Earlier this year, the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV celebrated the class of 2027’s White Coat Ceremony, which symbolizes the transition from learning in the classroom to learning in the clinical setting. For Ryan Jannoud, member of the class of 2027, this transition has been something he’s looked forward to since starting medical school.

“It's been awesome to transition into the clinical space because it feels like we’re finally getting down to what we come here for,” Jannoud says. “Before I came to school, I was very much involved in a clinical space. I was working in a hospital; I was doing patient care daily, and it’s been great getting back to that.”

Born in Las Vegas and raised in the rural town of Price, Utah, Jannoud did not initially consider a career in medicine until his senior year of high school. In college, he says he spent time determining whether being a doctor was something he felt he was capable of until his experiences guided him to the reason why he wanted to be a doctor. The most important thing that Jannoud did that helped him decide his career path was working as a certified nursing assistant at the University of Utah Hospital.

“It was, still to this day, the hardest job I've ever done because you're doing the thing at the hospital that so many people overlook,” Jannoud states. “You're helping very, very sick people, and you're helping them shower. You're helping them go to the bathroom. You're changing briefs. You're doing all of the dirty work that people tend to avoid. I just think that it's a hard job, but it was very rewarding in that you got to see … even if you were helping with simple activities of daily living, you really could see that people in these conditions just need help, they need support, they need people to be there for them. And, at the end of the day, a good care team fills that role from the ground up.”

For Jannoud, this experience showed him the various ways a care team can come together and allowed him to observe how doctors worked and their roles in these settings, which helped him come to the realization that he can become a doctor.

“I saw then how I could help in a healthcare setting. And then, it also gave me time to observe how physicians worked and become inspired in the way that good physicians could coordinate a healthcare team,” he says. “Just getting to be in that setting, watching doctors and nursing staff work together towards bettering the patient, I'd say it was probably the biggest thing that led to me committing to this field.”

Although he moved from Las Vegas at a young age, Jannoud maintained his love for the city, especially because his father and brother still reside here. He was excited when the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine, at the time called the UNLV School of Medicine, was first established, and it made him recall something his grandma, who was once a nurse in Las Vegas, said when he was a child.

“I had memories as a kid of her frustrations on the quality of care in Las Vegas because she came from California … I just had memories of her talking about the need for medical education or anything that could increase the number of Nevada, and specifically Southern Nevada, dedicated doctors so that people here could get the care they deserved,” says Jannoud. “ … I was excited when I heard that they created a med school here, and I think I was excited at maybe being able to help carry out that mission that way back when I was a kid, I remembered hearing my grandma talk about.”

Now, Jannoud is able to help the community that his grandma was so passionate about. He has the opportunity to care for patients again, and this time in a new role.

“I'm loving every single day,” says Jannoud. “It's just exciting to wake up and get to interact with patients again … Even if our knowledge is so limited and there's still so much more for us to learn … it's fun to get up every day and tackle the day and just say, ‘How can I do one thing better than what I did yesterday?’”

When it comes to advice he would give to people aspiring to go to medical school, Jannoud reflects on his experiences during his undergraduate years.

He says, “I think the number one thing that I could say to someone that is aspiring to go to medical school is that the question should never be if you can do it. The question should be, ‘Why do you want to do it?’”