Student Research at Duke

For a long time, I wanted to be a pediatric oncologist. Friends and family who often asked what I wanted to become were often surprised that someone so young had a specific proffession picked out. Like many children, I too had dreamed of being a doctor; One day, I stumbled upon a St. Jude’s Hospital infomercial that shared the stories of children with various types of cancer. I remember being amazed at people so young could be struck with incurable illnesses. I saw their sad eyes and bald heads and began to wonder what I could do to help. I remember going on the internet and looking up the title of doctors that treated these kind of patients: Pediatric Oncologists.

I still want to be a doctor, but because of my lab experience this summer, I ‘ve also been contemplating biomedical research. My mentor is a hematologist and a clinical researcher. Its amazing to see the practical application that his clinical trials have in medicine (ex. using genomics to develop diagnostic tools). I hope to take part more research here at Duke and will continue to contemplate my furture.