My career goal incorporates biomedical research, treating patients, and teaching. One person who has had particular influence upon this decision is Dr. Michelle Ehrlich. She is a pediatric neurologist who does extensive laboratory research in addition to treating patients. She is extremely effective in both parts of her career, and yet maintains activities outside her profession. Her ability to be a caring physician as well as a successful scientist has reinforced my desire to enter an M.D./Ph.D. program, where I feel I can best acquire the skills necessary for academic medicine.
Scientific research has always intrigued me, as have activities analogous to research, such as games and puzzles that require piecing together acquired items or facts. I enjoy reading the publications of the scientists I have been working with, observing how their results and conclusions evolve, and discussing where their research is heading. I experienced some of this often unpredictable research process myself last semester, while working in the Pharmacology department of the Cornell Veterinary College. In order to learn the techniques used in the lab, I investigated the effects of cobalt and cadmium ions on various properties of mast cells. Although the expected results were reasonably foreseeable, the actual results were not. What began as a laboratory exercise has ended up the topic of my senior honors thesis.