Mitchell Fiorella-Crandall, MD ’24

I was born at Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital. I spent a lot of time growing up in North Buffalo near UB South Campus. My family was centered on the West Side of Buffalo with my grandparents on Richmond Avenue and aunts and uncles scattered near Elmwood Village. I moved into Kenmore for high school and then Canisius for undergrad. I earned my medical degree from the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB. And now I am UB Emergency Medicine for residency. It is kind of crazy that I get to occasionally work shifts in the ER at the hospital I was born in. 

I wanted programs that had been around for a while. Diversity of clinical experiences was very important. Academic and community EM vary so much I wanted to really experience both. Pediatric exposure was also very important to me as taking care of children is a huge part of every EM job at some point. I think most importantly I wanted to feel like the team I would work so closely with was full of a diverse array of people who wanted their residents to not only succeed but thrive. 

To be honest, it was always Buffalo for me. Proximity to family was important so I looked up and down the I-90 (Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, not in that order). I realized Buffalo felt like family. The training is incredible. It’s one of the oldest EM residencies in the country and Buffalo has been cutting edge for a lot of medical breakthroughs. The breadth of training we get here in EM is hard to come by in not only the state, but nationally as well. The added bonus of incredible faculty really sealed the deal for me.

There is a stark difference between on shift and off shift, but both are incredible. In the ED there is a quality of quiet leadership from the trenches that our attendings put forth. Everyone works hard and fulfills their roles to the best of their ability. The support we get is unmatched — both from co-residents and attendings. If you work hard you will get more support than you know what to do with. Off shift, whether it’s at a Bills tailgate, Sabres game, dinner downtown, hiking trip, bowling alley, or any other place that’s not a hospital you’ll find a group of people who love to laugh, reminisce, connect and unwind responsibly.

The people — hands down. People in Buffalo live simple lives and have access to anything that any working class person or elegant connoisseur could possibly want. We go to work, do our jobs well and when we clock out we have fun in whatever way we want. Your neighbors can be your family. The city becomes part of your identity. Being from Buffalo and staying here has been such a gift, personally. There is nothing better than calling a consult in the ED and the person who answers the phone went to undergrad with me or knows my family or lived up the street from me as a kid. I love visiting places all over the world, but I'll never leave Buffalo for long.