Class of 2025 UConn School of Medicine graduate Dr. Katherine Phillips, 28, from Redding, Conn. is excitedly staying at UConn for her pediatric residency training.
She got underway this July training and caring for pediatric patients at UConn’s longtime affiliate Connecticut Children’s.
“UConn is an amazing place. I had a really great experience at UConn’s medical school, and I am excited to stay at UConn for residency and so close to home,” she says.
“It feels great,” Phillips says to finally be a doctor, and a dream come true of training to be a pediatrician at UConn. “It’s very exciting to have all the hard work of UConn medical school pay off.”
This summer Phillips was one of the 192 new UConn Graduate Medical Education program residents beginning their advanced training across over 80 different residency programs, along with 81 new fellows too. UConn GME is among the largest sponsors of residency programs in the nation ranking in the top percentile in size for the country.
Throughout high school, Phillips dreamed of becoming a doctor. She always knew she wanted an opportunity to help people.
After college at Wake Forest University, she began working as a medical scribe at Wake Forest Baptist Health. “As a medical scribe I saw doctors caring for patients over time. I really liked that part of medicine. I decided I wanted to go into some kind of primary care someday so I could care for patients more longitudinally.”
It was then time for medical school to make her dream a reality.
“It was really nice to move back to Connecticut for medical school,” Phillips says. “In my third-year rotations I really enjoyed pediatrics. Working with kids is so rewarding. I also enjoyed working with the UConn pediatric faculty at Connecticut Children’s.”
“My goal is to become a general pediatrician and care for children as outpatients. What drives me as a pediatric care provider is to create a safe and welcoming space for growing and developing kids. A space for kids to ask questions and get the care they need, especially access for transgender children and LBGTQ youth is very important to me.”
Phillips as a UConn medical student during her pediatric care rotations already had the privilege to be a part of the care for many pediatric patients. She really enjoyed checking on her pediatric patients in the hospital and communicating with their parents.
An inspiring experience for her was caring for a newborn baby with a cleft palate having feeding and weight gain issues. She carries with her this patient care success memory into her pediatric residency training.
“It was wonderful working as a team, and hoping the baby gained weight and got bigger every day. It was inspiring to see how closely residents, doctors, and dieticians worked together to make it happen. It was a really rewarding experience to see this baby grow. Pediatrics makes an impact.”
She adds, “The people in the UConn community, its pediatric faculty, and clinicians at Connecticut Children’s are some of the most enthusiastic teachers I have ever had. They are so caring of their patients and their trainees. They inspire the next generation of doctors, medical students, and residents every day.”
Phillips will always look back fondly at her medical school experience at UConn too.
“At UConn School of Medicine, all the medical students work together, not competing with one another. Everyone builds each other up to create the best colleagues in the future, that we will want to refer our patients to. That’s a really good feeling to have about your medical school and classmates,” she concludes.
