Becoming a Healer with Andres Diaz
This week on the Pre-Health Pod, Lexi Childress and Sarah Edmunds discuss the true meaning of being a doctor with MD-PhD student Andres Diaz. Andres was born in Colombia but has lived in the US since he was 11 years old. He originally pursued a career as a chef, but his life took a major turn when he enrolled in a medical humanities class at his local community college. He was then inspired to pursue a career in medicine at the University of Arizona, where he conducts research on cellular immune therapies to fight neuroblastoma and other pediatric tumors. He aspires to be a pediatric oncologist! Read on to become inspired by Andres’ path to medicine and understand what qualities make a good doctor. To listen to the full podcast episode, click the link below!
What is medical anthropology? Why does it matter?
When Andres was weighing his career options, he never thought college was in the cards for him. Living on a green card, he was afraid that his legal status would not allow it. But upon enrolling in community college and learning about medical anthropology, his life was forever changed. What do you learn in a medical anthropology class? Medical anthropology is a key course that exposes pre-meds to, often, a completely new perspective on what medicine is and what it represents for the general population. It explores how humans interact with medical systems and how each person’s different socioeconomic background plays into this interaction.
Andres highly encourages all pre-med students to take one of these courses, as it is essential to providing effective and compassionate patient care as a doctor. Sarah shares that she worked in an ER on a Native American reservation and her medical anthropology training helped her understand that healthcare workers must reframe the way that they educate each person so that patients can comprehend their health fully and become passionate about it as well. She adds that you cannot really help anyone without understanding their culture and their home base. They are a person, not a list of symptoms and diagnoses!
Many people may think that science and anthropology are completely opposite and don’t really go together, but really this is not true. Andres explains that at its core, medicine is a social science. “It’s a practice of people. It’s a humanity,” he emphasizes. No matter what health career you choose (doctor, PA, nurse, et cetera), at the end of the day, your goal is to heal. If you ignore the humanity of an illness, you cannot be a good healer.
Lexi, who is currently in the process of filling out her secondary medical school applications, corroborates this idea by pointing out that most questions on her secondaries inquire about the humanistic side of pre-med, not the technical science or research side. Some examples include: “What community do you identify with? Who are you as a person? How has your identity shaped your passion for medicine and caring for others?” Clearly, medicine is biologically based but is truly led by the humanities.
Good doctors are persistent in advocating for their patients
Andres goes on to discuss his personal passion for his chosen medical specialty. In doing so, he also points out some major pitfalls that he has noticed along the way. Pediatric oncology is an amazing field. Pediatric tumors are very hard to treat because they are great at avoiding the immune system, but pediatric oncology patients are some of the strongest, best patients out there. “It is an honor to work with them,” Andres says. His training in treating these young cancer patients has taught him to be a better person and shown him what really matters in life. Kids are resilient, tough, and endlessly optimistic. They bounce back from aggressive treatment very quickly and their innocence brings a certain hope that adult cancer patients often struggle with.
Pediatric oncology requires a lot of research. Understanding the anthropological basis and application of medical research is essential to making real advancements and breakthroughs. However, pediatric oncology research is very underfunded compared to adult oncology research. Cancer funding comes largely from private or philanthropic endeavors. Alongside this, the government funding for child cancer research is significantly lower than for adult cancers. Not only this, but the research often does not fully represent the populations that are experiencing the disease worldwide. Many children around the globe are not included in clinical trials, which leads to delays in treatment protocols. So, we need to push for increased access to clinical trials for children. Some may object to this in the name of trying to protect the kids, but this hurts them significantly more in the long run.
Andres has dedicated his career to addressing pediatric cancer global health disparities, as an increasing number of physicians have. According to Andres, lower income countries have a survival rate of only 20% for children with malignancy. Compare that to higher income countries with a survival rate of 80% for these children and this global injustice is glaringly apparent. “It is a failure of morality,” he states. There are essential medications dedicated by the World Health Organization that are not easily accessible globally, a crisis that needs to be resolved as soon as possible. These children, communities, and families deserve equitable access to these lifesaving therapies worldwide. We can always do better.
The medications and research funding are not the only issues, though. For example, we have a duty to make palliative care more accessible to kids. Everyone has the right to die with dignity and comfort, but this is an extremely difficult conversation to have and is often avoided.
Additionally, access to cancer care facilities is unreliable around the world. Because of this lack of access, children are often diagnosed at a much later, more advanced stage of their cancer, making it increasingly harder to treat the illness and contributing to the plummeting of survival rates in these countries. If more global cancer care centers were constructed, especially in countries that often only have a singular cancer hospital in the nation, it would greatly improve this problem.
The good news is that lots of physicians and medical students are passionate about global health equity and these issues. More and more students are angry about this as time goes on. But the medical community also remains optimistic! The goal is to have a strong understanding of the diseases, how they manifest in patients, and how to address these things on a global scale. Kids need our help. We have a responsibility to not only speak up about this but act on it as well.
For Andres, his passion for writing and his position as Chief Editor for The New Physician, the American Medical Students Association editorial, is his way of ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard. The parting message he leaves with pre-health students is that they all have the opportunity to fight for causes that they care about or inform a population about something important to them through academic and nonacademic writing. Pre-health students have their own unique perspective on various important issues that is valuable to the community. He encourages them to use their voice and share what they know! Lexi encourages this as well, telling students to share what is important to them from their personal journey in clinical settings and the medical community in general. Medicine is not just science; it’s about informing and connecting people. Andres emphasizes, “Your voice matters.”
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