Success in Medicine

This was an enlightening and inspiring conversation with Dr. Lavannya Pandit, a Physician-Scientist at Baylor College of Medicine. 
Dr. Pandit is a clinician who also performs scientific research. She is a pulmonary critical care physician on staff at the Veteran's Affairs Hospital. She is Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Program there and serves as an Associate Professor at Baylor College of Medicine.
Her research centers on the physiologic and molecular mechanisms of pulmonary vascular disease.
Her mission is to advance understanding of vascular disease. In this episode, Dr. Pandit describes her work, which is focused on serving her patients, particularly the veterans who have fought for our country. As a scientist, she also spends time applying for competitive grant funding, mentoring, reviewing, and conducting research.
An overview of physician-scientists has noted that their numbers in the United States are decreasing rapidly for several reasons.
However, clinicians who are closely involved in understanding the challenges of a particular disease have important insights into research questions. In this episode, Dr. Pandit describes her path to becoming physician-scientist and gives advice to medical students.

Dr. Monica Huang is a Diagnostic Radiologist and researcher in the area of minimally invasive breast cancer treatment with cryoablation. This episode provides some great insights into crafting a career that connects deeply to your mission.   

Dr. Huang began her career as a faculty member at the Baylor College of Medicine, and later was in private practice for over a decade. She then returned to training to complete a fellowship in breast imaging at the MD Anderson Cancer Center.  

In speaking with her, it is clear that she has a deep commitment to developing minimally invasive treatments for breast cancer, and she is now the founder and Director of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Breast Imaging Breast Cryoablation Program. 

This episode also provides some great insights into how a physician can overcome burnout.  Although Dr. Huang was in a very successful private practice, she felt that she was getting burned out. This was not due to the amount of work, but rather because her goals had changed.  She found herself wanting to change the world a little bit, and specifically the world of breast imaging and breast cancer treatment.  She explains that working through that process has made her practice of medicine ultimately stronger. She worked to evaluate several areas: What were the sources of her discomfort? What brought her satisfaction? What could she change? Was there something new she could add?

This process ultimately led her to return to training and now, as a faculty member, she treats breast cancer patients with minimally invasive treatments while running clinical trials.

Dr. Abbey Vandersall is the Vice President of Quality and Clinical Services at AMSURG, an organization that maintains over 250 ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) across the United States. Her work encompasses patient safety and quality, as well as other areas that impact clinical care such as operations, strategy, policy, and government affairs. In this episode, she shares her journey from medical student to consultant to healthcare leader.
One of the things that struck me about our conversation was how energized she was about innovation, strategy, and making a positive impact on patient care. She has a lot of wisdom to share for medical students. 

· One of her points that really resonated with me was that your passions at age 18 or age 30 may not be the same as those at age 50, because your passions change, your experiences change, and the world around you changes. It's important to recognize that. 

· When you’re thinking about career decisions, she encourages students to think: “What problem do I want to solve?"

· She also recommends that students investigate areas that intrigue them. For herself, she was absolutely fascinated during a lecture on the business of healthcare in her third year of medical school, and she later explored a summer experience in consulting.

· One final piece of advice that she shared to medical students was to not be afraid to reach out to people that you don’t know. She says that people are often far more willing to help than we would realize.

Dr. Andru Zeller is a primary care physician who is focused on fair trade medicine. He founded the Simply Salud Clinic in 2004 as a family-centered, fair trade, integrative medical practice for people of limited economic means.

Dr. Zeller completed a family practice residency, followed by a fellowship in rural health. He talks about the strength and power of medicine, but also some of the challenges, especially the cost of healthcare faced by patients of limited economic means. This inspired him to develop a practice focused on fair trade medicine. The clinic is a sustainable business, and continues to serve himself, his family, and his community.  In this episode, he speaks about his mission as well as the associated challenges. 

He has been very intentional about how he wants to make an impact in healthcare, and he has developed several innovations.

• The clinic provides primary care, women’s health, and mental health services.

• The clinic also provides integrative health services and complex pain assessment.

• Dr. Zeller initiated a volunteer health apprentice model, which helps provide direct patient care experience to pre-health students, as well as functioning to keep costs down so that the clinic can continue to function sustainably.

• He is also developing Pain Scan, which is a technology-assisted pain evaluation system. He saw the need for such a system, as he treats many low-income, hard-working people. 

• He became interested in integrative medicine during residency, and incorporates this into pain management.

To learn more about Dr. Zeller and the Pain Scan System, please see these links: