Morning rounds of the intensive care unit with doctors, nurses, medical students, and other medical horizons students!
Author: Abigael Villenueve | Major: Biomedical Engineering | Semester: Summer 2023
I am Abigael Villeneuve, a rising sophomore Biomedical Engineering major on the pre-med path. This summer I participated in the Medical Horizons program through East Tennessee State University- Quillen College of Medicine which allowed me to shadow physicians in over five different specialties.
For the month of June, I was given the opportunity to participate in the Medical Horizons program through East Tennessee State University- Quillen College of Medicine (ETSU-QCOM). Located in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, the Johnson City Medical Center draws patients from Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. I chose this internship because of the opportunity to live in a different part of my state, experience a more rural culture, to receive my first medical shadowing experience, and because ETSU-QCOM is my dream medical school, ranking third in the nation for rural primary care.
The internship provided me with the ability to shadow seven different specialties, attend pre-medicine lectures, and complete over 200 hours of shadowing. Each Monday included meeting at the medical school campus to attend different pre-medicine lectures. The topics consisted of learning how to scrub into surgery at the medical center, a tour of the cadaver lab where I got to hold multiple organs including the brain, spinal cord, kidneys, heart, stomach, and pancreas, an admissions information session, and a presentation on what characteristics make a good doctor.
The rest of the week consisted of shadowing physicians. The schedule I was given allowed me to experience medicine in both the hospital and clinic settings. The specialties included hematology, oncology, inpatient and outpatient pediatrics and family medicine, internal medicine, trauma surgery, and critical care.
Family medicine was by far my favorite specialty. This was a travel rotation, meaning I was placed in a different town (Kingsport) where I got to shadow both family medicine in the inpatient and outpatient setting. This was the most memorable rotation for me as I got to assist with minor procedures such as freezing skin cancer off a patient, practice asking patient medical history, and fill the gap of serving as an American Sign Language translator for a patient. Due to the low socioeconomic status of the region, the state no longer hires in-person translators for deaf and hard of hearing patients, creating a barrier for them to receive equitable healthcare. This rotation introduced me to seeing all different ages from newborns to the elderly all in the same day, which was my favorite aspect of family medicine. The resident that I rotated with- Dr. Holly Nummerdor D.O.- was fabulous and even offered to write my letter of recommendation when I apply to medical school.
Pediatric hematology/oncology rotation with St. Jude at Niswonger’s Childrens Hospital in Johnson City was a very educational rotation. I got to assist a pediatric oncologist perform a lumbar puncture, learn about rare blood disorders, and hear the stories of patient family’s cancer journeys.
The trauma surgery and critical care rotation was the most humbling and where I grew in professionalism. Johnson City Medical Center serves as the only level I trauma center in the region meaning I saw people at their worst. Seeing how the medical team works together to get a patient stabilized after arriving to proceed with care in a timely manner revealed to me the importance of being a team player in medicine. Also, an important lesson I learned was balancing emotions with professionalism. I noted while rounding with the team that seeing people at their worst can cause some to detach themselves from their emotions and become dehumanized to death. I learned that trying to ignore the emotion only made it worse and the way to handle it is to show empathy and care to the families which shows both the emotional, professional, and passionate side of a person. I got to assist with plastic surgery to reconstruct an eyelid. The plastic surgeon who performed the procedure used a paper clip to hold the eyelid in place while a med student stitched it back in place. Seeing an everyday tool used in medicine made me realize that sometimes you must be creative and work with what you have, which is exactly what biomedical engineering teaches me.
Outside of the hospital, I lived in the ETSU dorms with most of the people in the program. After long days at the hospital, we would go sunset hiking, trail running, play volleyball and soccer, and coordinate dinners. There was a great range of students in the program from all over the nation. Some had graduated college and were taking a gap year, while others like me just finished freshman year. We discussed the differences in medicine in Johnson City, Tennessee versus other major cities where they had previously shadowed, which made me grateful for the rural medicine experience I received through Medical Horizons.
In addition to shadowing, I also had the opportunity to meet with the coordinator and the director of the EQUIP program through ETSU-QCOM, which is a rural medicine track that the medical school offers to students that are a freshman or sophomore in college. I plan to apply for that program as it will help me grow my connections with the medical school and hopefully earn me a seat in the rural medicine track program. If I am accepted to the program, it would allow me to shadow more rural medicine next summer through the Appalachian Preceptorship. As for now, I will be continuing my biomedical engineering degree at the University of Arkansas with the plan to graduate in December 2025.