My STEP project allowed me to take part in undergraduate research. This summer, I was able to work as a research assistant at the Wright Center of Innovation in Biomedical Imaging. The study I worked on focused on developing new imaging techniques for optimizing diagnosis of illnesses.
While completing my STEP project, I was able to have a first-hand experience in the medical field. My goal is to become a medical doctor, therefore, this allowed me to work directly with people I aspire to be. However, this experience was in research, rather than direct patient care. Whenever I thought of my life as a doctor, I visualized treating patients in exam rooms. My STEP project, though, opened my eyes to the research sector of the medical field, a sector I was previously oblivious to. At first, I found this new experience very interesting and even considered going into research after undergrad, rather than medical school. After some time, though, I realized that the research field is not for me. While my views of myself did not change during this experience, it did allow me to see the medical field from a different perspective.
Being unfamiliar with the research side of the medical field, my main goal during this project was to gain a good understanding of the process and craft. Throughout my project, I had the opportunity to work alongside various members of the medical research community. For example, I interacted with radiologists, neurologists, oncologists, PhD researchers, medical students, nurses, and computer programmers. Experience with each individual allowed me to understand that there are many people responsible for the outcome of a study, aside from just the doctors and PIs. Therefore, I was able to better understand the entire process of clinical research by looking at it from multiple perspectives.
Although I strive to become a doctor, I feel that it is very important to understand every role that is responsible in making not only a hospital successful, but also a clinical study successful. My time at the research lab definitely opened my eyes to the importance of team work. One situation in which I learned this involves me having to program an algorithm. Being a pre-med neuroscience major, I had no prior knowledge of computer programming. Feeling lost, I reached out to a computer programmer who worked at the lab. He was very eager to help and assist me in creating the needed algorithm. Before this STEP project, I would have been in disbelief that medical research even involved computer programmers.
Aside from interactions with the various roles of the research team, my personal duties gave me great insight into the process of clinical research. For example, some of my jobs included tracking lesions of interest in patients and gathering data on these lesions. While this was very interesting work, it could get very monotonous. Previous to my STEP experience, I always associated doctor’s work to that depicted on various fictional medical television shows. During my time in the lab, however, rather than working in a busy, dynamic emergency room, I was staring at body scans on computer monitors for hours. My experience gave me real insight into a field of medicine that was very new to me.
Although I loved working in the lab and was able to interact with amazing people every day, I understand that the research side of medicine isn’t for me. My STEP experience allowed me to gain a good understanding of the process of clinical research. I was able to see that a successful clinical study requires many different people with a very diverse skillset. I can take what I learned during my summer in the lab, and apply it to the direct, patient-care side of healthcare. Even though I don’t plan on going into research in the future, STEP gave me the opportunity to confirm where my passions in life lie.
Though you were unfamiliar with the industry and process prior to this experience, I am glad you dove right in! Hopefully you will be able to take the new skills you learned with you in the future.