Radiology Personal Statement

Sitting next to my orthopedic surgeon, I anxiously awaited the radiology report, as it dictated my next move. The 26 bones that I broke throughout my training to become a national level gymnast provided me with many of these moments, which planted the seed for a future career in radiology. While this realization did not surface until my fourth year of medical school, I think it reasonable to say that gymnastics influenced my decision to choose radiology. The realm of radiology encompasses several elements that I consider essential to my career: the ability to help people, the provisions to study and train, and the necessity for research.

Spoken by my late grandfather, “If you are driven by compassion and hope for the human race, medicine
My interest in research began during a summer internship at Vanderbilt University, where I worked with intellectually underserved students from rural Arkansas to identify the presence of the novel Sulfilimine bond in various animal species. The excitement from the results of the study and future publication in addition to the gratification from educating younger students captivated me. During medical school, I sampled more areas of research by becoming involved in multitude of projects. I followed the footsteps of my late grandfather by spending the summer after first year of medical school in a pathology lab, where I investigated the role of HIF-1α in the regulation of tumor-initiating cells in triple negative breast cancer using a mice-model. During my third year of medical school, my research interests transitioned from pathology to obstetrics & gynecology, as I worked with baboons to establish a model of ethanol exposure during second trimester of pregnancy. The groundbreaking findings from this study will hopefully provide acute and chronic responses to ethanol consumption in pregnancy. As my career interests changed, so too did my research pursuits. I am excited to begin my final research project of medical school in the field of radiology. This project compares CT versus MRI for non-contrast evaluation of abdominal pain in the ER. Ultimately, I want to continue to do research in the field of radiology throughout my career. It is through such exploration that we advance medicine and improve the quality of care for our