My name is Toyin Idowu, and I’m a graduate of Wash U in St. Louis, MO and most recently University of Penn Med in Philadelphia, PA. I came to the Memorial Sloan Kettering TY program for a couple of reasons, one being I was drawn in by the interview. Maybe it was luck, but I happened to talk to about 5 residents who let me know how incredibly happy they were to be doing an intern year at MSK. As I recall, the main perks were the strength of the ancillary stuff, the dedication of Attendings to teaching, and exposure to some of the most interesting medical cases out there. It sounded nice, but combined with how relaxed they truly seemed, I was interested. Now half a year into the program, I’ll probably be spouting some of the same things to whomever of you I meet - and maybe add how happy I am about what a employee friendly hospital MSK is, and how in particular the TY program is pretty dedicated to allowing us to have flexible interests during this training year - we have the option of varied electives, including research months, simply through request.

I head to Johns Hopkins at the end of the year to continue on with my Radiology residency, but so far my New York minute(s) have been well spent. The education I’m getting as an intern here is pretty remarkable, of course with emphasis on the many fields of Oncology - although through electives you can be exposed to other sides of Internal Medicine. With the amount of imaging that goes into the oncology workup, I’ve also had a pretty nice preview into my future training. And most importantly, I’ve still got time here and there to do things that make me happy - kick a ball around in Central Park, catch up with friends in Soho or for the twice a year Barney’s sale, and make it abroad - I spend two of my vacation weeks in Costa Rica this December. So far so good!