What Do You Wanna Be When You Grow Up?

A few drinks, a long drive home, and a motorcycle going around 90 mph paint a picture of a man almost guaranteed to die. After falling to the side, and skidding across the pavement on a highway before hitting a side barrier, the top layer of skin on his face was gone, and part of his skull was crushed in.

Fortunately, he managed to survive the incident. The oral ourgeon I was shadowing showed me how he and his team reconstructed his skull and re-layered the skin. He was blind, but he was alive, and would be able to go on with his regular life.

This feat of modern medical science took months and a team of highly trained oral Surgery Residents. After telling me this story, the doctor took me back to the operating room in his private practice, where he did a simple third molar extraction that took no more than half an hour.

The field of medicine is filled with many different paths and different specialties, each dealing with a certain aspect of the human body and human health. So how does one learn about a specific field that they are interested in? One choice is shadowing a doctor for a day, observing the procedures they perform as well as the work they do outside the operating room.

Ana Torubara (’16), once spent a day shadowing an anesthesiologist. The doctor was on her neurosurgery rotation. “I was surprised about really seeing a brain!” Torubara said, “It had this tumor on it, and it was huge and black. The brain has the consistency of tofu, and it was like a piece of black tofu sitting in a person’s skull!” She went on to explain how she liked being on her feet all day, and detested the idea of a desk job.

When asked what students looking into a medical career should do to prepare for it, Torubara recommended that they should definitely shadow a doctor. “See what it’s all about. You have to know what you’re getting yourself into” she said. She also recommended that students go online and thoroughly research all of the requirements to become a doctor and get into medical school. “You don’t want to go down a pre-med path without understanding the time and work a medical career requires.”

My experience shadowing a doctor did not sway my decision one way or the other, but it definitely gave me a clear idea of what a career in oral surgery entails. I would highly recommend that anyone considering a career in medicine take the time to shadow a doctor.

Top Medical Practices In the World

Texas Medical Center

• Houston, Texas
• Opened in 1945
• World’s largest medical complex
• 21 hospitals, 14 support organizations, and academic programs teaching medicine, nursing, public health, pharmacy, and dentistry
• texasmedicalcenter.org

MD Anderson Cancer Center

• Houston, Texas
• Opened in 1941
• One of the three original comprehensive Cancer centers designated by the National Cancer Act of 1971
• No. 1 in America for Cancer care
• Invested $735 million in research for 2014
• www.mdanderson.org

Mayo Clinic

• HQ in Rochester, Minnesota
• Major Campus in Jacksonville, Florida
• Ranked #1 in more specialties than any other hospital in the nation, including programs such as Neurology and Neurosurgery
• www.mayoclinic.org

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

• New York, New York
• Founded in 1884 by John J. Astor (Oldest and largest private cancer center in the world)
• One of the top hospitals in the US for Pediatric Cancer care
• Performs more Cancer operations than any other hospital in the nation
• www.mskcc.org

Johns Hopkins Hospital

• Baltimore, Maryland
• Opened 1889

• Tied to Johns Hopkins Medical School (#3 in the nation usnews.com)
• Former Director of Pediatric Surgery Ben Carson is one of the top Republican Presidential Candidates for 2016 (
• )
• Ranked number one hospital in the nation for 22 years by US News and World Report, most recently in 2013
• www.hopkinsmedicine.org