Voices of HMSOM: Larson ‘Comes Full Circle’ to Life in Medicine

“Coming full circle” in life often means to find one’s calling only upon realizing later it’s been in front of them all along.

Such is the case for Kristian Larson, a fourth-year medical student at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine.

rowing up with a physical therapist father, and an orthopedic surgeon for an uncle had healthcare on Larson’s radar, but he realized it was a dream worth pursuing during an anatomy and physiology class in high school.

“I just fell in love with it,” said Larson. “I loved learning about the body and how it works; that’s when I was dead-set on becoming a doctor.”

As an Eagle Scout who served in the Boy Scouts of America until age 18—and after a two-year mission trip to South America through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints—Larson was on and off the trail of his pursuit through his early college years.

“In returning from my mission trip, I was intimidated by the trials of commitment and competition on the journey to becoming a doctor,” said Larson, “but everything else I tried just didn’t seem to fit.”

Larson credits the influence of meeting his future wife, Katelyn, in college toward providing clarity, and galvanizing his resolve to continue the pursuit.

“She told me, ‘No, you’re great with people,’” recounted Larson. “She said, ‘I can tell this is what you want to do, and it’s what you should do.’ I realized with her that every other career path I was exploring was predicated on the notion that I didn’t think I could be a doctor.”

“I fully recommitted to the journey after meeting Katelyn,” he said.

Katelyn would also set him on the path that’d lead to an “a-ha” moment for how Kristian would choose to specialize in medicine.

“Kristian Larson brings a wealth of humanistic experience into the profession,” said Jeffrey Boscamp, M.D., the president and dean of the school. “This experience, both in a life of service, and as a servant leader, makes Kristian an outstanding M.D. candidate.”

DISCOVERING VISION THROUGH PURPOSE

After growing up in Utah, following a mission trip to Peru, and completing his undergrad at Brigham Young University-Idaho, it was four years ago Larson moved to New Jersey to accept the challenge of being a med student at HMSOM.

One would think, in following his wife’s counsel in being good with people, Kristian Larson would have chosen to specialize in an area with longer-term relationships with longer arcs of trajectory in managing patient care.

But it was using his abilities that Larson decided to go a different direction and specialize in emergency medicine—a specialization known for being emotionally exhausting—which he found exhilarating in his clerkship in med school.

“I know there are a lot of challenges associated with burnout being in emergency medicine,” said Larson. “But I felt energized while I was in the ER. I loved that anybody with any disease could walk through the door at any moment, and you’ve got to be able to take care of it.”

In using his gift of working well with people, Larson found exhilaration in the degree of difficulty bringing this gift to the forefront, relative to other specializations.

“I kind of enjoy that challenge,” reflected Larson in dealing with people at their most vulnerable. “You have 10 minutes to form a good, trusting relationship with this person before you begin all your tests. They want to feel like there’s someone they can trust in such a stressful setting, and I found that I really enjoy being that person.”

The reward to this challenge, Larson would go on to say, was in successfully partnering with a patient and earning their trust that he’d figure out what they’d need to do together to discover the patient’s medical needs in beginning their urgent treatment.

It was in finding such a role that he could fulfill that Larson developed a clear vision for the path ahead of him in medicine.

ONE MISSION BEGETS ANOTHER

Larson grew up in service and contribution to others. Through achieving the rank of Eagle Scout—and in serendipitously serving as troop medic—he learned to develop grit and perseverance to grind through both the ups and downs of a long path in building and learning toward achievement and perfection of skills.

Such experience was formative in Larson’s growing to handle the rigors of the med school journey.

“I definitely owe my mom a lot of credit for it,” he said, of his time in scouting. “She encouraged me and said, ‘This is something you can be proud of for the rest of your life.’ The biggest thing it taught me was how to start something, and most importantly, finish something.”

After his time in the Boy Scouts came a two-year mission trip to Peru that developed Larson’s passion for leading others, for teaching, and for connecting with people of other cultures, and for having a personal goal of returning to perform medical humanitarian work.

“It was a proselytizing mission through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,” he recalled recently. “I was a zone leader, in charge of all the missionaries in a geographical area as a division of the whole mission.”

As zone leader, Larson was in charge of more than 15 other missionaries, and his role was key in providing for their well-being so they were best equipped to serve.

Through training and teaching, through consistent and supportive communication, and through tending to his missionaries’ resource needs, Larson was able to find the style with which he wanted to lead in the long-term.

“It taught me first and foremost how important it is to show the people you lead that you’re in their corner, that you care,” said Larson. “You’re not just there to tell them what to do. It laid that foundation that I’ve tried to carry over into other leadership roles that I’ve had.”

All of his experiences lead Larson to a mission comprised of two words: “Excellence,” and “Compassion.”

“My patients, peers, and future staff deserve not only my best, but they deserve to know and trust that I care enough about them and their needs to know I’ll do my best.”

MAINTAINING THE PERSON WITHIN THE PROFESSION

Larson, now a father to two boys, a son himself, a brother to two younger sisters, and married to Katelyn for six years, prioritizes physical presence and emotional availability to his loved ones above all else.

“As a family, we really like that my work in emergency medicine will be shift work,” he said. “I know when I’m working and when I’m not. My wife is someone I’ve consulted a lot with my specialty choice, because it affects her as much as it affects me.”

It was personal loss that galvanized Larson in prioritizing his family first.

“I think it was about 10 months into my first year of med school that my mom passed away,” recalled Larson. “That was a really tough time, but now it’s just made those family connections even more importantly than they already were.”

Larson has flown out to Utah to have his family meet his boys, and they continue to communicate via FaceTime on at least a weekly basis to continue staying close and connected.

Professionally, and now personally, he has come full circle in staying close to loved ones while being far away, and learning a powerful lesson that he’d advise any medical student just starting out.

“Medicine, and what we do as medical students and eventually doctors, is very important,” reflected Larson. “But we’re all members of families, and we all have friends and significant others. We must prioritize those roles, as well. Now is the time where we set those habits so we don’t neglect those personal bonds that are most important.”

“Our professional life controls us, or we can control it within our personal life.”