Sofia Aronson ’14 MD’18
Putting Herself Out There
Hometown: Born in Latvia; grew up in St. Louis
Undergrad: Brown; biochemistry (PLME)
Specialty: Plastic surgery
Residency: Northwestern Memorial Hospital/Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Path to medicine: “My grandma was a paramedic in Siberia for four decades. I was 3 when I decided to be a doctor.”
Choosing her specialty: “When I found plastic surgery, I was really impressed that we give patients multiple decades of a good outcome. We get to follow them throughout their course, we get to build that relationship, and give them back what they lost—give them back whatever made them feel like a person.”
Best advice: “My first-year Doctoring mentor, Doreen Wiggins, told me, never take yourself out of the running. You should always put yourself out there, and go after something that you might secretly feel is bigger than you.”
Residency program criteria: “I want to be a baller surgeon, so I need autonomy, I need volume, and I need to see a lot of different things to feel confident dealing with anything that comes through my door when I’m an attending. The second thing I wanted was extracurricular stuff, leadership and research opportunities to jumpstart an academic career, and have the support and infrastructure in place for that. And the last thing, which is non-negotiable, is the culture, the people, the energy of a place. Because six years is longer than some marriages, so it better be good.”
Med school experience: “Traveling around meeting people from other schools, you realize how lucky you are to have the people here who support you, who have your back. It’s been a really wonderful experience. Like, I actually liked medical school and it can be good! I’m a really happy medical student.”
Watch videos about Sopia and her classmates at brunonia.brown.edu.
