A Bit About Kamaehu

My name is Kamaehu Matthias. I would describe myself as a mutt. I grew up in southern New Jersey, my mom is Hawaiian-Japanese from Maui and my dad is from New Jersey. My family moved to Logan when I was in junior high school. The culture shock of that move was pretty fantastic! I met my wife in high school and, despite the fact she knew me in high school, we got married while we both were at Utah State University. Now, we have the most beautiful two-year-old daughter, Mila, and our border collie poodle, Rey.

I’m a beleaguered die-hard fan of Philly sports (Eagles, Sixers, Phillies, Flyers). As a kid, if I wasn’t playing some sport, I was probably doing something related to Star Wars, whether a video game, a book, a movie, etc. I’m happy to say that’s continued into adulthood!

The Path to Medicine

Neither of my parents completed college, but learning was important to them. They taught my siblings and me early on to always be curious. They loved giving us the resources to pursue anything we wanted to learn about. I remember as a kid my mom always bought yearly memberships to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. It’s a beautiful museum of science. One of the iconic exhibits that is still there today is a giant heart model that you can walk through and follow the blood flow through the heart. This is one of my earliest memories of my fascination with how we humans live and thrive. During high school, I got into Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) and was involved in chapter leadership and the state and national competitions, which further propelled my interests in healthcare.

Kamaehu means “strong and firmness of resolution” in Hawaiian. In layman’s terms, you might say “stubborn and pigheaded,” or at least that’s what my parents always said. So, when I was younger, I thought I was going to be a lawyer, but that quickly faded. If there is one thing about medicine that fascinated me most and played a major role in my decision to go to medical school, it was working with people and learning about their culture and background that then influences how they view life and their health. I graduated from Utah State University (go Aggies), and during my undergrad years, I tried to be involved in activities that helped refine my interpersonal skills and helped me learn how to best educate people and be innovative in those interactions. I’ve always loved education and the power education gives to people. I coached high school basketball for several years, did education reform research and did a few other things that really allowed me to experience how best to work with people and influence them to be better versions of themselves. These interests of mine are also a huge reason why I chose family medicine as my specialty. I think family medicine has such a unique and special role in healthcare. I love that so much of family medicine is educating and empowering patients to take control of their health. I truly believe family physicians have a large amount of influence on patients since, oftentimes, this is the strongest doctor-patient relationship an individual has.

Choosing Rocky Vista University

When it came time to choose a medical school, obviously, location was important. My wife and I wanted to be close to family and reasonably close to Disneyland. Disneyland is very important to us, and we go as often as we can! Other than that, I was very deliberate with finding schools that offered extracurricular activities that fit with my interests and views of healthcare. Like I said before, I love education and innovation and hoped to blend that into my medical education. Rocky Vista offers several elective tracks that you can apply for that offer longitudinal training in various areas outside of the core curriculum. One of the tracks is centered around digital health and digital medicine. The objectives of the track lined up perfectly with how I envisioned being an innovative future physician.

Doctor Impostor

“Doctor Impostor” is a podcast that was born out of the classic group study session tangent conversation. My classmate and friend Austin White and I frequently got sidetracked during our study time so at least this one resulted in something fulfilling! We were talking about how before medical school started, all we had heard about medical school was how horrible it was. We hadn’t had too many people tell us anything positive about the experience and how much more anxious it made us at the start of school. This got us thinking about why that was and why so many people who were top students in their undergraduate years then developed so much impostor syndrome during medical school. So, we decided to take our conversation and put it into podcast form to help premed and medical students all over! We hit on the hard parts of school with a helpful and positive outlook. We’ve had so much fun doing it throughout school. At certain points, we’ve not put out much content due to the crazy schedule of rotations, but we fully intend on continuing this into residency. Both of us matched into family medicine in the Phoenix area, so we’re excited to be close to each other to make recording episodes slightly easier!

Advice for Premeds and Young Med Students

There’s such a huge amount of stress put on your CV and making sure you have the “numbers” of each activity like research, clinical experience, volunteering and so on. It’s very easy to lose yourself in those endeavors to be as well-rounded as you can. Focusing on letting yourself shine through your CV and personal statements rather than the number of lines or words can be a tough undertaking. Be genuine about who you are when you’re doing the things you have to do to get into medical school or match into residency. There’s no rule that everyone has to take the same path and do the same activities to achieve the same goal! You’d be shocked what people on admissions/interview committees will want to talk about during your interviews. I can’t tell you how many times the majority of the interview I talked about Star Wars and Jordan sneakers because that’s what’s in my background in my office at home or other random things when I was prepared to do a deep dive into the research projects that I was a part of. Do what you love! Remember that you are a human being first and investing time in things that truly interest you will make your experience before and during medical school richer and more fulfilling which, in turn, will make you a better applicant.