Kortni
Co-Founder, Strategic Director
My mother suddenly passed away from unknown causes a couple of weeks into my 2nd year of medical school. I was raised in a single-parent home and my mother was my best friend, so this was extremely traumatizing for me. I spent many years learning how to navigate through my own feelings of depression, loneliness, and grief just by trial-and-error. In all honesty, it has been a really tough journey - mostly because losing a parent in early adulthood made me feel very isolated from most of my peers. It was hard knowing what to ask for, and most friends didn’t know how to help. This experience inspired me to create a forum for medical professionals in training to share with and support one another. If you are reading this now because of a personal experience, I just want you to know that you are not alone and I hope this site can help in some way.
Priya
Co-Founder, Technical Director
When my father was diagnosed with late-stage cancer at the end of my 1st year of medical school, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Watching him undergo treatment for his disease while juggling the many academic and professional responsibilities of being a medical student, I dealt with increasing degrees of depression and anxiety and found myself struggling to find ways to successfully navigate each of these challenges. It wasn’t until nearly a year later that I recognized that what I was experiencing was actually grief. Since then, I’ve learned that grief can take many forms, and I hope that this website that we have created can serve as a resource for grieving students of all types--a place to learn about the grieving process, to find helpful resources and strategies to cope with grief, and to find support and solidarity in others.
Martin
Co-Founder, Operations Director
Not even two months after graduating from college, I received word that my father had passed away from a heart attack. Immediately after that, I was helping my sister and mother figure out what the next steps would be. We were fully immersed in planning the funeral, sharing the news with family and friends, and learning about how to address legal and financial matters. That entire week was a blur; I think we all were just in shock. Moving on was not easy. While my field is not in medicine, I understand how difficult it is to overcome the hardship of loss. My background is in business, and I want to use whatever skills I have to support this website and its goal to make it a little easier for others.
Aishwarya
Community
My father suffered from a sudden cardiac arrest and spent two weeks on supportive care until he passed away, during my first year of medical school. My parents were both relatively young and healthy, so it never even crossed my mind that this was something that could happen to me at this point in my life. I felt completely lost and unprepared to handle anything like this. The pain of losing a family member, while also undergoing the grueling nature of medical school is a unique circumstance that I felt not many people could understand. Although I was fortunate enough to have the support of my friends, family, and medical school during this incredibly difficult time, I know that this does not hold true for everyone out there. I joined BereaveMed to help provide resources for other medical students dealing with grief, and to hopefully make them feel like they are not alone in this process.
Kevin
Suicide Advocacy
Halfway into my third year of medical school, my older brother died by suicide. There was no note and no warning. My brother had always been my role model and friend and suddenly he was gone before I even had a chance to say goodbye. I found myself ruminating over every conversation and every text message we had to see if there was some warning sign that I missed. While trying to process my loss and my feelings of guilt, I was also attempting to support my parents in any way that I could by making frequent round trips to their home in Michigan. While in Michigan two weeks after my brother’s death, my grandmother had a stroke and died shortly after. Between supporting my parents, traveling, visiting my grandmother before she passed, and planning two funerals, I didn’t have the chance to process my own emotions. All of this while continuing third-year clerkships was just overwhelming. While my classmates were caring and expressed their sympathy, it was still an extremely isolating experience. After working through my own grief with professional help, I decided to join BereaveMed to help other students who may find themselves struggling with their own grief, especially those who have been impacted by suicide.
Janielle
Development