Week 6:
Professional & Personal

July 10, 2017

After vacation, I started the week off right with my new professional photo and name being put up on the Fiedorowicz lab website. I definitely feel official now! I’m happy to feel more and more part of the team each week, and I know it will be sad having to say goodbye in a few weeks.

Having my name up on the site makes sense with where I am at in my internship right now. I feel more helpful and less just observatory; like I really understand the lay of the land now. I have my definite projects, such as a literature review I’m helping with, as well as my own data analysis I’m starting. I know where things are at, the procedure when we have a participant, and how to get from place to place. I really feel like I belong at the University.

Along with this feeling of finding my place and my groove, I’m still learning so much from my time here that is influencing my future. For example, I always knew doctors had a lot of responsibility, but it’s different to see it first hand. From all the physicians I have shadowed, it is clear to me how hard they must work. While I respect this a great deal, and can see myself with this responsibility, I have also had to consider my own health and what my future may bring as a cancer survivor. Because of the perspective my past illness has given me, it has opened me up to other possibilities. I still believe I am meant to be in medicine, but perhaps I will pursue Physician’s Assistant schooling, as in that career I will at least be managing fewer people, enabling me to have some weight off my shoulders. Ultimately, my health comes first, and so if I decide I will be better mentally to go a different route, I will. However, there is so much I could pursue as a physician to try to improve lives, and I still plan on heading in this direction. It’s just that now I’m really taking the time to look at the big picture, and consider how each part of my life fits together.

My exploration in medicine has taken and exciting turn this week as I was able to shadow a gastroenterologist again, this time watching some procedures. This was amazing- I have never before had the opportunity to watch any procedures be done, and I was able to watch a colonoscopy and endoscopy. Seeing inside someone’s body like that is incredible, and so enlightening. I do think it shook me a little, though. Having been on the other side of the table myself, it was weird for me to consider having been in that position myself (asleep from anesthesia, unaware of what others are seeing in your own body). I find it incredibly helpful for me to process these thoughts. Hopefully I can use my own experiences to help others in these situations, even if it just means I give extra comfort or extra explanations to help people feel at ease. I plan on using this internship experience and my life experience to help me become an effective and empathetic physician.