We’ve learned that The New England Review/Bread Loaf Scholarship recipient for 2015, emerging writer Dr. Ricardo Nuila, has spent a little time on the TEDx stage, telling his stories out loud.

“My first thought was, wait, someone else must be a doctor . . . how might I explain myself to the flight attendant? ‘Excuse me kind m’am,’ I’d say, ‘I literally became a doctor yesterday. What this means is, I don’t know what I’m doing . . . if you want to know the truth, I’m done with medicine. I’m off to become a writer.’”

Listen to Ricardo Nuila tell his TEDx story here, from the stage at Rice University

Dr. Ricardo Nuila is an assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine, where he works as a hospitalist at Ben Taub General Hospital and teaches internal medicine and classes on the intersection of medicine and the humanities to both residents and medical students. His essays have been published in numerous prestigious medical journals including The New England Journal of Medicine. Additionally, Dr. Nuila is an accomplished fiction writer who has been published in New England Review, McSweeney’s, Ninth Letter, and Indiana Review, among others.

Winner of the inaugural NER Award for Emerging Writers, Dr. Nuila will attend the 2015 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference this summer on the first annual NER/Bread Loaf scholarship.