Voices of HMSOM: Sur Values the People Part of the Job

Indica Sur found herself, as so many did recently, at the crux of a global crisis. She was working as an EMT with the only company that was transferring COVID-19 patients out from a local urban hospital in Iowa City at the height of the pandemic.

Considering the toll of the pandemic, she and the other paramedics and EMTs were extremely busy. Amid the exhaustion, however, there was a bright moment that blissfully came again and again.

“One hospital would play ‘Ave Maria’ every time a COVID patient got discharged - they’d broadcast it throughout the entire PA system, because of how weary and battered the staff were,” said Sur. “Just hearing that, knowing that someone had survived and recovered enough to be discharged… that was enough. The whole hospital listened for it.”

“That was really something to be part of,” Sur recalled, recently.

The fourth-year Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine (HMSOM) student is now at the cusp of graduating with her medical degree. She is looking to specialize in internal medicine, and bring her love of interacting with people to the satisfaction of solving complex medical problems and healing. Eventually she hopes to impact health policy as well. Her ambitions have put her in good stead to improve the future of medicine, wherever the next stage of her career brings her.

“Indica Sur has a varied background, with lots of experience,” said Jeffrey Boscamp, M.D., the president and dean of the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. “We are all eager to see how she progresses through her career, and we’re glad she chose to receive her medical education with us.”

A LOOK INSIDE THE HOME

A doctor’s career was decided on late by Sur, originally thinking she wanted to go into research. Ultimately, it was a love of the “human element” and working with people that inspired the change.

A particular observation brought that all home for her, when she was working on improving motor development skills with low-income preschoolers in Michigan as a graduate student (University of Michigan). She shadowed a pediatric pulmonologist who seemed to be able to do it all - connect with the patients, calm families, engage with complex research, all of it. Sur found herself inspired by the thought that she could be in a similar role some day.

“Those families were truly in need,” she recalled. “But as an EMT, I’d witnessed people at their most vulnerable–stepping into their homes during some of the hardest moments of their lives. Each time, I wish I could have helped sooner. These experiences are what ultimately brought me to a medical career.”

TIME AT HMSOM

From the first days at the HMSOM, Surknew she was in the right place to learn medicine. The exercise of using teamwork to assemble bikes for charity - the annual orientation “bike build” - was fulfilling, right away.

“They take random groups of students, from all different backgrounds and bringing different aspirations and skills, and we’re trying to put this bike together for the kids,” she recalled. “This is what teamwork and medicine is like. There’s some task - and everyone is bringing something different to the table. It’s a great thing to see us working together, even on day one.”

That exercise was just the beginning. The school’s Human Dimension program, which brings students right into the homes of underserved communities across New Jersey, was exactly what the former EMT and empathetic doctor-in-training envisioned from medical school.

Sur made sure to challenge herself. She volunteered in multiple capacities, including serving on the school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee, and also serving as the co-president of the school’s chapter of the American Medical Women’s Association. She took part in research projects and extracurriculars with well-known Hackensack Meridian clinicians such as Charles Binkley, M.D., and Elliott Frank, M.D., who became valued mentors. She even sought out away rotations at community hospitals affiliated with Harvard and Cornell, to see how she would fare beyond Hackensack Meridian Health and New Jersey.

“I wanted to see how prepared I was,” she explained later. “It was really reassuring to see the school had trained us to do this anywhere.”

A Seton Hall Law School certificate was an additional accomplishment she found the time to add - with an eye toward impacting health care at an administrative or health policy level someday, she said.

A GRADUAL SHIFT TO THE EAST

For now, Sur is awaiting Match Day, and the envelope which will provide the place of her next step as a resident in internal medicine.

It’s an interesting twist of fate, because her large, mixed-race family has occasionally had a healthy dose of skepticism about medicine. But Sur said even that has been inspirational.

“I’m trying to become the kind of physician my family would trust,” she said. “I’m learning to better understand where people may have hesitations or concerns, and how to work together to address them.”

Originally from the Bay Area in California, Sur jokes that her time in the Midwest, and carrying on through here to New Jersey, has been a gradual slow relocation east on Interstate 80 across the country.

No matter where residency brings her, she will continue doing her best to heal during her hours of vocation. In her free time, she likes to host friends, to cook and to travel. A formerly avid soccer player, Sur now keeps active with running, after multiple knee injuries meant the end of her time competing seriously.

“Regarding the future,” she added, “I’m going to keep putting in the work, and see where things take me.”