One of the youngest TCOM students in history is set for Match Day
Eeshan Joshi was standing in the lobby of the Medical Education and Training building
on the campus of UNT Health Fort Worth in 2022 when a classmate came up to him and
said, “I just heard there is some guy who is only 19 years old in our class.”
Joshi smiled and replied, “That’s crazy, because that’s me, man.” The shock on his classmate's face said it all. Joshi was indeed the youngest member of the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine’s Class of 2026. He will be the youngest physician to graduate from TCOM since 2004 and one of the youngest on record to ever graduate…but he’s not what you think.
“Everyone jumps to thinking I’m some sort of genius, but I’m really not,” Joshi humbly says.
What Joshi is about to become is an osteopathic physician, who will celebrate his 23rd birthday the day before Match Day, and then the following day achieve his dream of becoming a first-generation physician. Not bad for a guy who arrived on campus with only a high school diploma and dropped out of college without a degree.
“At one point, I was a high school dropout and an undergraduate dropout,” Joshi said. “My first year at TCOM counted toward my remaining undergraduate credits, so I didn’t have an actual degree yet when I started.”
How did this “dropout” begin his journey into medicine? It started at 16 when he enrolled in the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science at the University of North Texas in Denton. Billed as the nation’s first early college entrance residential program for gifted high school-aged students, Joshi had to drop out of high school in May of 2019, just months after being old enough to get a driver’s license, to enroll.
Coming from a tight-knit family, Joshi’s parents were concerned, especially about the requirement to live in a dorm on campus, but they had a couple of family friends who had gone through the program themselves, which helped ease their fears. Admittedly, Joshi was homesick and struggled initially, but his family's support played a big role in his success.
“It moved fast and quick, and after that first semester, I knew that I needed to figure things out as quickly as possible or this wasn’t going to work out,” Joshi said. “I was very homesick, and that was definitely a factor, because in your first semester, you are limited to how many weekends you can go home, which was just once a month.”
He did figure it out quickly. His work with the TAMS program led him to the UNT/TCOM 3+4 program, which is an accelerated program where students can complete both their bachelor’s degree and Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree in seven years. After finishing the TAMS program in 2021, he got his high school diploma, but then quickly started his third-year of college at UNT with hopes of getting into medical school. While he had hopes of getting into TCOM, the odds were stacked against Joshi. Nobody had gotten into TCOM through this program yet, and there wasn’t even a guarantee of an interview.
“I didn’t think I was going to get an interview at all,” Joshi said. “To me, I knew I wasn’t the greatest applicant. I could have tried harder or scored better in some areas, or done more activities.”
So, while Joshi continued his studies at UNT, it was one day while sitting in his immunology class that he received an email. He was going to get an interview with TCOM.
“It was so exciting and unexpected, and since I was sitting in class when I found out, I couldn’t show my excitement in the middle of a lecture,” Joshi said.
His interview came on Dec. 14, 2021. Then he waited and waited and waited. Was an offer coming? He didn’t receive a pre-match offer and started to worry.
“I did not hear back that day, and there are all these rumors about different pipeline programs that if you don’t pre-match, then you’re not matching,” Joshi said. “Then the next morning, I got an email from the counselor who had guided me through the process. I was just getting back from class, and I was in the middle of a conversation with my roommates when I just froze.”
The email was from TCOM. He was in.
“The first thing I did was open my family group chat,” he said. “I was trying to type something, but I don’t even know what I wrote except a bunch of letters in all caps.”
He received his offer from TCOM at 18 years old and started medical school in the summer of 2022. He tried to keep his age quiet, but that didn’t last long, and he found his classmates very supportive.
“Everyone was great,” Joshi said. “The first week of the semester, when all the student clubs had their socials, I couldn’t get into any of them because I wasn’t 21.”
His family had the same apprehension about TCOM as they did about enrolling at TAMS. Was he rushing this? Was Joshi ready and mature enough?
“There was doubt, and there were multiple times that first semester that I felt like maybe I did rush this opportunity and I wasn’t ready,” Joshi said. “I fell into some really bad habits, I wasn’t eating well, and I didn’t have good study habits at all.”
He leaned heavily on his experience from TAMS to get him through the first semester at TCOM, having gone through the same struggles, but on a different level.
“Something clicked over that winter break,” Joshi said. “The workload increased so suddenly, and it made it difficult because the learning curve in the first semester was so steep, but it helped me to know how I need to learn the materials and improve my study habits. A lot of small things that wouldn’t have clicked before suddenly did.”
Joshi, the inverse of your typical non-traditional student, figured things out, and he is now preparing for Match Day. He’s interested in internal medicine, but certain of a fellowship and perhaps experiencing something beyond Texas.
“I’m very interested in doing a fellowship, and right now I’m leaning towards pulmonary critical care, maybe GI or even hematology and oncology,” Joshi said. “I want to experience something different, so I’ve interviewed all over, but I want to practice here when I’m done. Texas is home.”
Joshi will return home first to where it all began as he has been invited to speak to the current TAMS students at UNT, where just seven years earlier he was one of them.
“The message I want to get across is that starting medical school early isn’t really about age, but humility and persevering through it,” Joshi said. “Medical school is very difficult, and we all go through the same coursework, exams and boards. But the social support of my family and friends and TCOM gave me an incredible experience.”
“Seven years ago, it was a very different me. I was just a 10th grader doing my own thing, in the marching band and having fun, but if my story can help inspire younger students or anyone who thinks medicine isn't possible for them, then I want to do that.”
Wise words for somebody already wise beyond his years.