Meet Dr. Olivier Noel

My name is Olivier Francois Noel. I grew up in Port au Prince, Haiti, where I completed high school, after which I moved to Queens, New York. My time in Haiti was incredibly formative. I think the rigor and discipline of the all-boys elementary/middle/high school I attended was instrumental in setting me up for success when I continued with my studies in the US.

I have always loved the sciences, particularly chemistry, and can recall picking up books at the library to learn more than what was being taught in the classroom. I remember thinking when I was in middle school that real-life applications of basic chemical processes, such as the mechanisms behind combustion and oxidation, were the coolest things ever. By the time I graduated from high school, my passion for science had materialized into a desire to become a doctor, which in my mind meant saving lives in the hospital and at the same time “creating new cures” for patients in the lab.

In terms of a memorable experience, in the book “21 Things To Do When You Turn 21,” which I co-wrote with Elisabeth Vincentelli and others, I wrote that my father moving out and leaving the family house when I was 14 was a notable and difficult moment of my teenage years. I described my feelings at the time as being “angry, scared and [feeling] like I had to instantly grow up and fill the void he had left and become ‘the man’ in the house.” This remains a memorable experience from my early life.

I am currently an MD/PhD student at the Penn State College of Medicine. I obtained my PhD in 2018 in biochemistry and molecular genetics. I’m in my last year of medical school and am currently applying to residency programs in plastic surgery. During my PhD studies, I founded a genetic startup company, DNAsimple, and spent a year working full time to grow the company. As you can see, medicine, science, and entrepreneurship have all been and continue to be of great interest to me. I look forward to incorporating all three of these areas as a plastic and reconstructive surgeon.

I think I’ve already touched on how I became interested in a career as a physician-scientist. Interestingly, I did not initially understand that generally a scientist (PhD) is the one focusing on new discoveries, as opposed to a physician (MD) who focuses more on treating patients. I credit one of my college advisors at Queens College in New York for enlightening me about MD/PhD combined programs, which offered the opportunity to do both as a career.

I really enjoy the concept that one can see patients with a particular condition and then go back to the lab and look for ways to not only understand the mechanism behind the patient’s condition but also find better ways to treat it, either surgically or with medications. I truly find that concept absolutely fascinating.

We can probably make this the topic of this entire interview! I’ll start with sharing a one-time example and then share a more “chronic” one. I remember receiving a call on a Friday evening from a potential investor in my company whom I had reached out to. He basically said he had 10 minutes to hear me out – at 2 pm the next day in Silicon Valley. It was the end of a long day working in the lab but I immediately booked a flight from Philadelphia to San Francisco and on arrival rented a car to drive to Silicon Valley. I was beyond exhausted, but I had my 10 minutes to pitch. Right after the meeting, I headed straight back to Philadelphia.

To make a long story short, during a layover on the return flight I checked my email and was informed that the investor was not interested. While this was a tough experience, if I could go back in time I would do the same thing again. It taught me that success in entrepreneurship (or anything else) would not be an easy road and that perseverance would be key to ultimately achieving my goals. (I ended up raising capital from other investors, including from Mark Cuban on the TV show Shark Tank.)

Another challenge I face on a more consistent basis is balancing career and personal time. My fiancée often reminds me that I “say yes to everything” as a hint that balancing career and personal/family time is important. I love to take on challenges, pursue new ideas, and find ways to make myself even more prepared for the “next thing.” As I mentioned earlier, I love what I’m doing, studying, and learning. It is almost natural for me to go 100 miles per hour at baseline (for good or bad) and increase the speed as needed. I would say that I am a “give 100% to everything or don’t do it at all” type of guy. At the same time, I do love the people around me, so it is a constant struggle to juggle the two and make sure that I am equally successful at both.

I get asked this question a lot, and invite you to read my in-depth response during an interview I gave last year to Penn State Dickinson Law. I wrote that “great planning and great discipline” are key ingredients to success in our studies and careers. To be successful at anything, you have to be committed to the goal you have in mind, and determined to never “settle” and to work as hard as possible to achieve it. I think we all know when we’re giving our ultimate best to something, and it’s vital to be honest with oneself and keep oneself accountable. Ultimately, someone else cannot want you to be more successful than you want to be for yourself. It’s really a mindset above all.

It would be naïve to think that everything will work as planned and that failure is not part of the process. In fact, it is to be expected and should be considered a stepping-stone upon which critical experience and valuable knowledge can be gained. That’s also where the planning part comes in handy – if plan A does not work, it’s OK to go to plan B and also to have a plan C, D, etc. – not because you are planning to fail, but to force yourself to see that there are multiple avenues to achieving your goal. Success breeds success and the more you realize that you can achieve a goal, the more motivated and confident you will become, and the more able you will be to take on bigger goals and achieve them.

To date, I have had four professional mentors. I first found out about MD/PhD programs during my sophomore year at Queens College thanks to my mentor, Ms, Maureen Pierce-Anyan, who was my premed advisor and quickly turned into a life mentor. She was always available, an incredible asset in terms of learning about and preparing for medical school, and overall a mother figure for all the Black and underrepresented minority premed students on campus.

Dr. Nathalia Holtzman was my undergraduate research advisor at Queens College. She’s the one who first taught me how to pipette and who ultimately helped me develop into a young and successful independent scientist. I can say the same about my PhD advisor at Penn State, Dr. Glenn Gerhard. He has been an unbelievable teacher and mentor and I am incredibly grateful to have joined his lab. Last but not least is my medical school mentor, Dr. Donald Mackay, who helped me navigate through the latter part of medical school, introduced me to the field of plastic surgery, and has given me exceptional and valuable tools to enable me to become a successful surgeon in the future.

As you can see, mentors don’t necessarily have to come from the same country or be of the same gender or ethnicity as you. First and foremost, they need to care about you and want you to succeed as if you were their own child. That’s when you know that you’ve found an excellent mentor. Mentors can literally make all the difference when it comes to being successful. I find that to be true precisely in cases such as mine, where I am the first in my immediate family to graduate from college and from medical/graduate school and don’t have the connections or family members to pave the way for me.

What I personally enjoy about my relationship with my four mentors is the ability to learn specific things from each of them. I still stay in touch with all four and have transferred some of the same principles to my mentees.

Yes! I have had numerous mentees over the years, with most of them interested in the fields of medicine and research. I would be willing and happy to serve as a mentor as part of the BMPRC.

I foresee a career as a surgeon-scientist innovator. From a clinical standpoint, I am looking to become a plastic surgeon specializing in microsurgery, performing complex surgical reconstructions of all sorts. From a research standpoint, I have developed a special interest in integrating genetics/genomics with Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation (VCA) in ways that will allow us to perform face, hand, and other body-part transplants more effectively. From an entrepreneurial standpoint, I am interested in finding ways to translate a lot of the great work we do in the lab into tools that patients can readily use to better their health.

As far as the training I’ll need to get there, it will take 6 years of plastic surgery training plus 1 year of microsurgery fellowship training. So far, I’ve done 4 years of undergraduate education. So far, I’ve done 4 years of undergraduate education, 5 years of a PhD program, and 3.5 years of medical school. It has been a long journey, but it surely continues!

Sure! So far this year (2020), I have published three peer-reviewed articles and have submitted four more papers to research journals. One of the published articles is of special interest to me as it deals with diversity (or lack of) in medicine and particularly in the surgical field. The lack of diversity within the surgical field in general has been a well-documented issue for a long time. I took an interest in the topic and wanted to achieve two main goals with this particular research project: (1) understand how gender and ethnic diversity in the surgical workforce compares to that of the patient population we serve at our institution, and (2) provide recommendations on how to tackle the persistent lack of diversity within the surgical field.

A few years ago, I read an NPR article that said that there were fewer Black men in medical school in the US in 2014 than there were in 1978. That statistic is mind-blowing!! Increasing the number of Black, Latinx and other underrepresented minorities in medicine is of great interest to me, and as I move up the academic ranks I continue to think of ways to contribute to the cause and help to move things forward.

I want to commend you for taking this initiative. Black male professors and researchers are unfortunately a very rare breed and I think creating a place where we can concentrate our energy and resources for the benefit of the next generation is terrific and desperately needed. I am honored to play a part in it and would like to pledge my support to its mission.