Modeling Medical Excellence

There’s a lot more to being a doctor than just seeing patients and treating their illnesses and ailments. For example, a successful doctor must also master the business side of the medical profession –– dealing with insurance, hiring staff, and wrestling with bureaucracy and endless amounts of paperwork. And more often than not, a doctor must also work to retire lots of student loan debt left over from medical school. 

Helping future medical professionals understand what they can realistically expect on the job is one of the goals of the prehealth programs within the Baylor University College of Arts & Sciences. And having prehealth students spend time with Baylor alumni who are working in the healthcare field has been a successful way to accomplish that goal.

Medical humanities

The medical humanities program in the College of Arts & Sciences makes frequent use of Baylor alumni to mentor students. For example, students in the Supervised Clinical Medicine course taught by Dr. Lauren Barron spend their semester shadowing local physicians –– a different one every week. 

“These physicians are in the hospital, and some of them are in clinics. They’re in radiology, oncology, surgery, gastroenterology, hematology, family medicine and obstetrics,” said Barron, clinical professor and director of Baylor’s medical humanities program as well as the inaugural Michael E. DeBakey, M.D., Selma DeBakey and Lois DeBakey Chair for Medical Humanities.

The practice of medical humanities students spending time with doctors in their workplaces originated with Michael Attas, a longtime Waco cardiologist who started the medical humanities program in 1999. 

Barron was a practicing physician in Waco for nearly 20 years before joining Baylor in 2009. She draws on the connections she made with fellow healthcare providers during that time to recruit local doctors to take part in the shadowing process. And it’s usually an easy sell.

“It just organically happens from relationships,” she said. “Every physician knows that teaching and mentorship is part of the profession.”

When Adam Ylitalo –– who graduated from Baylor in 2004 with a degree in chemistry and minors in medical humanities, math and biology –– moved back to Waco to establish his urology practice, “he called me up and said, ‘Hey. I want a Baylor student,’ because he saw the Baylor students rotating,” Barron said.

Ylitalo has mentored Baylor prehealth students for 11 years, and has seen “an explosion in opportunities for prehealth experiences, and a lot of that is due to the strong work and leadership of Dr. Lauren Barron.”

“The students coming through her class to shadow me typically experience a day in the clinic or in the operating room and get to see a variety of procedures and diagnoses,” Ylitalo said. “I’ve been incredibly impressed with the caliber of student that comes out of this program, and I’ve hopefully been able to recruit some students to come back and join our practice at Baylor Scott and White-Hillcrest in a few years.”

"Students oftentimes come with a fixed idea of what medicine looks like. Whatever image they have in their head, it’s so much bigger than that."

--Dr. Lauren Barron

Barron said having students in a new medical setting each week means that they’re able to observe many facets of the healthcare field. 

“Students oftentimes come with a fixed idea of what medicine looks like,” she said. “Whatever image they have in their head, it’s so much bigger than that –– whether it’s inpatient or outpatient. It could be everything from neonatology, where you're working with the tiniest little humans ever, to hospice and palliative care. Getting an idea of the scope of medical practice and the different sorts of populations that you would be working with, depending on your choice of specialty, is an important benefit.”

Seeing beyond the textbook

Rajiv Edara, a junior medical humanities major, shadowed local physicians 10 times while enrolled in Barron’s class during the Fall 2024 semester. 

“Each time you spend upwards of three, four, once even five hours with the doctors, and you get a firsthand perspective on what they’re doing, Edara said. “You follow them in whatever they’re doing, whether it’s surgery or clinic or whether it’s hospice and you’re visiting patients’ houses.”

Edara said his observation experiences brought him knowledge that he couldn’t have found in any medical textbook. 

“You’re seeing in real life how they go in and talk to a patient and how they're compassionately listening to the patient and how they're advocating for their patient's best interest,” he said.

Edara, who grew up in Chicago and went to high school in Chennai, India, is possibly planning on a career as a primary care pediatrics physician, though his area of specialization could change. He was not set on becoming a pediatrician prior to Barron’s class. 

The doctors he shadowed “could resonate with me about my experiences,” Edara said. “I feel like that helped in the fact that they understood me, and they were willing to take a more personal look into me. And the class exposes you to those personal encounters and you get to see them work with kids and get to see them as inspiration, almost, and see yourself in their shoes.”

Edara said that while he had a great experience with the whole shadowing process, it also exposed him to fields he decided not to pursue, such as hospice. 

“There were a lot of great things that I liked about it,” Edara said. “I loved how the physicians went out to the patients’ homes and cared for them. But at the same time, I’m a very social person, and I want to do something where I can develop a long-term connection with my patient.”

"I’m sending them out to observe some of the most outstanding physicians I know. They’re observing people who are masters at their craft...physicians who are masters at doctor-patient communication and who really care about their patients."

--Dr. Lauren Barron

Barron, however, warns against students choosing a particular field due to a single day of shadowing.

“I tell them in the beginning, they’re not allowed to decide what they want to do or not want to do based on anything that happens in this class,” she said, “because they’re seeing one person on one afternoon of one week of one month. They could be having a bad day. Or maybe it’s a radiologist and they think, ‘I don’t want to sit in this dark room all day,’ but they didn’t see them on the day they were doing all these awesome procedures. So, I caution them about that.”

Still, Barron said, “I’m sending them out to observe some of the most outstanding physicians I know. They’re observing people who are masters at their craft. No matter what specialty the students choose, they’re watching examples of physicians who are masters at doctor-patient communication and who really care about their patients.”

Baylor Bridges

The ability for Baylor prehealth students to learn from alumni is not limited to medical humanities majors, however. The Baylor Bridges program, created within the College of Arts & Sciences Prehealth Studies Office, is open to all prehealth majors who have an interest in learning from Baylor alumni healthcare professionals.

Dr. Richard Sanker, senior director of prehealth programs and undergraduate research in the College of Arts & Sciences, worked with several alumni in creating Baylor Bridges, which is described on its website as a program that “connects Baylor alumni healthcare professionals with current prehealth students to build a community focused on advancing and enhancing education via research, leadership, service and mentorship.”

Sanker has been successfully pairing up alumni with current students for several years. He said the biggest ongoing challenge is finding practical ways to connect nearly 4,000 prehealth students with the thousands of alumni working in health-related fields across the country. The Baylor Bridges program has proven its value in helping reach the goal of giving students a look at what’s currently happening in the medical field. 

“As educators, we can explain the biological process...But we don't really have a conduit to help the students grasp what’s all involved in servicing people in the in the health field. That’s where our alumni can come in and share that experience.”

--Dr. Richard Sanker

“As educators, we can explain the biological process. We can explain how chemistry functions,” Sanker said. “We can talk about some of the unique patient-physician relationship or patient-health care provider relationships. But we don't really have a conduit to help the students grasp what’s all involved in servicing people in the in the health field. That’s where our alumni can come in and share that experience.”

Valuable experience

The interaction with alumni that students get through Baylor Bridges is proving valuable. Sofia Neumann, a sophomore health science studies major, is one of two students paired through the program this year with Dr. Katherine W. Gonzalez (BS '07), a pediatric surgeon at St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital in Boise, Idaho. 

During regular virtual visits, the students and Gonzalez have discussed many topics, including the clinical research project that Neumann is working on.

“Dr. Gonzalez ensures that I fully understand the implications of my work by clearly and patiently walking me through every aspect of the process,” Neumann said. “Without Baylor Bridges and the relationship it’s made possible with her, I would have never had the opportunity to present my research this year at the American Pediatric Surgical Association convention in Montreal, Canada. Thanks to her advocacy, I will be able to take part in a presentation process typically reserved for medical professionals. I now feel more confident and have a much clearer vision of the medical career I want to pursue.”

The other student who has joined Newmann in the online visits with Gonzalez this year is Martha Toursarkissian, a sophomore biology major with a concentration in cell and molecular biology, who will also make a research presentation at the APSA convention in Montreal.

“As an undergraduate student, to have such an opportunity would have been next to impossible without the Baylor Bridges program and the mentoring from Dr. Gonzalez, who has been a source of inspiration for me,” Toursarkissian said. “As a result of this opportunity, I not only feel better prepared to apply to medical school, but I feel more excited to pursue the field of medicine. Having the ability to make connections and experience a different side of medicine at such a young age has given me knowledge which I will use the rest of my academic and professional life.”

Antoinette Perez, a junior health science studies major and this year’s Baylor Bridges student president, said that alumni play varied roles in the program.

“In addition to mentorship, our alumni also come back to share their expertise within various Pre-Health Professions classes and speaker events,” Perez said. “The knowledge they share enriches our prehealth community, and allows for our students to be more exposed to topics that are at the forefront of modern medicine.”

Perez believes the experiences she’s had interacting with Baylor alumni will help her in the future.

“I strongly believe that I am more prepared, and excited to, apply to professional school because of everything I have learned through Baylor Bridges,” she said. “Having firsthand accounts and personal advice from someone who has gone through the entire process makes the road ahead more clear.” 

Emma Shoemaker, a senior Science Research Fellow at Baylor, shared information about her experience with the Baylor Bridges program at a recent American Physician Scientist Association regional conference. She advises new prehealth students at Baylor to take advantage of the opportunities provided by alumni mentorship as soon as possible.

“Do not stay in the Baylor Sciences Building, and don’t get into a circular routine,” Shoemaker said. “Right now, Bridges is cultivating novel opportunities to engage beyond the classroom and set yourselves apart as future healthcare professionals. It’s not just about academics and metrics –– it’s about building connections, gaining hands-on exposure, and developing the character and resilience that patients will look for in you when their life depends on it.”

A realistic outlook

The glimpses into the reality of being a physician that alumni mentoring provides are important, Sanker said –– not only because they can help guide students toward a successful career in healthcare. In some cases, he said, the dose of reality that mentoring gives students helps them realize that healthcare might not be the best fit for them after all. 

“This is actually one of the more valuable parts, because I think for a lot of students that come in there, there’s an intimidation quality to the prehealth world and to the to the health professions,” Sanker said. “And students feel like there’s a force trying to discourage them from joining it. We really try to structure our program to say, ‘This is a big decision you’re making, but if you make the decision and fully embrace it, you’re going to find success.”

Still, it can be an eye-opening experience for Baylor students once a visiting physician talks about “the amount of training, time and intentionality –– not to mention the bureaucratic system –– that’s in place,” Sanker said. 

With that realistic picture of the profession in hand, students can then “enter into a much more idealistic space where they can actually serve people, and which in turn makes them happier with their careers,” Sanker said. “And most importantly, it will then be the student’s own decision and personal pursuit.”

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of Baylor Arts & Sciences magazine.

ABOUT THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY 

The College of Arts & Sciences is Baylor University’s largest academic division, consisting of 25 academic departments in the sciences, humanities, fine arts and social sciences, as well as 11 academic centers and institutes. The more than 5,000 courses taught in the College span topics from art and theatre to religion, philosophy, sociology and the natural sciences. The College’s undergraduate Unified Core Curriculum, which routinely receives top grades in national assessments, emphasizes a liberal education characterized by critical thinking, communication, civic engagement and Christian commitment. Arts & Sciences faculty conduct research around the world, and research on the undergraduate and graduate level is prevalent throughout all disciplines. Visit the College of Arts & Sciences website.