What’s up, Cornell?

I’m excited to introduce the second year of the “What’s Up, Doc?” column.  This column will be written by a new medical or graduate student from Weill Cornell Medical College once every two weeks.  Two start off, I’d like to address a few very basic questions.

First, what is Weill Cornell Medical College?  

It is the medical college and graduate school of biomedical sciences of Cornell University located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The Cornell Medical College was originally housed in Stimson Hall on the Ithaca campus; however, it was moved to its current location in New York City in 1898 and later partnered with The New York Hospital (now known as New York-Presbyterian Hospital).  It was renamed the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College in 1998 to honor the significant contributions made by Joan and Sandy Weill both via large donations and lasting leadership.  In 2008, the school’s name was shortened to Weill Cornell Medical College.

Secondly, what will I find in this column?

The primary goal of the “What’s Up, Doc?” column is for medical and graduate students to provide some insight for the Ithaca campus into some common medical emergencies/scenarios experienced by college students. This past year we had articles that discussed why urine is yellow, the importance of sleep, the impact of stress on task performance, how to look out for lyme disease and the famous Slope Day issue discussing the impact of alcohol on our health.  Though we are still in training, we hope to provide some basic guidelines in how to deal with certain medical scenarios and give some basic background. We hope to include more informative pieces on medical scenarios found on a college campus and would gladly take suggestions on health topics you would like us to cover.

Though this column is meant for a general Cornell audience and not specifically the pre-meds, we did have one article written by a student admissions officer and a recent Cornell grad last year providing hints on how to succeed in the medical school application process. Hopefully, it helped ease those pre-med nerves (I definitely remember them from my time on the hill) and provide some of useful “I wish I knew that when I applied to medical school” advice.

We also had a couple of articles that described the physician experience. They were highlighted by accounts of enlightening patient interactions that students had while at Weill Cornell or during a sabbatical at hospital abroad. Similar to the gradual maturing process one goes through in college, there is an equivalent coming of age for medical school. However, during medical school there are often specific times in training that can be pinpointed as emblematic of this coming of age. Oftentimes, this is when a specific patient or story reminds us why we want to become physicians in the first place — shifting our focus back to the patient. At Weill Cornell, a large number of medical students spend time abroad and gain an understanding of the disparities in healthcare and health in the third-world countries compared our world. This understanding further marks another point in our coming of age, giving an appreciation of the dire need of basic supplies and healthcare in other parts of the world.  In addition, it provides students with an opportunity to sharpen their basic skills of taking a patient history and performing a physical exam. After all, that’s what you rely in when you are on the shores of Lake Victoria in Tanzania in a hospital that not only has no MRI machine but requires two weeks to get back basic blood chemistries.

One of my goals in starting this column last year was to help bridge the 220-mile divide between the Ithaca campus and the Weill Cornell campus in NYC. In attempting to do so, we had a number of students present some of their extracurricular activities in this column. This included an article discussing the Weill Cornell Community Clinic (WCCC), a student run clinic that provides primary care services to uninsured patients a little to no cost. This helped connect students on the Ithaca campus that have been involved with “free clinics” in Ithaca with students at Weill Cornell involved with WCCC. 

We also had an article describing the Weill Cornell Youth Scholars Program that allows inner city youth to utilize some of the educational resources at Weill Cornell.  The program was able to recruit a number of Cornell undergrads to participate in teaching of students in the Weill Cornell Youth Scholars Program during the summer.  This is an example of a program run by Weill Cornell students which was able to incorporate Cornell undergraduates and help bridge the gap between the two campuses. 

This year there will be a number of articles presenting projects that Weill Cornell students are involved in and hopefully provided opportunities for undergraduates to become involved.  However, I encourage Cornell undergraduates to contact us with projects that they are involved in and hopefully provide opportunities for Weill Cornell students to participate and get some true bi-directional campus collaboration.

So look out for “What’s Up, Doc?” this semester, no matter if you are a history major, a material science major or a biology major, there maybe something in here for you. 

And remember, we maybe two different campuses but we are one university.

We look forward to hearing form you all.

Ankit Patel is a sixth-year Weill Cornell MD/PhD student. He can be reached at apatel@cornellsun.com. What’s Up, Doc? appears alternate Fridays this semester.