They Walked 50 Blocks on Their First Date

When Dr. Jesse Heechan Yoon arrived at the Mermaid Inn on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on April 11, 2022, still in scrubs after a long shift, he wasn’t expecting more than a quick happy-hour date. He was in the middle of his dermatology residency at Mount Sinai and had matched on Hinge with Yuri William Doolan, who holds a Ph.D., had just moved to New York for a research sabbatical.

“I was still unpacking boxes,” Dr. Doolan said. “I wasn’t sure I was ready to date, but something told me to go. When I saw his profile, I remember thinking, ‘I like this one.’”

Over oysters, they exchanged stories about their upbringings and their shared Korean heritage. Dr. Yoon’s parents immigrated to the United States before he was born, while Dr. Doolan moved to Korea with his family after his birth, returning to the United States when he was 3.

They both didn’t want the date to end. They picked up dessert at Milk Bar on the Upper West Side and continued the deep conversation with a 50-block walk across the city to Dr. Doolan’s apartment in West Harlem. There, Dr. Yoon met Kiyoshi, Dr. Doolan’s Shiba Inu. “He’s usually suspicious of strangers,” Dr. Doolan said. “But he immediately liked Jesse — as if he already knew.”

Dr. Yoon, 32, is a double board-certified dermatologist at the Dermatology Specialists in New York. Originally from Cupertino, Calif., he graduated from Brown and earned a medical degree from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He completed an internal medicine residency at Washington University in St. Louis and a dermatology residency at the Mount Sinai Hospital.

Dr. Doolan, 36, is an assistant professor of history and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis, where he also serves as the inaugural chair of Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies. Originally from Euclid, Ohio, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Ohio State University and received both a master’s degree and Ph.D. in history from Northwestern.