#FrenchieOnFleek

[afrenchie36]

June

Hey everyone! 

I just wanted to give you a quick update on my current situation! So, as you may know, I started my MD/PhD summer internship on May 31st. For the past month I have been working in Dr.James Connor’s lab which is part of Penn State College of Medicine’s Neurosurgery department. I am working under the mentorship of a MD/PhD student, Oliver, who happens to possess the same career goals as me, which consists of graduating from a MD/PhD program and become a neurosurgeon. Because my lab is in the department of neurosurgery, I had the opportunity to work with neurosurgeons who happened to propose me to shadow them. Hence, I have been shadowing the neurosurgery team o residents and attendings for the past three weeks and I had the extreme privilege to observe surgeries in the operating room. It is therefore with extreme certainty that I can tell you, my readers, that I want to become a surgeon. Obviously, I will remain opened to different specialties in surgery but for now my preference is neuro. As for my lab work, I have been working on a novel chemotherapy drug in the treatment of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors, a rare type of cancer that is quite fatal due to the limited amount of treatments available. Also, Dr.Connor assigned me to a special project that is not part of my internship which is to write a review paper on cerebral hypoxia and iron deficiency anemia with the end goal of publishing it and hopefully lead a paradigm shift in the medical community when it comes to the treatment of iron deficiency anemia. 

As for the rest of my life, I guess everything is going well! My family is doing great back in Bordeaux! I am currently trying to get a driver’s license in the US which requires a Social Security Number that I did not have before starting my internship, but that I now do! I bonded a lot with my fellow interns and I think we are a pretty great group of friends. So far I have been “physically active” with them, went on night time hikes, baked magnificent peanut butter cup cookie cakes, watched all Harry Potters, and went to some crazy parties!! 

Peace guys!!