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Student and Faculty Profiles

Meet Hugh...

Listen to one of Hugh’s songs, “The Snail.”

Class: 2007
Hometown: Coventry, Connecticut
Undergrad: MIT
Major: Biology and Humanities
1) M.A., University of Chicago, English Literature
2) Ph.D., New York University, Poetics
Program: M.D.

After ten years teaching college English and another ten as a traveling singer-songwriter, I suddenly came to the realization that I should become a doctor, that medicine was the logical extension of my career path. My wife and I had just become parents. I was 43.

No one who knew me was surprised.

I’d been premed during most of my undergraduate training at MIT and had never lost my interest in science. As an English professor, I often taught the writings of seminal scientists to illustrate the way metaphor inspired their thinking and to point up their deeply spiritual and humanistic qualities. And I often taught the poetry of William Blake, who wrestled with the power and limits of science in his visionary works. As a songwriter, I played concerts and festivals, weddings and births, hospitals, hospices and memorial services. I was always interested in the way music quickly went deeper than words alone, in the power of song to reach through illness, depression, dementia, even death.

I have to admit, I was very nervous when I first spoke to the admissions folks at UConn. I thought there was a good chance they’d laugh me out of the office. But my welcome here has been just the opposite. From day one, I have been embraced for everything I bring to medicine, including my age. My entire family has been welcomed here too, and as with my other schoolmates with spouses and children, the school has bent over backwards to help us succeed while not neglecting our family obligations. In fact, when I showed up for my pediatric rotation on my son’s first day of kindergarten, my preceptor ordered me right home so I could be there when he got on the bus.

Here at UConn, I admire the integrated systems-based curriculum, the use of small-groups in problem-based learning. As someone who has already spent perhaps more time than a person should in classrooms, I have also been thrilled by the relatively limited class time and the corresponding emphasis on clinical experience, starting from the very first month.

Mostly, though, I have been impressed at how the school treats students as adults and colleagues, not only seeking input but expecting initiative and innovation from us. It's the kind of place that makes you hope that you can give back a portion of what you've received.