Ken Han

I knew at an early age (probably too early) that I wanted to make a living by helping people. That decision never changed, and growing up with a heavy science background, I naturally went into medicine. Neurology was not an obvious choice to me until I got to the clerkship. I wanted to help people, and the brain is what makes humans people. It's a complicated organ system that affects the whole body, and is very sensitive to insults that can present in a wide variety of ways. The smallest lesion can cause isolated deficits, or cause global dysfunction that keeps people from being themselves.

As a medical student at UMD, the neurology residents were the most impressive throughout all of my rotations. They were phenomenal educators, with a very thorough and systematic to their approach in every patient. Because neurological disorders command wide differentials, every patient is given due process and consideration for the cause of their symptoms. We also see very complicated patients given the acuity of Shock Trauma and UMMC. Lots of stroke, patients with organ transplants, infectious diseases that shouldn't exist in civilization anymore, etc.

When I'm not in the hospital, I'm never reading enough about neurology. I practice Tang Soo Do, Japanese jujitsu, lift weights, disc golf, bowl (not competitively, but PR of 268!), beatbox in private, and avidly listen to podcasts. Fortunately, these are not activities that I enjoyed in a past life (i.e. pre-residency), I'm able to do most of these activities several times a week, at worst twice a month. It takes a little extra motivation and planning to be active during residency, but I think personal enrichment is also important to being a compassionate and effective physician.