When Tomorrow's Doctors Meet Today's Mentors
I was wondering whether you may have time for a quick chat at some point... started an email I received in January, ...as I would love to hear your thoughts on a little idea I have.
The author of the email was Fiamma van Biema, a student at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine deeply interested in both leadership and mentorship. We had met through my role on the Board of the medical school and as a member of their Student Affairs Committee, and as we reconnected by zoom to discuss her idea, my admiration only grew.
"I have a capstone project," she explained, "and I'd like to build on your mentoring program for young girls. The goal of the capstone is to expose young girls and women to real life stories of women who are becoming."
Fiamma went on to describe how the initiative was sparked by her "personal desire to seek out mentors who are ahead of where I am professionally, but close enough to having reinvented themselves to be able to make their story real and accessible."
"The goal is to embody for young girls that life is an adventure, a process, a journey—and that one has to be ever ready to pivot and to recognize and embrace opportunity when it knocks, or simply take a calculated risk if one believes in the value of its outcome." - Fiamma van Biema, medical student
Needless to say, she had me at becoming.
And as we talked and emailed back and forth, Fiamma elaborated on what she hoped to accomplish by collaborating with Être on her capstone project.
"This mini mentorship program would be less of a 'looking back on my journey' approach and more of a live narrative: sharing the journey as it actively unfolds," she said, as we continued to brainstorm. As a non-traditional student herself, Fiamma noted, "I would have benefited from talking to people who were a couple of steps—or even miles—ahead of me and who could have helped decipher some of the challenges that I would face and will continue to face."
These discussions led to a program that will roll out this spring starting on Wednesday - virtual mentor sessions with leaders across a variety of fields, selected and invited by a future physician.
Our first speaker will be 29-year-old video producer, podcast host and content creator Lucie Fink. You may know her from when she was the face of Refinery29's video team...but what you might not know is that before she became wildly famous as a creator she was planning to be - wait for it - a doctor.
Originally a pre-med Neuroscience major at The Johns Hopkins University, Lucie notes on her website:
I was in love with watching surgical procedures on TV, and I thought I’d become a plastic surgeon, a dermatologist, or a neurosurgeon. I began taking neuroscience classes and diving into my pre-med curriculum, but then, just like that… - Lucie Fink
This is the pivot story Lucie will tell this Wednesday at the request of Fiamma.
And this is what I mean when I say that Être is simultaneously inspired, powered and led by the next generation. From a small idea wrapped in a short email comes a graduate-level capstone ready to impact thousands of viewers and listeners.
The amount of joy these moments bring me is unspeakably large, and it made me smile while writing this as we just passed the International Day of Happiness this weekend. In celebration of that day, U.S. News & World Report released the 2026 World Happiness Report and I scrolled with interest.
Seeing the happiness trends across different regions and diving deeply into the happiness of Gen Z, the report describes how internet use, social media, social connections, well-being and the need for community all play important roles in how happy - or unhappy - the next gen perceives themselves to be. Not unlike our research into joy and rebellion last year with Hello Sunshine and YPulse (described here last week in Forbes), the new World Happiness Report reinforces a concept most of us feel in our bones:
We are happier when we feel connected to each other, and more confident when we have the power of mentors at our back. The fact that according to our research with Hello Sunshine 86% of girls say they feel more joyful with a mentor and 92% of girls say they are more confident because of a mentor makes what Fiamma is doing all the more purposeful. - Statistics from Joy is Rebellion Survey (2025)
Medical school is hard enough without adding a capstone project that brings you out of the hospital and into the wider community. But it is exactly that desire to seek wisdom from broader experiences and inspiration from a variety of leaders that will make Fiamma an even more brilliant doctor. That girls across the country will also benefit from her vision is just the extra sprinkling of joy.
If you would like to join our first becoming x être virtual mentor moment this Wednesday at 6pm ET with Lucie Fink, just shoot me a DM and let me know. And if you'd like to become part of a future mentor moment yourself, I can't wait to connect you to Fiamma.
Looking forward,
Illana
ÊXTRAS: Three more things about Lucie Fink you won't want to miss: see her content creation suggestions here, watch and learn from her videos here, and read more about her background and journey here.
