Nicolas Cevallos - UCSF Medical Student Speaks on Building Community, Defeating Impostor Syndrome and Winning 7+ IM Championships (#003)

Hey there friends! This is Michael Le. Thanks for tuning into
another episode of Pass the Mike where I have the pleasure of
sharing the narratives of imminent or current medical
professionals. In short, my job is to build you a community of
mentors from the folks that have come before you. I am STOKED to
record another episode with one of my closest friends, Nicolas
Cevallos. That's N-I-C-O-L-A-S space
C-E-V-A-L-L-O-S. Nick and I graduated from UCLA in 2019; he did
so with a major in Human Biology and Society and a Minor in
Global Health. Although the Bruin family is sad to be losing him,
he'll be joining his family up north studying medicine at UCSF.
The two Cevallos brothers are going to be making some noise up
there for sure.


To date, Nick has been involved in a variety of activities—I'll
make sure we touch on those today—but they include serving as a
Special Olympics Coach, a Public Health Intern for the Flying
 Samaritans, an Intern for TEACH which stands for Together
Educating and Advocating Community Health, a CPR & First Aid
Instructor, a Clinical Research Volunteer within the Assessing
Residents CI-CARE or ARC Medical Program, a Recreation Aide at
his home community's Parks and Rec Center. Finally, and these two
activities are where I have had the pleasure of interacting with
Nick the most—he's also served as a Peer Learning Facilitator for
the Academic Advancement Program at UCLA and as a Lab Manager for
the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery.


But, I'd be doing him a disservice if all I did was read out a
list of all that he's been involved with. What you won't see on
paper are the times that Nick is in the first person in lab,
often before 6 AM to prepare for big surgery days. What you also
won't see on paper is Nick's love for mentorship—he and I
co-authored "Your Bruin Guide to All Things Pre-Med," a 40-page
e-book that discusses what students should be focusing on in
every year of their journey and discusses frequently asked
questions like: "How do I get involved with research," or "how do
I choose the right extracurriculars?" Lastly, you won't see the
number of IM Championships the guy has won. I'm only aware of his
ridiculous speed on the basketball court and the flag football
field, but I'm sure there's more where that came from.


You can find Nicolas if you want to say hello, ask a question or
race him (although I wouldn't advise it) on e-mail
atNicolas.cevallos@ucsf.edu, that's
N-I-C-O-L-A-S-DOT-C-E-V-A-L-L-O-S-AT-U-C-S-F-DOT-E-D-U. I'm
personally grateful to carve out some time to have a nice
conversation with my forerever friend today. Nic, welcome to the
show.