Get to know a Caregiver: Early Career in Medicine

Transcript

• 00:00I was wondering if we could
• 00:04talk a little bit about you
• 00:08and where you grew up.
• 00:11I know you're from the Midwest
• 00:15originally. You're right. Yeah,
• 00:19I grew up.
• 00:22In Denver and but I grew up mostly
• 00:25in South Dakota, Rapid City,
• 00:28SD where Mount Rushmore is and that
• 00:31is a beautiful area of the country.
• 00:34And it is a relatively rural area,
• 00:37although I did not grow up on a farm.
• 00:42I grew up in that city or town
• 00:45and my father was a engineer,
• 00:48mechanical engineer who is a professor
• 00:51and Department headed that the local.
• 00:53College called South Dakota
• 00:55School of mines and technology.
• 00:57So I had three brothers and sisters and we.
• 01:02Had a great time growing up there.
• 01:06Lots of things to do outside the Black Hills,
• 01:10Skiing Lake, Sports, hiking, but really.
• 01:13Really, until like childhood I think yeah
• 01:16very safe place to grow
• 01:18up and focus on education.
• 01:21Well, tell us about what made
• 01:23you pursue a career in Medison.
• 01:25How did you like when?
• 01:26How old were you when you
• 01:28knew you wanted to be a
• 01:30doctor and why?
• 01:31Why did you choose that?
• 01:33I always wanted to be a
• 01:34teacher or librarian at first.
• 01:36I'm sort of glad it.
• 01:38While I'm still a teacher.
• 01:40I. I went to, um, you know,
• 01:44I actually did my PhD first,
• 01:47so I was a scientist before
• 01:49I was at a physician.
• 01:51I did my pH D at Harvard in.
• 01:54Molecular genetics and developmental
• 01:57biology with fruit flies order Saffola and.
• 02:02At the time it was a really
• 02:05interesting time in Boston.
• 02:07There are lots of ethical
• 02:10discussions around genetics,
• 02:11and it was just a really exciting.
• 02:14Provocative community and I really
• 02:17enjoyed interactions with my
• 02:19colleagues in the lab who were who
• 02:21had a medical background into work.
• 02:24and I like the kind of things
• 02:26that they were working on.
• 02:29The applied aspects of the basic
• 02:31biology that we were considering so.
• 02:34When when I finished,
• 02:36I decided to apply to medical school again,
• 02:39sort of.
• 02:40Because mainly I guess because I
• 02:42like the interactions with people
• 02:44and I really wanted to be able to
• 02:47help people a little more directly.
• 02:50Then then with dissecting for playing.
• 02:54But that was a fantastic come
• 02:58was really a fantastic.
• 03:00Oportuno community and and the
• 03:02time in my life and expose me
• 03:05to lots of really interesting
• 03:07questions that I think are really
• 03:10pertinent now and in Madison.
• 03:12And some of those I worked my
• 03:15my graduate thesis was on.
• 03:17Homeo box jeans and epigenetic regulation
• 03:21and you know that's that's becoming
• 03:24a really important aspect of cancer.
• 03:28Because how do you,
• 03:30through through time and development,
• 03:33of an embryo or cancer cells,
• 03:37control regulation of jeans,
• 03:39and?
• 03:40Right,
• 03:40it's route through the
• 03:41wrapping up the chromatin and
• 03:43thinking about Accessibility to
• 03:45chromatin. So yeah, OK, so you finish your pH
• 03:49D. Apply to medical school, yeah.
• 03:51And then I went to medical
• 03:54school and I loved it.
• 03:56I did a lot of research during medical
• 03:59school and in my training in the lab.
• 04:02Again, sort of sort of working
• 04:05on those translational projects,
• 04:06things that really matter to
• 04:08patients and their Karen.
• 04:10But trying to.
• 04:11Look at them from the real
• 04:14scientific aspect and and so I.
• 04:16I went to New York City where I
• 04:18went to medical school and my
• 04:20training and and ultimately ended
• 04:22up being an attending at Memorial
• 04:24Sloan Kettering and it was a
• 04:26really also again exciting time
• 04:28with lots of great colleagues.
• 04:30And do you remember, like
• 04:32a moment when you thought I
• 04:33want to be an oncologist?
• 04:35Or did you go into Medical School
• 04:38thinking about treating cancer patients?
• 04:40Or what was the evolution there? I
• 04:43think the evolution was, uhm.
• 04:45Partially. Emotional an partially uhm.
• 04:53Partially left and right
• 04:55both sides of the brain.
• 04:57I think that I had a really
• 05:00key experience on my Medison.
• 05:02Clerkship where I was taking care of
• 05:05cancer patients at that time there
• 05:08were a lot of HIV patients and they
• 05:10were getting malignancies in cancer
• 05:12and I think that I just developed a
• 05:16lot of really great relationships with
• 05:18those conditions and again seeing how
• 05:21how the doctors around me managed to.
• 05:24Create connections to patience at such
• 05:26a critical time in their lives and
• 05:29how much that made a difference in in
• 05:31the anxiety levels and understanding
• 05:33of the patients so that really,
• 05:35that really motivated me and then
• 05:38at the same .3 typically there
• 05:40was so much going on in cancer
• 05:42and molecular biology
• 05:43that I just. Really was was exciting.