I have just spent one of the best months of my life in New York - for anyone thinking about coming to Cornell, I highly recommend undertaking an elective here. I spent the first two weeks at New York Presbyterian Hospital (NYPH) completing a Radiology elective, beginning with Pediatric Radiology and then moving on to the ER Reading Room.
The hospital's small Pediatrics team was welcoming and allowed me to learn side-by-side with the residents, along with giving me the opportunity to ask questions. My mornings usually involved watching the team read the images; when fluoroscopy or more complicated studies were required, I would observe as the team undertook the study. The ER had a similarly friendly environment to Pediatric Radiology, and shared their emphasis on facilitating medical students' learning. One of the best things about the Radiology elective was the emphasis on teaching, exemplified by the number of conferences that students could attend. I came away from these two weeks feeling much more confident in reading images and recognizing different radiological signs of pathology.
The staff and faculty (Dianne Young and Dr. Finkel) were accommodating in organizing for me to spend further time at NYPH to gain first-hand experience of the US healthcare system, and also to attend numerous extra conferences and tutorials. These included the Healthcare Policy Colloquia on Wednesday afternoons, and talks by the group "Physicians for a National Health Program". This was particularly interesting for me, coming as I do from a country where this system of health delivery is already a reality.
I spent my time in hospital in Internal Medicine with the hospitalist Dr. Joseph Shin which was an invaluable experience. I accompanied Dr. Shin on Rounds, together with a Physician Assistant, from 8am until noon each day; he would include me in dialogues with the patients and about their management, using every case as a teaching opportunity. In the afternoon, we would revisit the morning's patients, and note their progress during the day. While conducting these revisits, Dr. Shin would also give me at least an hour of his time, in which we would engage with a clinical topic (for example, heart failure - as many of our patients came in with an exacerbation of CHF) or a healthcare system reading-based discussion. It was such a privilege to have this one-on one time which allowed me to ask an expert questions about what I had seen during the day, as well as questions about the US healthcare system, which I had wondered about before having the opportunity of coming to the USA. Observing such high quality care being delivered, and then learning about the complexities in funding and insurance systems that are the background to it, was fascinating.
Dr. Shin's gift for teaching, combined with his thoughtfulness in helping me to achieve my original objectives to learn about Healthcare Policy and Public Health, was the highlight of my elective.
Based on my observations, I believe that Cornell chooses its faculty based on the physicians' enthusiasm and passion for their profession. As a student coming here, I found this attitude and energy to be contagious - I want to go back!
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