May 29th, 2019
My day started at 7:00 today when Dr. Graham invited me to one of his meetings where he would be giving a presentation to other oncologists at WakeMed to discuss the different treatments he uses for his patients with breast cancer. There were many topics discussed during the meeting, but the main topic was about how to evaluate a tumor and prescribe the right kind of treatment. It was very fascinating when he showed images of how the tumor had spread through the patient and how his specific treatment had remedied the patient.
I met one of Dr. Graham’s Scribes named Vanessa who had gotten her bachelor and master’s degrees and was planning on applying to medical school next year. She talked about her journey and how she really enjoys working under Dr. Graham because of how much she gets to learn from him. All of this knowledge had sparked her interest in the field of oncology and cites that as the reason she wants to attend medical school.
Throughout the rest of the day, I would shadow Dr. Graham as he met with his patients. Dr. Graham is such as an amazing individual with a wealth of knowledge and experience and it was a pleasure to be able to follow him around and see him work. He has a very personal relationship with all of his patients and truly cares for them which was evident through his light-hearted and amicable conversations. He told me that he wants his patients to understand the science behind his diagnoses. Dr. Graham met with different kinds of patients from lung cancer to breast cancer to gastric cancer. Most of his patients were here for a regular check-up and for an evaluation of the treatment he had prescribed to eradicate/palliate their cancer.
One of Dr. Graham’s patients had ovarian cancer caused by a BRIP-1 mutation in one of her chromosomes. Her father didn’t have this mutation, but her mother was carrying this mutation as a recessive trait. Dr. Graham found out that this patient and her two sisters were also carrying this mutation and were at risk of ovarian cancer. It was really cool to see Dr. Graham give this crash course on Genetics for his patient and me to understand.
Overall, it was an amazing day with so much knowledge to digest.
Can’t wait for tomorrow!