Darren Saks

Mountain Hawk Heroes: Men's Soccer Alum Darren Saks

10/13/2020 9:31:00 PM | Men's Soccer, Support, Features, Flight 45, Intellectual Development

Every Wednesday, Lehigh Athletics, Lehigh Valley Health Network and Coordinated Health is proud to recognize a Mountain Hawk Hero - someone associated with Lehigh Athletics who is making a difference in the medical field. We continue today with men's soccer alum Darren Saks '92.

Previous Mountain Hawk Heroes
October 7: Jenny Warner Southard (Track and Field Alum)
September 30: Taylor Wise (Swimming and Diving Alum)
September 23: Matt Christman (Track and Field Alum)
September 16: Steph Fratoni (Field Hockey Alum)
September 9: Mike Price (Swimming and Diving Alum)
September 2: Yasmin Deliz (Track and Field Alum)
August 26: Evan Guerrero (Men's Lacrosse Alum)
August 19: Ross Biggs (Baseball Alum)
August 12: Cynthia Izuno Macri (Soccer Alum)
August 5: Susan Westman (Rowing Student-Athlete)
July 29: Megan Hetzel (Track and Field/Cross Country Alum)
July 22: Lexi Martins (Women's Basketball Alum)
July 15: Nii Daako-Darko (Track and Field/Cross Country Alum)
July 8: Ali Linsk Butash (Softball Alum)
July 1: Kimberly Scotto-Wetzel & Jonathan Wetzel (Track and Field/Cross Country Alums)
June 24: Robert Bonow (Men's Basketball Alum)
June 17: Morgan Decker (Softball Alum)
June 10: Jim Guzzo (Former Quarterback)
June 3: Amina Affini (Women's Basketball Alum) 
May 27: Natalie Krane (Women's Soccer Alum)
May 20: Tricia Klein (Women's Golf Assistant Coach)
 

By: Justin Lafleur, Lehigh Sports Communications
 
Lehigh men's soccer alumnus Darren Saks is a people person. He was during his college days and he is today in the midst of his two-decade career at Tenafly Pediatrics in New Jersey.
 
The connection with people has kept Saks motivated throughout his life – both as a student-athlete and pediatrician.
 
"Every day, I get to talk to people about really important things, whether it's their kids struggling in school or first visit with their baby," said Saks. "As a pediatrician, you talk them through some of the anxiety and joy that goes with parenthood.
 
"The connections are the most exciting parts of my job."
 
Being a pediatrician, and medical professional in general, typically brings plenty of challenges. But now with COVID-19, the challenges and pressures have been raised even higher.
 
Over this past spring and summer, when New Jersey (and a large part of the country) was under stay-at-home orders, the life of a pediatrician continued.
 
"Other people were pushed into their homes and doing everything remotely, but medicine isn't built for that," said Saks. "I've been seeing my patients and colleagues throughout this whole experience, with some telemedicine sprinkled in. I haven't been in any position of service in the military or anything like that, but it's felt like being in the trenches of something so meaningful and stressful that when you come out of it, there's a feeling of accomplishment."
Darren Saks 
Saks knows his area, the country, and world are far from out of the COVID-19 pandemic, but he is – and should be – proud of the way his practice has responded to adversity so far.
 
"Tenafly Pediatrics is a large suburban primary care private practice," he said. "We have 35 pediatricians in our group and I'm one of the partners who is instrumental in deciding how we run the practice, how we adapt to coronavirus and flu seasons, and all the things that come up in medicine."
 
When the pandemic first hit, Saks and his practice reinvented the way they do things.
 
"We're a big enough practice with multiple office locations, so early on, we created separate offices," he said. "If there was possible COVID exposure, we were sending those people to a single location.
 
"At that location, no one was being seen for checkups, vaccines or anything else," Saks continued. "Doctors were fully dressed in personal protective equipment – in our isolation gowns, N95 masks and face shields. Most of the patients have ended up not being infected with coronavirus, but we don't know until we evaluate them."
 
For Saks, another area that has hit close to home is the collateral damage of the pandemic, which includes mental health.
 
"I think this 'grand social experiment' COVID-19 is forcing on the world is unfortunately going to leave scars for generations," he said. "We're seeing a rise in anxiety in kids, which clearly has to do with some of their isolation. Kids are hearing from all different angles about how scary the world can be.
 
"Young kids may not totally interpret everything, but they see everything's different," Saks continued. "They just see people's eyes through the masks; they don't see smiles. There's a lot less of the normal interaction for people learning to navigate this world and it's leaving stressful scars on kids. I hope they heal quickly, but time will tell."
 
Throughout Saks' career, he has certainly done his part to help his patients heal.
 
"Being a pediatrician is a wonderful profession," he said. "I love what I do. We get to see kids from day zero of life until they're through college, or whatever young adult experience they go down. I've been doing it just long enough that I've actually had a select few patients who've had their own children."
 
The foundation for Saks' interest in medicine began when he was a youngster himself. It hasn't always been a straight path, but Lehigh helped affirm his career aspirations.
Darren Saks 
"The stories I hear from my parents and grandparents were that I was always fascinated by nature, biology, catching frogs… just looking at life and being fascinated by it," said Saks. "That awe has not disappeared. Early on, I was leaning more towards being a veterinarian, but somewhere around my late high school/early college years, I realized that my connection was a little bit more to people (although I'm still a big animal lover).
 
"I'm a young guy at heart. I like to be around kids. Their energy is life-filling."
 
Saks was a neuroscience major at Lehigh, taking a premed track. From there, he went straight to medical school at UMDMJ Robert Wood Johnson in New Jersey. Residency took Saks to St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia.
 
"They had a three-year training program, then I stayed on an extra year in what's called a chief resident year," said Saks. "From there, I came to Tenafly Pediatrics."
 
Through all the schooling and different programs he's completed, Saks knows Lehigh provided the foundation he needed for a successful two decades at Tenafly Pediatrics.
 
"Obviously, the Lehigh education was great, but I got through what is usually a pretty rigorous and intense academic trajectory with a lot of stress involved," said Saks. "I had academics, sports and a vibrant social life at Lehigh, so that all gave me a sense of balance as I moved towards higher education.
 
"After balancing so much at Lehigh, I found the time demands of medical school not quite as hard as maybe some of my peers."
 
Quite simply, Saks loved his time at Lehigh.
 
"I met my wife there. My two children are at Lehigh right now, so I obviously have a strong connection to the university," he said.
 
Saks was a senior during Dean Koski's first season as head coach. Koski is currently in year 29.
 
"That's a cool connection I have with him," said Saks, who was a left back in his playing days. "We've definitely kept in touch over the years. He's always been very supportive of me. It's come full circle when I was emailing him that my children were going to Lehigh."
 
Koski said he tells his student-athletes that college will offer three important areas of development – academic, athletic and social.
 
"All of them are important, however their primary focus as a student-athlete needs to be on academics and athletics," said Koski. "So essentially, they need to pick two out of the three to excel. If they choose the 'social' bucket as a priority, their academics and/or performance on the field typically gets compromised… 
Darren Saks Team Photo 
"In my 29 years as head coach, Darren was one of the very few student-athletes who was able to effectively navigate all three areas. In addition to being a student-athlete, he was very active in his fraternity and I recall also played the drums in a band."
 
All the skills Saks learned at Lehigh have proved incredibly important, but perhaps the most important takeaway was the connection with people.
 
"Just by being an athlete, you have to learn how to get along with people even if you don't relate as friends," he said. "But you relate as teammates, you relate as opponents. I believe sports in general can be an exceptional tool for learning how you connect with others."
 
Sports also teaches life lessons, like how to deal with adversity.
 
"I feel athletics gave me tools to understand failure and accomplishment, not getting too high or too low," said Saks. "As you go along your journey, athletes learn how to accept a big win. On the flip side, if you make a big mistake or have a big loss, you learn from it and deal with some of the feelings of failure."
 
While Saks experienced losses on the soccer field, it's nothing like the adversity he (and other medical professionals) have been facing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
"I would be completely lying if I didn't tell you I was terrified, especially in the early months," he said. "When the virus was starting to clearly creep into Northern New Jersey, we were still really learning about it and its spread. It was terrifying to think that as a healthy 48-year old person, there were cases of people out there who had no risk factors, but were on ventilators and dying."
 
Koski couldn't be more proud of Saks' commitment to his profession.
Darren Saks 
"Darren's dedication to his career has never been so evident than during this pandemic when he's risked his own health every day to see and treat patients," said Koski. "Many of us take for granted the risks doctors, nurses and first responders have faced every day of this pandemic, and I am grateful to have doctors like Darren who are so devoted and passionate about helping people heal."
 
Saks admits there is still fear today, but he feels more protected.
 
"We didn't have the right equipment in the early days of the pandemic," he said. "We were wearing simple masks and didn't have access to N95 level masks. We didn't have isolation gowns. We didn't have face shields early on. We were really flying blind and it felt like we were flying into a mine field."
 
Due in large part to the love for his job – and his background as a student-athlete – Saks has remained even-keel throughout the highs and lows of his role as a pediatrician.
 
That connection to people keeps him coming back every day.
 
"There's no question, physician burnout is a real thing," said Saks. "I've seen it in colleagues and about five years ago, I remember a short period of time when I did wonder if I could do this longer term.
 
"Then, I started to see that go away," he continued. "I started to really put together that feeling of how incredible it is to connect with people as a job.
 
"Going to work is something I really love to do."
 
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