Last Day :(

Alright so today I met with Dr. Moore at the Heart Hospital cafeteria for breakfast. We talked about what practicing medicine would be like in the future, how as the baby boomers were needing more and more specialized healthcare, less people were actually entering the fields that are most needed. He also talked to me about life for women in medicine, about how they tend to choose specialties that are less stressful and less time consuming and how that was a shame because they are often more compassionate, less egocentric doctors. We talked about a big double standard women face in medicine - that we grow up being told we can do anything we want to do, but as we enter very demanding careers, we get the most criticism for abandoning our families. Men can work as much as they want and will never face the criticisms that women will. Dr. Moore told me not to let this criticism, if it affects me, faze me or keep me from working in the specialty that I am truly passionate about.
After we talked, Dr. Moore and I traveled to the Medical Center of Plano where he introduced me to his friend, Dr. Aldred, a pathologist. I spent some time with Dr. Aldred's pathology tech, Kristal, who showed me how she prepares the specimens extracted during surgery. She showed me a gall bladder, uterus, placenta, and colon that had been extracted from four different patients. She also showed me how they freeze specimens and make quick slides for the pathologists to examine. THis procedure is used if a surgeon finds something suspicious during the procedure and wants to make sure they can procede with surgery, make sure what they have found is not a malignancy or anything like that. Then Dr. Aldred showed me slides of different types of cancer - breast cancer, colon cancer, brain cancer, and lung cancer. Seeing these tissues up close was very interesting. I only wish pathologists saw patients - I'd love to do this as my career!
After meeting with Dr. Aldred, I went back to Baylor to see some clinical patients with Dr. Moore. He only sees patients in the office one day a week so we had lots of people to see. Mostly they were post-op patients coming for follow up imaging and to have their wounds checked. Everyone looked good! It was nice to be able to see the other side of medical practice. After being in surgery all week, it was nice to see some conscious patients. I also got to meet with one of his partners who is a cardiologist who specializes in imaging and heart disease in women. She actually did her fellowship at WashU! She showed me all the different types of imaging and their pros and cons. She also spoke to me about why she chose cardiology instead of cardiac surgery and about what it's like to be a woman practicing medicine, especially an Indian woman, who faced even more discrimination because of her gender within her culture.
I've absolutely loved my time with Dr. Moore! I'm so grateful to him for giving me this opportunity and so grateful to Mrs. Lyon for starting this program at Parish. It has taught me so much about medicine and I'm so lucky to have had this sort of exposure before I even start college!