Eventually, medicine won out. He’s now a physician, working as a digital medicine fellow at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center. He’s the first person to have that position there. Soon, he will soon start a cardiology fellowship at the medical center. He chose medicine because he saw it as the best way to make a difference in people’s lives.
“I felt like coming to Hamilton, for me, was a big privilege. I was a Posse Scholar, and I ended up getting this scholarship that really changed my life, and so I wanted to do as much as I possibly could with that,” explained Paul, a member of Hamilton Boston Posse Nine. As a cardiologist, he wants to continue to employ digital medicine to promote equitable health care. Digital medicine was an unexpected turn for Paul.
During his residency in internal medicine (which he finished in June), a mentor, who is a cardiologist, enlisted him to do research with him. Paul’s work involves large-population research using data from wearable devices such as Apple Watches and Fitbits.
“All of this falls under the realm of remote patient monitoring, and that's a big piece of what I do. If we can try to find patterns in people before they get sick, then potentially we can find ways to prevent them from getting worse, so it's a pretty exciting place to be working,” he said.
He was already doing such research when he started the digital fellowship. The COVID pandemic was underway. With much of the world, including medicine, going remote, the medical center found ways to treat patients digitally. As part of the fellowship, Paul works as a “virtual home hospitalist” whose patients are monitored continuously through a device they wear on their arms. Paul sees them daily via a tablet, and nurses regularly visit them at their homes.
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Cardiology lends itself to digital applications, and he’s excited about that. He’s also excited about the use of artificial intelligence in medicine, and he hopes to do projects within cardiology using AI.
Paul says he’s better at medicine than he would have been at philosophy.
“I want to point out that the professors and the relationships I had at Hamilton really made me feel like I could do this. Like I said, as a Posse Scholar, this was a huge opportunity for me, and, and the professors I had — the chemistry professors I had, the philosophy professors — they all pushed me and believed in me when I didn't necessarily see that in myself. And that, to me, really did make the difference, and that's why I believed I could do this. And here I am,” he said.
