Erin_kim1

PLME (Brown BS/MD) student; computational immunology researcher (unpaid) at Brigham and Women's Hospital (lab)

erin_kim1@brown.eduProvidence, RI (Brown University); currently visiting family in Korea

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Summary

Past

- Grew up in Korea where father and grandfather are surgeons and medicine is heavily emphasized culturally; says a lot of Koreans push kids toward med school
- PLME was the only BS/MD program she applied to; unsure she'd have gone premed at a different school
- In high school considered law school and was also drawn to finance/med as the three common tracks, but found medicine most intriguing, partly because it lets you help people while being paid well
- Did wet lab research in high school on quorum sensing/antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas at a microbiology lab, and interned in Regeneron's immunology division
- Found wet lab work slow/tedious ("grunt work") though found pipetting oddly therapeutic; switched to computational work because results came faster
- Learned single-cell computational methods sophomore year at Brown after prior wet-lab-only background
- Joined Hack@Brown as a freshman (recruited by her engineering TA Olivia while taking Engineering 32 as the only freshman in the class); became co-president with Ashton; says it's unrelated to her science but she loves the people and it's been her one consistent club
- Considered biomedical engineering as a concentration
- Considered an MD-PhD but ruled it out specifically because it would mean 12 more years in Providence, which she didn't want
- Chose a bladder cancer/urology lab (with Andy Yang) not because of interest in urology itself but because of an interest in oncology

Present

- Currently doing single-cell computational immunology research remotely from Korea, unpaid, so 'no one's pressuring me to work'
- Leaning toward dermatology or diagnostic radiology; ruled out surgery mainly due to lifestyle, despite her father and grandfather being surgeons and having never shadowed either of them
- Shadowed one dermatologist and found it pleasant -- patients left feeling they'd gained something -- though found the doctor's high sociability a bit overwhelming for her as a self-described not-very-extroverted person
- Hasn't shadowed a radiologist yet and wants to before deciding; sees AI displacement as a real risk in radiology, with liability being the main thing keeping the field viable
- Describes herself as a visual person, drawn to derm, radiology, and pathology as the most visually-oriented specialties
- Wants to work directly with patients rather than in an intermediary systems role (e.g., not interested in joining an EHR/health-AI company like Open Evidence over practicing medicine)
- Prefers academic medicine over private practice long-term
- Never bothered recruiting for industry roles in college, calls herself 'too lazy' to have applied; not interested in consulting, would consider a C-suite-type role over being a consultant

Future

Education

Brown University — BS/MD (PLME program)

Interviews (1)

Interview — 2026-08-13Granola

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Details

Added2026-08-14

Updated2026-08-14

Profile extracted2026-08-21