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SKMC Alumni Bulletin
Read the Original Article Featuring Mike Natter, MD ’17

Mike Natter, MD ’17

Career-wise, where has life taken you? Is it what you expected to do when you were a student, or did you change your trajectory sometime in medical school or afterward? If so, what inspired you to change?

MN: I’m finally done with medical training! All together, from undergrad to post-bac, med school to residency, and finally fellowship, it’s been a journey of 16 years, which amounts to slightly less than half my life. Many said I’d never make it. But those negative voices have faded into noise, and despite them, here we are today. While I am flushed with emotions, the sentiments are complicated.

I am at a really exciting inflection point in my life and career at the moment, as I have just recently completed my medical training and started as an attending endocrinologist in September 2022 at NYU Langone Health! It feels meaningful, and I can still recall being a pre-med student trying to envision this very moment. I had always dreamed of becoming an endocrinologist to help others who share Type 1 diabetes. I am deeply grateful to Jefferson and everyone who has supported me, as I feel this achievement is as much theirs as it is mine.

My training, while arduous, was comprehensive and impactful. It was punctuated with moments of true dread and fear (Covid ICU being some of the darkest). And yet, I cut my teeth and grew from it thanks to those around me—my fellow residents and fellows, nurses, patients, attendings, friends, family, and loved ones. This has been and will be my most cherished and hard-fought life accomplishment, but I feel it is just as much owed to all of those who have supported me as it is to me alone. I’ve done none of this alone. Thank you to everyone who has had my back these last few years. I am so sincerely grateful—we did it.

Did you take an interesting path to where you are now, and if so, what was that path?

MN: Oh yes. My background was rather nonlinear, as I was an art kid prior to going to medical school. I then went on to complete a post-bac pre-medical program at Columbia University when I realized that medicine is very much an art.

How did your Jefferson education help you achieve your goals as a physician?

MN: Jefferson was instrumental in my life for many reasons. For one, it was the only medical school who took a chance on the “art kid” and awarded me an acceptance into medical school. But Jefferson did so much more than that; it celebrated my nontraditional artistic approach to learning medicine and was supportive at each step of my growth. I found mentors there like Dr. Herrine and Dr. Mangione who encouraged me. I found lifelong friends and colleagues there among my classmates. I am deeply grateful for all Jefferson has done for me.

What is your fondest memory of your medical school and training days?

MN: Medical training is hard. It is exhausting and can be physically and emotionally weighty. What I recall most is that despite those long days spent studying and rounding, there were people around me who constantly lifted me up, including the kind nurse on the general medicine floor named Raine who helped me walk my patient down the hall; my study buddies Chris and Graham as we’d quiz each other in the empty classrooms in the Hamilton building each evening; and the many role models like Dr. Deimer and Dr. Mingioni who taught by example what separates a good physician from an excellent physician.