Company name: Rady Children’s Hospital- San Diego Name of shadow: Adriana Tremoulet Description of company: Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego is a nonprofit, pediatric-care facility dedicated to excellence in care, research and teaching. Description of job: Dr. Adriana Tremoulet is the associate director of the Kawasaki Disease Research Center at UC San Diego. In this role, she cares for nearly 1,500 children with Kawasaki disease in San Diego County and an additional 90 children a year hospitalized at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego. Titles: Adriana Tremoulet, MD, MAS Associate Professor UCSD Associate Director, Kawasaki Disease Research Center Division of Host-Microbe Systems and Therapeutics Department of Pediatrics University of California, San Diego/Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego
Experience:
I learned many things during Career Day that allowed insight into what a clinical researcher may do on a day to day basis. I arrived at my Career Day location where Dr. Tremoulet's office was located. Once I arrived at one of her many offices, she began to explain what the day was going to look like. She began by letting me know that she was currently working on paper, more like an article, that she was planning on publishing on a website with her Latin American contributors. Prior, to shadowing her, I had met her at a Young Leaders in Healthcare meeting, which is a club that I am a part of. At the meeting, she gave a brief explanation on the winding path to becoming a clinical researcher. There I was aware that like me, she is a Spanish speaker, she has been able to create the Latin American Kawasaki Disease Network (REKAMLATINA) with contributors from Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Venezuela. I was inspired by her presentation and knew that I needed to know more about her work with Latin America. So I decided that I would want to shadow her for Career Day. I got her contact information and sent her an email letting her know that I was very interested in her career and wanted to know more. Her first conference call was a video chat with two contributors of Latin America. They discussed what they needed to add to their paper. There was a lot of group effort that went into editing and double checking every sentence along with the percentages. Their paper included a large table of data that they had collected and they also had to be sure that their data and percentages were correct. I was able to learn that it is really important to have the skill of collaboration in the medical field. This is because often time you are working with someone which calls for group work. Everyone on the conference call was able to display this skill very well, everyone had the opportunity to speak and was heard. I like how everyone was very friendly and it seemed more like it was friends working and not co-workers trying to get work over with. It was a very nice working environment that I enjoyed. Additionally, I really enjoyed that everyone was speaking in Spanish which made me happy because I never thought that it would be a possibility to have a career in medicine and work with Latin America. Which is one of the reasons that I was interested in know more about how that was a possibility? Her second conference call was with the National Institute of Health (NIH) from which she has received many grants for her clinical research and trials. It was a very different conference call that was very formal I would say less inviting. People seemed that they were in a hurry and wanted everything to be quick and did not want to spend too much time. I think it is great to be efficient, however, it seemed that the participants weren't willing to make it positively efficient. They were discussing how they could make the fellows interact with each other. Dr. Tremoulet has many hats that she wears in terms of the titles she holds and what she participates in. She is going to be mentoring fellows through a program with the NIH. After her conference call, we went to eat lunch at a Thai restaurant. There we talked about her journey to becoming a clinical researcher. I began to ask her about how speaking in Spanish has been able to open doors for her. We both talked about how we feel that we feel a certain responsibility to succeed given that our parents have done so much for us. More specifically that it isn't a burden but more of a duty that we need to uphold. Once we finished eating our lunch she had to go interview a candidate pediatrician for the hospital. We arrived at one of the newest buildings of the hospital. There we went inside a conference room where the interview would be held. The candidate worked at Yale and decided to make the change to move to California. She was interested in working in San Diego given that there is a lot of biotech companies around the area. I found the interview to be insightful because I was able to learn how to interviews are conducted in a professional scene. In the interview, the candidate was asking Dr. Tremoulet how she has been able to get funding for her research and clinical trials. She said that she receives her funding from the NIH and from philanthropy. They were discussing that philanthropy is the best way of gaining funding because it is not a long process unlike applying for funding.
Interview:
What specific skill training helped you prepare for this job?
I went to Harvard University where I majored in Biochemistry. For medical school, I went University of California, Los Angeles. I did my pediatric residency was at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA. My peds fellowsip was at University of California, San Diego, San Diego. I received my Master in Clinical Research at University of California, San Diego.
What do you believe helped you get to where you are now?
Determination. I think it takes dedication and determination to pursue a career in medicine, especially if you decide to specialize in a certain. When I was in college and about to apply to med school many people would tell me that I would not be able to get into UCLA's medical program however I didn't let that stop me. I later applied and was accepted. That shows you that even if other people don't believe in you it won't matter if you believe in yourself becuase that is what matters.
What would you recommend me to begin doing?
I would recommend to volunteer at hospitals and continue shadowing professionals. This will allow you to see what career in medicine you are interested in. I think it is really good that you have begun to participate in clubs that relate to medicine.
Images:
This is her office
A conference room in one of the newest buildings of Rady Children's