Cohorts: Rhea Rasquinha '25 MD'29: A Surgical Approach to Medical School

Rhea Rasquinha '25 MD'29 grew up on Long Island, NY, and has an interest in orthopaedics. A biomedical engineering concentrator, she completed NYU Langone’s Department of Orthopedic Surgery’s six-week summer externship in July. She is also a product development engineer for Lenoss Medical in Providence, which develops biological allograft implants to treat vertebral compression fractures.

What does a typical day look like for you?

I like that, during the school year, it’s different depending on what we have going on academically. There’s a lot of studying, lectures, and anatomy labs, but I’ve also been able to spend a lot of time with my friends studying together or playing pickleball. First-year students have a lot of opportunities to shadow in clinical settings, and I’ve had great experiences shadowing attendings or residents who have been very welcoming and willing to share their experiences and advice. 

What attracted you to NYU Langone’s Department of Orthopedic Surgery’s six-week summer externship and what was your experience like?

This felt like our last “real” summer in some ways, as we are going to transition into our clinical rotations outside of the classroom in March, so I wanted to see if I could be closer to home in New York during the summer to see my family while still doing something productive. A friend of mine completed the program last summer, and she was so helpful in terms of sharing her experience and helping me decide if this was something I wanted to do.

The externship was very different from anything I’ve ever done before. Everyone was paired with a faculty preceptor during the six-week program, and you follow their weekly schedule: if they’re in clinic, you’re in the clinic, and if they’re in the operating room, you’re in the operating room. It truly felt like a “day-in-the-life” kind of experience and was an interesting way to see if orthopedic surgery was something that you could enjoy and see yourself doing in the long term. I loved getting to know the residents there and, having not started my own clinical rotations yet, found this was a great way to get that exposure. I was able to chat with them, see what brought them to NYU, what brought them into orthopedics, and how they’re getting through some of the tougher parts of the training and education. I had a great time, and this program definitely showed me that orthopedics is something I’m interested in and can see myself doing.

You also work as a product development engineer for Lenoss Medical—what does your work there consist of?

My position with Lenoss Medical has been one of the highlights of my educational experience. My role has changed somewhat since I’ve started medical school, primarily in terms of my time commitment, but it has been a great experience. I first got involved with the company by the end of sophomore year of college as they were looking for a summer intern. I reached out to the CEO and shared my interest, and I ended up getting onboarded as a part-time contractor. I continued over the next two years and worked full-time the summer before I started medical school.

As part of my role, I’ve helped with the design, testing, and development for instruments, implants, and display materials, and I also did a lot of graphic design. It’s a small company, so I worked on whatever was needed: I put together things like presentation decks for investors and physicians, but also got to do a lot of hands-on engineering work, which has been awesome. Since the start of medical school, I have taken a step back from some of that hands-on work simply because of my time commitments, but I’ve been able to stay involved.

At the moment, I’ve been helping out with a clinical study Lenoss is working on with a physician partner, assisting with the electronic data capture, paperwork, and analysis. We’re seeing patient results come in, so I’ve been compiling that into conference presentations and other reports, and I’m excited for the next steps of this study.

Supporting that project has been nice as it’s an intersection of what I’ve been doing throughout college and into medical school—I have an engineering background, but now I’m studying to be a physician, so getting to work on the clinical side has been a huge plus. It’s a great team of people and they’ve given me the opportunity to do way more than I was qualified to do, but because of that I’ve been able to learn a lot in a short amount of time.

How did you decide to transition from engineering to medical school?

I didn’t truly decide until the last minute to continue on into medical school, and I filled out the form we had saying we wanted to commit on the last possible day. I went back and forth about whether or not I wanted to work full time in engineering first, but while I love engineering, and I loved everything that I did in college, especially the hands-on work, I also realized I don’t want a desk job for the rest of my life. I like working with people, so I think medicine has been a great way to combine the two.

Orthopedics is like engineering, but with people, so there’s a lot of overlap with all  my interests. You get the people aspect, you can be on your feet all day, and it’s the kind of work you can be doing for a long time, while I think in a lot of corporate settings you get to do the hands-on work for a little bit, but then as you move up in a company you’re doing that less and less because of other responsibilities. In medicine, you’re working with patients the whole time unless you choose to go into the administrative side or another route. I’ve really enjoyed medical school so far and am very happy I made this decision.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work and school?

I’ve always been a very artsy person, and I did a lot of illustration work in college, so I’ve tried to continue that with embroidery. I ran competitively while growing up and still enjoy running, and I get to volunteer with a local Girls on the Run team in Central Falls, where we try to work in lessons about health exercise during their practices. I also love spending time with friends and my family, who I’m grateful are not too far away.