Sumanta Pal: Jasnoor Malhotra spent 2 years at City of Hope with me doing clinical research

Sumanta Pal shared on X:

“Long Post Alert: I wanted to spotlight Jasnoor Malhotra, a 1st year med student at SLU Medicine. She spent 2 years at City of Hope with me before this doing clinical research. .

Beyond the many publications and presentations she drove during her time with me, she made real connections with patients in my clinics.

I can’t share on Twitter for reasons of privacy, but I occasionally get pics from her when she is back in Los Angeles having lunch or coffee with them, just catching up on their progress.

I just received one such text a moment ago. Jazz (as we call her) shared both sorrow and elation with my patients as they went through their complex journeys with kidney cancer.

My patients have told me how much her friendship/allyship during these periods was valued. That she spends her limited time as an MS1 continuing to follow their journeys, showing the same care and concern she did when she worked alongside me years ago, is a testament to her passion for oncology.

As we approach ASCO24, I’m incredibly proud of the many trainees who will be sharing posters and giving presentations. It’s no doubt the result of incredible time and effort in your respective fields, and we do need to celebrate these remarkable achievements.

But please never forget that research is only a part of the job. The desire to form real and lasting connections with your patients is the right reason to become an oncologist. I’ve been at City of Hope for 18 years now.

There’s not a day that I don’t drive into the hospital excited to be there. I realize my situation may be unique; I am sensitive to the many factors in our field that are contributing to burnout, and I am not immune.

These days, rather than trying to steer all my trainees towards the field of oncology, I spend lots of time sussing out whether it’s right for them to the best of my ability.

However, with all that said, I’m sure it’s right for Jazz. I’m looking forward the day when I drive in to work and she’s parked next to me as a fellow or attending.” .

Source: Sumanta Pal/X

Sumanta Pal, MD, is a medical oncologist and an expert in genitourinary cancers at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles.

He serves as the co-director of the Kidney Cancer Program and leads the Kidney and Bladder Cancer Disease Team at City of Hope. He specialises in kidney, bladder, and prostate cancers.