Monica Youssef, MD

monica youssef

Name: Monica Youssef, MD

Hometown: St. Paul, MN

Undergraduate school attended: University of MN - TC

Hobbies: Love spending time with my family and friends; trying out new restaurants, watching movies with each other, even just talking. I also like working out (swimming esp), spending time with my dog, watching sunrises and sunsets and traveling (usually to beach/warm areas)

Languages I speak: Arabic, English, Spanish, Coptic

Furthest I've traveled from home: Lusaka, Zambia

Favorite activity in the Twin Cities: In the summer: being on the lake, on a boat. Love fishing from a dock, going for walks around the cities, checking out live shows/concerts. In the winter, usually staying cozy with indoor activities :) 

Specialty: Internal Medicine

Why I chose my specialty: I'm much more of a cerebral type of a person; I like to think through and analyse situations/problems very in-depthly vs just doing a procedure. This eliminated all of the procedurally based fields including surgery and the surgical subspecialties, anesthesia and EM. Then it came down to more broad specialties including pathology, radiology, pediatrics, psychiatry, family and internal medicine. During rotations, I sort of did a process of elimination with every specialty. In the end, I found that I enjoyed a bit of everything; really liked more complicated pathophysiologic processes; enjoyed working with patients; and didn't particularly like working with sick kids. Thus, Internal Medicine was the right fit :) 

Why Medicine: It's fairly simple, really. I grew up in a culture where one of 4 different fields was generally favored: Engineering, Dentistry, Pharmacy, and Medicine. Back in Egypt, one of these careers allowed one both job security and professional respect. Because my parents are Egyptian immigrants, I was influenced to possibly consider one of these 4 fields from a very young age. I found in primary and secondary school that I had a natural affinity for the biosciences as opposed to mathematics, thus considered one of the 3 health fields as above. The more I progressed in my undergraduate rotation, shadowed, learned about the careers, the more I felt that medicine was more appropriate for me. I see things very holistically and really enjoyed the possibility to incorporate the biosciences, social sciences, psychology and spirituality, and teaching as a means to provide healing. I was attracted to the several avenues and opportunities one can take with Medicine as well. The more I have progressed through medical training, the more I have been persistently validated that this is the right field for me.