Match Day Profile - Connor O’Boyle, M22

Connor O’Boyle reflects back on his medical school journey and shares where he's headed
Connor O’Boyle, his wife Kate and their son

Tell us about yourself
My name is Connor O’Boyle, I’m originally from Seattle, WA and went to college in California at Claremont Mckenna College. I have a wonderful and busy life at home with my wife Kate, 10-month-old son Vincent and 6-year-old golden retriever Dublin.

Where did you match?
I matched at Wayne State University in Otolaryngology

How do you plan to spend your time between now and the start of your residency?
Between now and starting residency I plan on getting my apartment packed up and moved across the country, we have a lot of stuff with the baby and the dog so it will be quite the undertaking. I hope to do a few more touristy things around Boston before leaving such as visiting the Cape and Islands and dine in the North End as often as possible.

What is something you wish you knew at the start of your medicine journey?
The piece of advice I would tell myself before starting my medicine journey is to not sweat the small stuff, there are a lot of aspects of medical school that can get very stressful but looking back you realize how things that seemed to be a very big deal, whether it was an exam, rotation, etc., were small pieces of a much larger journey when looking back. You realize if one part does not go as planned or as well as hoped it is not the end of the world.

What will you miss most about being at Tufts and living in Boston?
I will miss the people at Tufts the most, whether it was my fellow students, deans, or mentors, Tufts has been an overwhelmingly positive place to train and experience my medical education and has been tremendously formative. I will also miss my neighborhood in Savin Hill, my wife and I built a lot of close relationships with neighbors, and we will miss everyone quite a bit.

What are you looking forward to most in your new city/place of residency?
I am most looking forward to having family around in Detroit. My wife is from Detroit and with a 10-month-old it gets hard when life throws anything unexpected our way, plus it is always nice to be able to go to family close by for the holidays instead of traveling thousands of miles.

Connor and his wife, Kate, helped Student Wellness Advising start the Significant Others (Better Halves) group. Here are some of Kate's thoughts on that experience:
During Connor’s first year at Tufts, I quickly realized that so much of his time would be occupied by school and I wanted to build a community of my own but one that understand what it’s like to support a partner through their medical education journey. I had a crazy idea to develop a group whose mission was to bring medical students’ significant others together, and I was so supported by Sharon Snaggs and Dean Kuhlik to make it happen! While COVID made it difficult to fulfill all the Better Halves Club's goals and aspirations, I’m excited to see how this group will continue to grow as we move forward together!