Week 8:
Digging Deeper

August 7, 2018

Week 8 comes to a close, and the end is near. This week in the office was the same old same old but at presentations this week became a lot more interesting.

Dr. Nancy Miller is the head of the Musculoskeletal Research center, MRC, and my boss. She hired every intern here this summer and was the one who basically created this center. She is an orthopedic surgeon and considers herself a clinician-scientist. She is an amazing physician and person, and on Wednesday she gave a talk to the interns. There are so many things I admire about her, just one example is that during her talk she didn’t just talk at us she made sure to keep us engaged and involved. To start the talk, she asked us all about ourselves and our goals. This was nice to have since she seemed genuinely interested in what we were doing and planning on doing and she adjusted her talk to help us see the different possibilities for our interests. This talk was all around amazing.

The more I hear from providers, the more I see that the path to anything is rarely straightforward. There are so many twists and turns that come into play when getting to the final destination. Dr. Miller was a PhD student who decided to do a masters instead then went into research before finally deciding to go to medical school. The more I learn about different providers’ career paths, the more I understand that they usually didn’t know they wanted to be a physician until they tried somethings out first. I think this has been one of the most helpful parts of my internship. Going to Cornell I thought I needed to have everything figured out and a plan to follow strictly and as I go through this summer, I realize that is not really the case.

The second talk the interns had was with a hospital Chaplin. This was one of the most meaningful experiences. A lot of people view the hospital Chaplin as a religious figure, but their job is so much more than that. They provide comfort and are really supportive of patients. We talked about stress coping mechanisms and the realities of becoming a doctor. When you think about it becoming a doctor is more than just fixing people because the sad reality is you will lose people. The point of our talk was to find ways to relax and combat those feeling when you inevitably lose a patient. The more tools you have now to combat negative feelings the easier it will be to use them when it matters.

One of the things about the Cornell community is that there is a support system in place to help students deal with stress and other life events. This talk made me even more thankful for my support system at Cornell, whether it be my friends or advisers. Cornell has made it easier to find those support systems and stress relief tools to survive in the “real world.”

Overall this week has been a wonderful way to reflect on career goals and self-care which are both important aspects of life. As my time here comes to an end, I am anxious to see what the next two weeks hold.