Caitlin Naureckas, second from right, with her boyfriend, Edward Li, second from left; and her parents, Sara, left, and Ted Naureckas.
Caitlin Naureckas ’12 MD’16
Age: 26
Hometown: Oak Park, IL
Undergrad school and major: Brown University (PLME), Human Biology-Health and Disease
Specialty: Pediatrics
Residency: Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School
How did you decide to become a doctor?
Like many PLMEs, I’m the child of two physician parents, and I spent a lot of my childhood hanging out in hospitals and clinics. I was helping out with Reach Out and Read at my mom’s clinic in elementary school and following my dad around on rounds for Take Your Daughter to Work Day in junior high. I loved every minute of it, so when I started seriously thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up, I could never think of a career I wanted more.
Why did you choose Alpert Medical School?
[I] knew that I wanted to work with underserved populations, and it was clear that both the undergraduate and medical schools at Brown were a great fit with that goal. Being a member of PLME let me run an afterschool science enrichment program in inner-city Providence elementary schools, do tuberculosis research with the most amazing mentor (Jane Carter, MD, associate professor of medicine) for the last seven years, and travel to Kenya twice.
How did you choose your specialty?
I was a late convert to pediatrics—for most of medical school I was completely sure I was going into internal medicine. When I started my pediatrics clerkship, I kept seeing cases that made me think, “Wow, I’m really sad I’ll never take care of this again.” I finally realized that might have been a sign that pediatrics was the best fit for me.
