As my shadowing experiences have confirmed, its important to see and understand the practical applications of the research work that is conducted in the laboratory.  The vast majority of scientific researchers spend hours at the lab bench and never see the patients who hope to benefit from all their hard work.  Through my Medical Experience Academy internship (MedEx) and the SCHC 425 Perioperative Environment class, I have been able to see these applications first hand, discuss their impact with the physicians that treat patients directly, and observe how surgical environments function in real time.  The culmination of these experiences has lead me to develop a desire to not only continue research as a physician in the future, but to also pursue a surgical residency. 

            Classes such as Dr. Hickey’s SCHC 392 Perioperative Environments, however, are extremely helpful in confirming that yes, all of this hard work will pay off and congruently teaching me what kind of realistic expectations I should have for the medical field and how research is applied within it.  From all of my shadowing experiences and time spent researching, I have come to learn that medicine is not an easy endeavor; nonetheless, my passion for medicine has never waned.  Since none of my family members have ever entered the healthcare field, or live in the U.S., I feel at times as if I am blindly working to achieve my goal to become a doctor. Physician- and medical-student burnout has always been very high, but I know that by having these insights, I will be less susceptible to it myself.  In the past few years, I have become increasingly interested in a surgical specialty; I love working with my hands, being visually creative, and I have never had an issue taking on leadership roles.  Yet I know as well that I want to integrate research into this future profession as my experience in undergrad has only deepened my interest for it. Two important aspects of SCHC 392 were shadowing opportunities in the operating room at Palmetto Health Hospital and interviewing a physician to better understand surgical environments, how they function, and how the physician has adapted to changes in these over time.  Interviewing Dr. Brill (an ENT surgeon), however, gave me a different perspective on a specialty I was initially interested in.  Most of what he talked about with the blepharoplasty procedure I found very fascinating; but his lifestyle, the length of his residency, and many of the difficult cases we discussed I found a bit concerning but reassuring to know that even the negative sides of his specialty are still manageable.  Another reason I’m glad that I was able to interview him is because he was also able to give me a perspective on the realistic functioning’s of the operating room: as he explained, they can be slow to introduce new treatments (as not only a patient’s insurance plays a huge role in this but also innumerable hospital policies).   It was very frustrating to learn how slowly it may take to integrate a new cancer treatment into the hospital system (which is certainly not an isolated event in Columbia but across the United States), but Dr. Brill’s remarks on the progressive leaps and bounds being made in new pharmacotherapeutics was reassuring that progress has not halted altogether.  These leaps and bounds are something I have observed during my time in Dr. Pittman’s laboratory as well as reading up to date scientific journals in the field of cancer research. 

            Outside of this classroom experience, I have also had the pleasure of shadowing a physician at the Greenville Hospital System (now known as PRISMA Health) who treats ovarian cancer patients directly.  Dr. Chip Wiper has been practicing gynecological oncology for almost two decades and over that period of time he has been able to observe the fall and rise of a multitude of treatments for cancer patients.  Being able to shadow a fantastic physician such as Dr. Wiper has only increased my passion for the integration of research into a medical practice.  In his practice, Dr. Wiper has almost total patient care: diagnosis, patient follow up, operations, and the determination of chemotherapy treatment. Under this umbrella, Dr. Wiper certainly has a wider range of responsibility for his patients than a typical oncologist or surgical oncologist; he demonstrates his investment in their lives through his care for them as individuals during his clinical hours.  During my time shadowing Dr. Wiper I was able to see the ups and downs of his specialty.  There is indeed a loss sense of hope in patients who have recurrent forms of cancer, those who have been diagnosed for the first time, and those who have to come back to the hospital for another round of chemotherapeutics.  I found it especially difficult when I sat in on an appointment with a low-income patient and she discussed her limited options for treatment and life outside her time spent at the hospital.  Not every visitation was daunting.  Some patients we saw were responding well to the chemotherapy: one woman was told that she was going into remission, and another brought in grateful family members.  As much of a rollercoaster this shadowing experience was, I appreciated of Dr. Wiper’s willingness to allow me to see the real-life applications of pharmaceutical research and development in the OB-GYN field I had only read about. 

            The time it takes between a researcher discovering and approving a new treatment for ovarian cancer patients to it arrive at the patient’s bedside can be a very slow journey.  Physician burnout is certainly a well-known topic, yet Dr. Pittman and I have discussed a lesser-known phenomena: researcher burnout.  This is due to underfunding, poor recognition, the competitive nature and pressure to turn out publications.  I do believe that early-on firsthand experience and insight into these issues do help future researchers, such as myself, to become less susceptible to these trends.  Something that has always motivated me, however, to continue researching, finding time in my busy schedule to go back to the lab and set up that next experiment, has always been my clinical shadowing hours.  Real-life impact on patient lives is always an extraordinary thing to see and experience.  New treatments can give patients and their families hope, a better life.  Ovarian cancer itself is an incredibly deadly disease and very swift to metastasize over the body but I’ve come to believe, through my own experiences, that observing the change personalized medicine can grant patients will give physicians and researcher’s the drive to perseverance through the most challenging of times.