Rutgers Medical Students—Committed to Improving Care—Learn Their Futures on Match Day
March 20, 2026
Competing in Division 1 gymnastics fulfilled a lifelong dream for Leah Gneco, but serious injuries got in the way.
She was a college sophomore when a surgeon determined she had withstood too much physical damage to ever return to the mat and would likely even have trouble keeping up with her friends and family on hikes and vacations. Yet he waited until six months after surgery to tell her — otherwise, he worried, she might not have been motivated during physical rehabilitation.
Gneco was devastated. She understood the doctor’s reason for withholding the information, but she would have preferred to know sooner so she could have planned more realistically for her future. She decided to enter the medical field to treat patients the way she wished she had been treated.
“We need more doctors who not only care about whether surgery is done right, but also a patient’s mental health afterwards and how the procedure will impact their function and future,” Gneco said. “It motivated me to be that doctor.”
Reposted from Rutgers Today