November 20th THAD THE SHADOW

This morning was the typical morning. I ran some PCR and froze the samples. To my extreme pleasure, the electrophoresis chips arrived in the mail. I almost screamed in joy. This means that I can get some data when I have time. However, I had planned to shadow Dr. Willey this afternoon since the chips hadn't arrived yet. All afternoon I followed Dr. Willey and his fellows at the Rupert Center.

Before I went to shadow him, I ate lunch with Dr. Willey. He told me that I wouldn't be seeing Lung Cancer patients today, but merely patients who had problems with their lungs. Doctor Willey is a Pulmonologist at the Critical Care and Sleep Medicine Clinic at the Rupert Center. He told me that they often lump both Critical Care and Sleep Medicine because they both intermingle with the lungs. Lots of the problems that deal with sleep are a result of some problem with the airways and usually with the lungs specifically. In addition, Critical Care usually involves people on ventilators, so they like to have Pulmonologists deal with those patients.

I followed one of his fellows, named Anthony, for the majority of the time. We saw 3 patients during our time and all three had severe lung problems. I noticed that they all shared some similar characteristics: GERD, COPD, Chronic Bronchitis , and Asthma, and nearly all resulted from extended tobacco abuse. Each time, Anthony would go in, get the history of the patient, and then report his findings to Doctor Willey. Doctor Willey would then talk to Anthony for a bit about what they thought was the best course of action. They all three of us would go and talk to the patient for the final time.

What I really enjoyed about shadowing Doctor Willey was seeing how doctors work. For the most part, people were talking the entire time. There was a constant flow of information from the patient to the fellow to the other doctors. It was amazing how fast their mouths were moving and all of the background information that needed to be known. A doctor has to be conversational, be extremely intelligent, know a tremendous amount of background information, and be able to solve problems very quickly. It seems like the perfect fit for me.

But at the same time, the research aspect of medicine requires nearly the same skill set. I could go into either clinical medicine or medical research... or potentially both, only time will tell. I hope to maybe shadow Doctor Willey again before I go to college.