-: I'd definitely say in college,
the real focus would be to work hard,
there's obviously courses that you need to take
to be able to apply to med school,
but then to just kind of cultivate general skills of
hard-working habits, being very diligent about things,
learning to communicate well I think
was something that Pomona really helped with because
in your real, day-to-day job, I mean,
you're gonna be taking tests in med school,
but every day as a doctor, you're gonna be
talking to people and trying to connect with people
who come from very different backgrounds
and lifestyles than you,
so being involved in clubs,
any activities that can just help you
figure out how to connect with people
on a more personal level is definitely good advice.
Yeah, I would say you definitely have to do
some really hard things as a cardiologist.
Very often, I have people who've had
cardiac arrests who pass away,
and we have to tell that news to families who
we may not even really know.
So, it's the first time meeting with them
and we have to give them basically
the worst news of their life.
So, I think taking a moment before
you have to deliver that news is really important,
and physically practicing it out loud.
And then, after you tell it to them,
go back with your team and have a moment to just process it,
talk about what happened, talk to your colleagues.
If it's something that's especially sticking with you
or bothering you, I think you need to
talk to people about that,
and I think medicine has just started
more recently to realize that this is something
that doctors deal with on a daily level
that's really important.
I think, number one, you have to care about patients.
You have to realize that someone is putting
a lot of trust in you as a doctor,
and that you need to treat every patient
with as much importance as you would
your own family member.
You need to know that someone's coming to you
with their health, and so they have put
a lot of trust in you as a doctor,
so treating them just as you would a family member.
So, taking time to listen to their questions,
taking time to answer their questions,
being very open to them in terms of
if they leave and have an issue,
when it comes up later, knowing that they
can feel comfortable contacting you
at any time to get help,
and that you're also not gonna be closed off to
maybe getting help from another person if you need to.
If they have a problem that you
don't quite know the answer to,
you need to be comfortable enough to say,
hey, I need to talk to my colleague,
I need to refer them to this other place,
I need to be open to getting other ideas
so that I can help this person get the best care.
Yeah, I love Pamona, I had a great experience here.
I think not only did I get a really strong
academic background, but I was able to work with
a lot of different groups on campus,
I was involved in the school senate,
I was part of CCLA,
so I think that it really helped me learn that
academics is important, but there's other aspects
into being a well-rounded person
that can really bring a lot to your career
and are really big strengths
when you actually get out into the workforce.
I think, especially in medicine, that's extremely important
because where someone's from,
the culture they grew up in,
the way they approach health
very much informs how they gonna, one,
have different expectations from their physician
or their healthcare, and two,
how they're going to take advice from a doctor.
So, like, right now, my job, I see people from
all sorts of places, so I see people from
a lower socioeconomic status, from local Cleveland,
I see people who are from all over the world,
from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, China, India,
and so, knowing how they're gonna react to you
or react to your advice is really important,
and being open to the fact that
they may not come to a doctor's appointment
with the same kind of attitudes or expectations that you do
is something that you need to know
and be able to adjust to,
so that those people still feel like
they're being taken care of,
and that you're respecting their health
and the things that are important to them.
My name's Sneha Vakamudi, I'm a physician,
and a cardiology fellow at the Cleveland Clinic
Heart and Vascular Institute.
So, when we first see a patient, there's a couple things.
One, we have to really figure out what the problem is,
so trying to tease out what is really bothering that person
and how we can help them, and incorporating
their long history, they may have had this problem
for 10 years before seeing you.
So, in a relatively short amount of time,
trying to tease out those details
that are really causing a problem in their life.
And then also, it's really important to figure out
what they are as a person,
so what's important to them,
how is this illness keeping them
from doing the things that they
really wanna do in life, and what are their goals
in seeking care, so what are they really trying to achieve?