Diversity in Education Blog

I am sure all of us have been there. You know… the doctor’s office where you sit down and tell that random person in a suit what’s wrong with you.  Ninety percent of the time, it feels like that guy isn’t even listening and at the very end gets up, smiles a no doubt “genuine” smile, and passes you off as another patient with another disease who no doubt needs the same treatment as the last one. Ok, so maybe I grew up in a place with a lot of terrible doctors… Maybe I am just paranoid and don’t like doctors, but that’s not the point. The point is that the title of doctor is a respected title that carries with it a lot of prestige. This is tenfold true outside of the U.S., and a lot of people get into the profession for all the wrong reasons (good pay and good status in society). The most ironic thing is that here at Mayo, probably one of the most prestigious medical institutions in the world, is that there is relatively little of that nonsense. I am not going to lie to you and tell you no one here is like that. If I read a blog that said something like that I would probably stop reading right there on account of too much B.S. to handle in one sitting.

             I will try and explain why I think this is true in the best manner possible. In the first few years, I arrived here I was shocked but pleased by how nice and helpful everyone in the various medical professions was. Coming from Lebanon, I was constantly looking for the façade… the truth beneath the surface. Most doctors back home are just there because there is a severe shortage of professions that work in that sort of economy, and when kids are young they are all encouraged into that profession. After all, what could be better for a mother than to have a well off, well respected doctor as a son? Honestly not much going by the old fashioned sense that has persevered in our world. Here, in the United States, it is much better, but there is still a lingering essence of the same beliefs. I believe that the work ethic and the way the system is set up here at Mayo (and probably at other institutions I have never been to) are strong at combating this.  

First off the “Midwest work ethic” is especially puzzling to someone like me. The truth of the matter is that people here are the way they are because a lot of them, themselves grew up on a farm or had a parent who grew up on a farm. If any of you are familiar with farm life or even know anything about the history of Superman ( the most noble boy scout that never existed), then you know nothing builds character more than old fashioned farm work. Most farm people are honest and kind too. Those are obviously ideal characteristics for any doctor to have. 

As for the way the system works, there are conferences happening on a daily basis and although they cover a broad array of topics, most of them attempt to use the mistakes committed to learn how to better the quality of the medical care. It’s common for smart people to learn from their mistakes and more importantly the mistakes of others, but to see it done on such a grand scale is impressive. These conferences also happen to have free lunch which of course is not the reason at all why I go… (I hope you didn’t buy that line), and a surprising number of the ones I attend actually focus entirely on what some people find obvious and others don’t: putting yourself in the patient’s shoes. Even the one’s that don’t focus on this almost always include a section where they discuss how the patient could have been cared for more.

Every institution is like a tree bearing fruit and no one tree can produce solely good fruit, but a tree is considered of excellent quality if the majority of the fruit is good. After all, bad apples fall from every tree, but never have I seen tree of this quality. This quality really does show in everything Mayo does and translates over very well into the graduate school, but I will talk about that more in the next blog.

Amine

 

My blog

               Mayo Clinic is known around the world for its great practice of medicine and ground breaking research. One aspect of Mayo Clinic however seems to be a hidden secret, its second shield…..Education. Yes, the Mayo Clinic’s logo contains three shields and these represent “Patient Care, Medical Education, and Research”. It seems that the education here at Mayo is overlooked by many. This is quite unfortunate due to the high quality and opportunities that one can obtain from getting an education here. It is one of the few schools that unite all three aspects to increase the knowledge and experiences of each student. This is where I come in. My name is Jessica and I am from sunny, hot South Texas. I had also never heard of Mayo Clinic’s schools until I was searching for an internship when I was in college. I came across the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) where I was able to gain research experience then learned about its graduate school and here I am a second year student and hanging on. I also joined the Initiative to Maximize Student Diversity (IMSD), which focuses on increasing the number of researchers among underrepresented ethnic minorities. This outlook gave me the idea that Mayo Clinic is not only a medical and research facility but also an educational and diverse one.

            This now leads me to introduce the goal of our blog. We as graduate students, medical students, residents, post-docs, and enthusiasts want to introduce you to the world of Mayo Clinic’s education and diversity from our eyes. This of course came about with lots of hair pulling and nail biting from our ‘Mother Mayo.’ However, since we are a research and educational facility it has been shown that you would preferably hear about Mayo from someone at Mayo. It makes some sense doesn’t it? So get your minds ready and your questions rolling because we are here to open the lines of communication and answer any of your questions about diversity, education, living in Minnesota (or other sites), science updates, what it is like to be a student at Mayo, and any other topics your little heart desires J. We have intelligent, serious, intense, knowledgeable, and hilarious bloggers that are inspired to give you their honest opinions/experiences.

            I will begin by asking how did you learn about Mayo Clinic? As I explained earlier, I knew they had an amazing medical practice, research, and medical school, however had no clue they had a graduate school, continuing medical education school, graduate medical school, and school of health sciences. I found it quite impressive how there was a close interplay of the schools with the clinic and research. For instance, I am currently in a cancer genetics lab and we work very closely with residents and medical doctors who share an interest in our research. Many people learn about Mayo Clinic’s schools from previous students, residents, attending national conferences, other research facilities, and unfortunately, from friends or loved ones who are admitted to the Clinic. One thing is true however, many do not know what great education Mayo Clinic has and what doors will open when you come here. For this reason, we are here to open your eyes and share the nicely hidden secrets of Mayo Clinic.

¡Adios!   

Jess     

 Hi everyone.  Since this is my first blog entry (of many) on this “Mayo Clinic Education and Diversity Blog, Three Shields, Many Perspectives”, I wanted to pass out some introductions, some niceties, some meet and greet information—well the most you can do online.  My name is Joseph Jon Dolence (proud of my middle name—more maybe in later blogs) and I am finishing my first year at Mayo Graduate School in the Immunology track.  I work in the Medina lab on early events in B cell development with a healthy mix of cellular and molecular techniques.  In later blogs, I will surely talk about my research, classes, and other feelings I have about Mayo Clinic in general.  I want to state here—These are my opinions, not necessarily those of the Clinic’s so don’t take what I say and run with it as Mayo’s position on something.  They are mine.  Another thing—I love going to Mayo Clinic for Graduate School—I can’t complain, the Clinic has given me a wonderful opportunity and I honestly feel most every day that I am living the dream.  That might sound naïve and not callous to the fact that I have only been here for one year—but continued readers of this blog will know certain things about me—one of them is I take Tiger Woods approach to life (with my edits in parenthesis), he says, “I view my life in a way…I’ll explain it to you, OK? I want to take in every moment and appreciate everything. The greatest thing about tomorrow is, I will be better than I am today. And that’s how I look at my life. I will be better as a golfer (& researcher), I will be better as a person, I will be better as a father (son), and I will be better as a friend. That’s the beauty of tomorrow. There is no such thing as a setback. The lessons I learn today I will apply tomorrow, and I will be better.”  That’s my philosophy to life.  And you will no doubt see that attitude sprinkled on the pages of this blog over and over.

I might get political on the pages of this.  I might talk religion.  I will talk sports.  I will obviously talk about school, education, Mayo, and anything science based.  Just don’t ask me about X-ray crystallography or NMR.  Nothing is off limits.  Well—as long using vulgar language is avoided and the Biggs at Mayo allow it.  I speak from the heart honestly about how I feel—you will get my spin on anything I deem worthy enough to talk about.  The point of this blog is to expose the three shields to the world in hopefully a way they haven’t before.  Mayo has so much tradition and prestige, and I have the role through this medium to show Mayo to the world.

That being said, I think I have introduced myself and the concepts behind this well enough to go to my first issue I thought of while listening to a lecture in Cell Bio or Genetics last quarter…or a seminar, I can’t remember—all I know is that I came up with this idea that JT (Justin Timberlake) isn’t bringing sexy back, scientist are.  I know this is like one of these, WHAT?, moments—but I will explain…it seems that in today’s scientific community, anytime someone has a chance to slip in sexy or a word like, provocative, promiscuous, or even in today’s seminar, the speaker expanded “BS” to that expletive.  It makes me laugh, but I am wondering when this started?  When did science and its countless researchers make a conscious effort to spice up a lecture with these words?  You know what my goal is?  Use the word lascivious in a scientific journal.  If I can pull that off, you can tip the hat to me.  If not, I guess I will just have to settle for less provocative words such as sexy or promiscuous.  Maybe the answer is that since most in the scientific community don’t look the part (as Justin does), we need to throw these in to wake up those sleeping, bored out of their minds, or to remind ourselves that, yes, we are cool enough still to throw this hip words around.  I know one thing though—you have everyone’s attention when you infuse these types of adjectives into a lecture.  So at least for that nanosecond, everyone is listening and to them, the world is sexy, perfect, and wonderful.

Have a great day!

Till next time,

Yours truly,

JJ

Another quote to live by—one of the fave’s on JJ’s list:

“Love life, engage in it, give it all you’ve got. Love it with a passion, because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it.” Maya Angelou.