Talent Tuesday: Full-court Press with Bill Choochaisaengrat PROS 27, Iman Zarrinkoub DMD 25, and Badr Hefnawi ENDO 26
We know everyone at GSDM shares a love for all things dental. But what do GSDM students and residents enjoy doing outside of the classroom and patient treatment center?
This month, we will be publishing a four-part “Talent Tuesday” series featuring the talents or hobbies of 12 students and residents.
In the second installment, Bill Choochaisaengrat PROS 27, Iman Zarrinkoub DMD 25, and Badr Hefnawi ENDO 26 discuss their passions for athletics, whether it’s on the track or behind the camera.
Setthawut (Bill) Choochaisaengrat PROS 27: Long-distance Runner
A decade ago, Choochaisaengrat started running to lose weight and become stronger. Now, he runs 40 to 50 miles per week, gradually increasing to 55 to 60 miles during his peak season.
Choochaisaengrat has many lofty goals for his running–one of which he completed last year by running the 2023 Chicago Marathon in 3 hours and 14.4 minutes.
“It’s become a significant part of my lifestyle and a way to challenge myself, physically and mentally,” Choochaisaengrat said. “That’s why I still keep doing that every single day.”
This year, Choochaisaengrat is training for a 50-kilometer ultra marathon in September and the New York Marathan in November. His training is slightly different for those two events: For the former, he is focused on building endurance and strength; for the latter, he is working on speed and consistency. Both marathons demand excellent physical wellbeing, strong nutrition, and recovery plans.
His short-term goals are to simply finish the UTMB Ultra Marathon, as he has never run more than 26.2 miles, and to run a personal best time in the New York Marathon. After that, he wants to qualify for the Boston Marathon and complete the other three World Major Marathons (Tokyo, Berlin, and London).
[Running] has given me rewards to achieve outside my professional career,” Choochaisaengrat said. “It is not in my career path, but I can achieve other things that I do for hobby. It makes me feel like I have power.”
To juggle his prosthodontics residency and running routine at the same time, Choochaisaengrat said he has to be very disciplined and manage his time effectively. There may be long days, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Running helps clear my mind and gives me energy for the whole day,” he said. “After I finish running in the early morning, I can stay focused and resilient during my study.”
Iman Zarrinkoub DMD 25: Sports Photographer
In 2019, Zarrinkoub was looking for a new hobby when he discovered various cameras around his family’s house, piquing an interest in photography and ultimately leading to him joining McGill University’s student newspaper as a photographer at the start of his junior year.
Zarrinkoub’s first assignment was covering a climate march in Montreal featuring the well-known Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg; through that assignment, he realized that he loved the thrill of having just one chance to capture the right photography to tell the story of a particular event or moment. Then, he started to cover hockey, rugby, and basketball games, and found that those athletic photos were his favorite assignments.
His photography took a backseat during the pandemic, but when Zarrinkoub started at GSDM in 2021, Dr. Calabrese helped him connect with the coach for the BU women’s hockey team. Zarrinkoub now works with BU Athletics to take hockey photos–and was even able to get credentials to shoot at Fenway Park and TD Garden for Beanpot.
“Being such a hockey fan, being able to watch hockey for free and then take cool photos and have the photos be shared on different pages, that’s pretty cool,” Zarrinkoub said.
Beyond athletics, he enjoys taking photos of his friends and family – including taking YouTube cover photos for classmate Elias Hilarie’s DMD 25 YouTube channel, Student Doctor Eli, and another classmate’s proposal photos in Amsterdam. As a photographer, he finds himself admiring the little things.
“If I didn’t have my camera with me, I [might not have] taken the moment to appreciate such fine things,” he said. “I just think it’s nice when you can like put everything down and go enter a different mentality.”
Badr Hefnawi ENDO 26: Martial artist
Hefnawi has studied karate, taekwondo, Thai boxing, and jiu-jitsu for 20 years, but he is always looking for new challenges. This drive led him to his first intercollegiate competition as a member of the Boston University Jiu-Jitsu Club at Harvard University this past November.
Hefnawi said this intercollegiate competition was an exciting test of his jiu-jitsu prowess. He recognized there was potential for injuries, which could be detrimental to his endodontic studies, but decided it was worth the risk. He could not have been happier that he and his teammates scored well, leading to a first-place victory against five other teams and a joyous moment for their club.
“I’m someone who loves challenges [and to] try new things … that’s one of the reasons why I decided to even enter the specialty of endodontics,” Hefnawi said. “With these jiu-jitsu competitions, I’ve been practicing for a little while and decided why not try and see how my skills compete against people who do this essentially full-time or as their main sport rather than just for me basically being a side hobby that I decided to pursue.”
His goal is to maintain his overall health by doing activities he loves. He said he thoroughly enjoys pushing himself to new physical heights–even signing up for an upcoming triathlon–to keep both his mind and body in top shape.
“Every time you face a challenge, you just give up or you try. If you give up, you’re not going to go far in life,” Hefnawi said. “By having that constant experience in sport, constantly facing adversity, constantly facing challenges, when you go into your work field, it’s just another day, it’s just another challenge. Let’s get on with it. What can I do?”
