Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine University of Rochester Medical Center 601 Elmwood Avenue, Box 626 Rochester, NY 14642
FOCUS ON FACULTY: JEROME JEAN-GILLES JR., M.D. Finding your place professionally is a journey that all physicians experience during their careers. For Jerome JeanGilles, M.D., this journey began with the desire to do something fulfilling and hands-on. The Brooklyn native initially started with a dream of becoming an architect. While in college his focus shifted to medicine, and it was during medical school at SUNY Downstate, that his thought of becoming a pediatrician evolved to being a surgeon. The road to pathology continued during his one-year surgical internship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He was encouraged to explore pathology as a career option by a pathology resident who befriended him during his internship year. While apprehensive at first, (“I could barely look in a microscope with two eyes!”) he shadowed the friend for a week and soon recognized that pathology had the same allure of surgery. He could see it was challenging, rewarding, and allowed space to have a good work/life balance. Today, he couldn’t be more grateful for the path he chose. “The job satisfaction, as far as making a career choice, is off the charts,”
said Jean-Gilles. “I feel like my life would’ve been completely different had I hadn’t made the hard choice to not commit to the path I was going down.” After finishing residency at Brown University and a cytopathology fellowship at U. Massachusetts, he began searching for GU fellowships in the Northeast. That’s how he learned about Rochester. He was accepted into URMC’s GU training program and the following year found himself accepting an offer for a permanent spot on the faculty in 2013. He and his wife Deepika, an emergency medicine physician whom he met in medical school, then put down roots. They currently live in Pittsford with their children Sajen, 10, and Jaya, 8. At URMC, Jean-Gilles came full circle, serving as the GU fellowship director for six years. He currently serves as interim director of Cytopathology – a role he was appointed to in 2019. The transition from fellow to attending, to leading a busy subspecialty section has come with much growth. Shedding the “mentee mentality,” he admits, takes a few years as you gain confidence through repetition and experience. That confidence is critical for all pathologists to help steer patient care behind the scenes, and clear communication is critical in order for them to be effective. “With my trainees, I try to emphasize that there’s a science Continued on Page 5 URMC DEPARTMENT OF PATHOLOGY AND LABORATORY MEDICINE 6
