Alumni Spotlight: Clement Lee, MD, MS '12

Clement Lee, MD, MS ’12

• Field: Internal Medicine and Pediatrics
• Roles at the time of this profile: Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Hospitalist and Senior Editorial Fellow at The New England Journal of Medicine
• Medical education: David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, MD
• Undergraduate education: UCLA, Psychobiology
• Hometown: Arcadia, California

How did your experience at IHN shape your career?

My time at IHN was wonderful and eye-opening. The opportunity to learn about nutrition while being exposed to many different health professions was a major benefit of the program.

As both a pediatrician and an internist, I continue to apply many of the nutrition concepts I learned at IHN when caring for children and adults. My experience also helped cultivate my interest in medical writing and publishing.

I later had the opportunity to work as a senior editorial fellow at The New England Journal of Medicine. It felt surreal to contribute to a publication whose articles we had closely examined during journal clubs at IHN—and to experience the manuscript and editorial process firsthand.

What memory stands out from your time at IHN?

I distinctly remember attending a lecture about foodborne illnesses and learning for the first time that certain bacterial infections could lead to postinfectious paralysis, including Guillain-Barré syndrome.

That lecture sparked my interest in medicine and helped launch my journey toward becoming a physician.

What skills or values are essential in your field?

My time at IHN helped me develop critical academic and professional skills, including evaluating medical literature, communicating effectively with the medical community, and applying complex scientific concepts—even the Krebs cycle—to patient care.

These skills continue to inform both my clinical work and my engagement with medical scholarship.

What developments are shaping your field today?

There is growing awareness that physicians often receive insufficient training in nutrition. Across many specialties and disease states, much remains to be learned about how food and nutrition affect the body and influence health outcomes.

This creates important opportunities for individuals with nutrition expertise to enter medicine, collaborate with healthcare professionals, and help strengthen the role of nutrition in patient care.