student Government Secretary and President, a Big Sister mentor, a volunteer at the student-run volunteer clinic, a member of many school-sponsored organizations, a Fit Physician member, and more. Applying to residency this year has given me the opportunity to reflect upon all that I have accomplished as a student at NYITCOM, and to immortalize it on my CV and applications.

During my third year of medical school, while I was choosing my future specialty, I was frequently supported by NYITCOM’s Office of Residency and Career Services. I was guided at the appropriate times on obtaining letters of recommendation, applying for home and away rotations, arranging my schedule, writing my personal statement, putting together my Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) application, which residency programs to apply to, how to prepare for interviews, and more! All of these responsibilities were sometimes stressful as it was happening simultaneously with other rotations and activities, but I always knew who to contact if I needed any help. Looking back on it, I can’t believe how much each fourth-year student accomplishes in a short amount of time! I truly could not have done it all without the help of our amazing staff.

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