P&S Class of 2016: Brian Fallon

Growing up, Brian Fallon, MD'16, had an inkling he might like medicine, but he never acted on it until a chance development during his job as a finance consultant.

Dr. Fallon went to Notre Dame, majored in economics, and went on to do finance consulting after graduation. Over a period of three years, his employer assigned him to work for several different academic medical centers. He was happy with his job, but all that contact with people in the medical field revived his interest in medicine. One night while on the job in Los Angeles, he decided he was going to apply. Anxious to get the process started, he got up at 6 the next morning to call an admissions office on the East Coast when it opened at 9 a.m. He spoke to a counselor for 30 minutes for advice about his next steps.

Dr. Fallon followed that advice and completed an abbreviated post-bac pre-medicine program at Michigan State before applying to Columbia. “At P&S, I finally found the combination of math and science and helping people that I didn’t realize I had been looking for,” he says. He also enjoyed the diversity of the student body, and the diversity of their experiences and interests that he hadn’t previously encountered.

This summer he goes back home to Michigan for his residency in general surgery at the University of Michigan. He and his wife are expecting their first child in July, which makes going home to Michigan all the more exciting. He’ll miss New York, especially the food, and he’s trying to fit in a few restaurants and tourist trips before he leaves.

His advice to incoming students: “Don’t get tied up with being a medical student and forget that you’re also a resident of New York City. It’s a unique place that you might miss later in life.”

Dr. Fallon was one of two medical students who recently organized the "P&S Surgery Olympics" to introduce 2nd-year students to basic surgical skills they need for their first surgical rotation: