Ryan Aberle Finds Beauty in Medicine

An executive chef for nearly 15 years, Ryan Aberle had an established career before embarking on his journey to medical school.

“I got to the top of my little mountain in the culinary world, and I didn’t really like the view. The beautiful thing about medicine, is that there’s no such thing as the top of the mountain,” says Aberle.

But regardless of the career shift, he knew where he wanted to end up. Having lived in Minnesota for the majority of his life, he’s established deep roots here.

“Really when it came down to it there was only one choice. In fact, I applied for early decision to and only to the University of Minnesota, because I knew this was where I wanted to be,” Aberle explains.

When Aberle started medical school, he had a plan– keep his head down and do his own thing, especially because he was an older student.

“That plan didn’t work out. I realized early on that I needed the people around me to make it through,” he says. “So when the time came around to elect a class president, I put my name in the hat. My classmates elected me, and it gave me the chance to really give back to my class. That’s been a really meaningful experience for me throughout my journey here.”

Aberle has multiple interests, which led him to apply to a variety of different programs.

“I applied for three different specialties. So on match day, while my colleagues find out where they’re going to be, I will be finding out what I’m going to be doing,” he says.

While Aberle likes each specialty for a different reason, he stresses that he would be happy being matched with any of the programs he ranked.

“I’m passionate about a lot of different things in medicine, whether that be one-on-one patient care– like family medicine, where you really get to move that preventative care needle– or emergency medicine, and the whole triage that happens there,” he says.

When asked what he’s looking forward to most in his medical career, Aberle feels strongly about making a difference in the lives of his patients.                 

“Just being able to help individual people improve their place in life, or help them find a path so that they can help themselves improve, is so powerful, and I feel privileged to be in a profession where that’s part of the job description,” he says.

On match day, Aberle is looking forward to knowing what he’ll be doing next– and where.

“I’m looking forward to enjoying the process and realizing that this is the last time– the first and last time– that I’ll ever go through something like this. And looking out at all my classmates and just feeling the joy of all of their connections and where they’ll be and the bright futures that are ahead of all of them,” he says.