Valeria Silva Merea, MD, a laryngologist specializing in head and neck surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, knows how to handle competition. In her days before medicine, she competed on the world stage in the water: as a two-time Olympic swimmer (2004 in Athens and 2008 in Beijing) for her native Peru , a three-time Peruvian national and South American continental record holder for breaststroke events, and a multiple gold medalist at the 2008 South American Swimming Championships in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
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April 2019ENTtoday: How did you become interested in competitive swimming?
Dr. Silva Merea: I learned how to swim when I was pretty young. When I was 5 years old, my parents took my brother and me to get swim lessons. I’m from Lima originally, which is right on the coast, so learning to swim was more of a safety issue rather than just a sport to participate in. But I found I really loved swimming. Soon after, we became members of Club Regatas de Lima, a local leisure/sports club, and I took more advanced swimming lessons there. The club wanted me to be part of its swim team when I was about seven years old. I loved competing with their team—I continued swimming there until I was 22. I also competed for my high school’s swim team in several national and continental junior championships.
People tend to think of swimming as an individual sport, but really … you constantly work in cooperation with coaches and trainers. In the same way, physicians and other medical personnel support and work in partnership with each other.
ENTtoday: What was it like participating in national- and world-level
competitions?
VSM: The Olympics were an amazing experience; it’s the dream of any athlete, so when I decided that I wanted to pursue swimming competitively,
representing my country at the Olympics was my ultimate goal. At the University of Michigan, I was a member of the swim and diving team, and participated in the collegiate championships. I was also part of the Peru national swimming team, and [was] selected as one of 12 athletes to represent my country at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, after winning the 50-meter breaststroke at the South American Championships. I was so thankful to reach my goal in Athens in 2004, and was thrilled to go again to Beijing in 2008. We were a pretty small team, but it was incredible. I was also fortunate to participate in several world championships. I got to travel to countries all around the world thanks to swimming; it was a really great experience.
Beijing was my last meet as a competitive swimmer. I started medical school five days after competing in the Beijing Olympics—I flew directly from China to New York to attend orientation.
ENTtoday: How did you become interested in medicine?