Diana Jung, MD
Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellow
University of Missouri–Kansas City
What is your current year of training?
I am a PGY-4, first-year fellow in pulmonary and critical care!
Why did you choose internal medicine?
I love teaching, and internal medicine encompasses just that! We educate and learn from patients, students, trainees, and staff! There’s not a day that I don’t learn something new, and I’m excited to be a lifelong learner. I’ve always wanted to be a teacher ever since I was little, and I’m blessed to have discovered my passion in the field of medicine. I had amazing mentors who went above and beyond investing in my professional and personal career, and I have made it a mission to pass it forward in dedicating my time and energy into empowering the next generation of internal medicine physicians.
I saw a need for primary care physicians in the Midwest, especially ones who speak Korean. Translators are great, but being able to communicate with your medical team in your native language is not a luxury every patient has. I love that in internal medicine we get to know our patients and their families on a personal level. I strive for my patients to be able to tell me what medications they’re taking and why. If we don’t take time to educate and listen to the patients...who will?
What lesson(s) did you learn in residency that can help you for the rest of your career?
I learned many things during training! Here are some pearls I’d like to share:
- Medicine is a team effort: Learn the names of your nurses, technicians, social workers, therapists, phlebotomists, and housekeeping staff and tell them thank you! Without them, you wouldn’t be able to do your job seamlessly.
- We take great leaders for granted: Take time to acknowledge your chiefs, supervisors, directors, and coordinators! Behind the scenes, they’re working double-time.
- Food first! Just like you want to put a patient back on a diet when they no longer need to be NPO, you also want to make sure you carve out time to eat during the day.
- When entering a patient’s room, pull up a chair! No matter how busy you are, getting down to their eye level truly does make a difference.
- Pull up images for patients and family members. A picture is worth a thousand words. They might not remember your name, but they’ll remember you as the physician who went over their scans and they will better understand what’s going on.
What are your plans for after fellowship? What factors or advice from mentors contributed to your decision?
I’m interested in interventional pulmonology and want to stay in academic medicine. I see a future teaching medical students, residents, and fellows the art of medicine, procedures, and POCUS.
I have an interest in running a primary care clinic for Korean-speaking patients in the Midwest region so that they don’t have to travel hours to a bigger city for their care. I was inspired by subspecialist mentors who still practice general internal medicine. Because we’re all internal medicine physicians!
How has being a member of ACP helped you in your professional life? What resources have been most helpful to you?
I’ve met incredible mentors through ACP. Through my involvement in the Council of Resident/Fellow Members and the Ethics, Professionalism and Human Rights Committee, I’ve dived into deep and difficult conversations about parental leave during training, health care as a human right, brain death testing, and issues in organ transplantation. I was able to bring these conversations to my colleagues and reference ACP’s position papers and case studies for guidance.
In recent years, ACP has developed a Pan-Asian affinity group where we dive into topics such as microaggressions, minority invisibility, the bamboo ceiling, and perceived foreignness. It’s inspiring to learn that we are not alone in what we face day to day and that there are so many incredible leaders in our community who have once walked the same path we do.