Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Students applying to medical school often cite a health experience for their interest in becoming a doctor, said Dr. Jeff Harrison, assistant dean for admissions and student affairs at the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Medicine.
He said applicants are asked during admission interviews why they want to pursue a career in medicine.
Harrison said an experience with health care can help drive students as they deal with the rigors of medical school.
“It becomes a motivator,'' he said.
Knee problems and other sport-related injuries are among the most common experiences applicants describe, he said.
But students also mention the quality care they got from a pediatrician for the flu and other routine childhood illnesses, he said.
Dr. Mike Kavan, associate dean for student affairs at the Creighton University School of Medicine, said doctors who had suffered a medical problem themselves, such as diabetes or cancer, can make a strong connection with patients.
“It gives them a great deal of credibility,'' he said.
— Michael O'Connor
Her cell phone buzzed. Then buzzed again, and again — more than a dozen times while she sat in a summer school class.
Sarah Synovec-Crawford recognized the number. It was her dad's. What was so urgent, she wondered?
He was calling to say she must get to the hospital for more tests.
She had undergone an X-ray that morning because of symptoms that had cropped up: shortness of breath, small bumps on her legs and weakness even when she sat on the couch reading.
What he didn't tell Sarah is that the X-ray had revealed a tumor the size of a softball in her chest.
It was June 2008 and Sarah, a blond-haired ballet dancer with an eye on a medical career, was 19 and had just finished her freshman year at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
One day after that call from her dad, she would be diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system that is relatively uncommon but also typically highly curable.
Sarah, now 23, followed through on her dream of becoming a doctor. She's a first-year medical student at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, spending 12 hours a day learning how the heart, lungs and kidneys work.
Nearly four years after her diagnosis, Sarah is cancer-free and newly married. She says her fight against the disease has inspired her to become a cancer specialist, an oncologist, and believes her experience will help her connect with patients.
She knows the fear, the pain, the loneliness of cancer. She also knows the courage, the resolve, the hope.
"I feel God gave me this challenge for a special purpose,'' she says.
She wants to work with older cancer patients, in geriatrics. She volunteered at a hospital while growing up and always liked geriatric patients and their life experiences, whether it was military service or an interesting job. She knows she'd gain a lot by working with them as a physician.
Sarah will always remember her dad's voice when he called on that June day to say she needed more tests. It was steady and even. It was calm.
Her dad, Dr. Mark Synovec, has experience with that kind of conversation. He's a pathologist, a physician who specializes in examining tissue samples, interpreting lab tests and making diagnoses like Sarah's.
Sarah was raised in Topeka, Kan., and was taking a class at the University of Kansas in Lawrence on the day her dad phoned. After speaking with her dad, Sarah told her boyfriend, now her husband, that she was heading to Topeka.
On the 20-minute drive, she cranked up country music on the radio. She wasn't too worried. How could anything possibly be wrong with a 19-year-old?
Her dad and mother, Sue, were waiting at the hospital. Her mom's eyes were puffy and red.
After more tests and a biopsy in Topeka, Sarah was diagnosed: Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Sarah was scared. She had questions for her dad. Am I going to die? Am I going to lose my hair?
No, you are not going to die, her father told her. Yes, you will lose your hair.
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Her parents were satisfied with the care she would receive in Topeka, but they wanted a second opinion about the treatment plan. So they made an appointment with Dr. James Armitage, an internationally known lymphoma specialist at UNMC.
Armitage agreed with the treatment plan and offered to become Sarah's primary cancer doctor when she returned to school at UNL in the fall.
Sarah liked Armitage's approach and will use it with her own patients. He was straightforward. He also educated Sarah about her cancer, such as explaining why Hodgkin's lymphoma can respond well to treatment.
For Sarah and her family, the first few days after the diagnosis were rough. Sarah's mother remembers crying after curling up in bed with Sarah on a Saturday morning.
"(Sarah) said, 'Mom, we're done crying,''' her mother recalls. "It's time to treat it."
Her dad says that when Sarah is faced with a problem, she never waits to solve it.
He remembers the day she arrived home from grade school and announced she had to start work right away on a big school project. Her parents figured it was due the next day. It turned out the deadline was a week away.
In June 2008, Sarah started chemotherapy. Her initial treatments were in Topeka and the rest were in Omaha after she started her sophomore year at UNL in the fall.
Sarah remembers the first time she smelled the chemo drugs while receiving them in her vein. It was a sour, metallic odor.
The treatments made her urine smell like chemo. Her hair started falling out in clumps when she took baths.
Sarah never wanted to look like a cancer patient, so she picked out wigs. She had a blond spiky one, a long red one and another that was dark brown.
When her chemo treatments ended in November, she started 17 days of radiation to attack the tumor in her chest. The radiation made the skin on her chest itchy and dry. It looked sunburned.
Another cancer patient told Sarah a chocolate milkshake always tasted good after radiation. Sarah began drinking one after every dose and the cool ice cream felt like a balm inside her body.
The worst treatment involved injections to help her bone marrow produce more immune cells, which were wiped out by the chemo drugs. After each shot, her bones ached like they were being squeezed in a vice. It hurt to stand, sit or even lay down.
Her tumor quickly responded to the treatments. It was gone from an X-ray a month after the therapy began. Her long-term health outlook was improving.
Her friends gave her good support. One time her best friend missed a sorority formal to go with her for a chemo treatment.
But not everyone knew how to react. Some of her sorority sisters wanted to touch her bald head and ask about her treatments. Others would leave the room when the topic came up. Sarah figured they just couldn't cope with the details.
Her parents, her brother and her now-husband, Mike Crawford, also were supportive. Crawford was a student at KU and would make the 400-mile round trip to Omaha for her chemo.
It was a strange feeling for Sarah. She was surrounded by people who loved her, but she felt isolated.
Her family and friends didn't know what the searing pain from the injections felt like. They didn't know what it was like for her chest to feel scorched in the middle of winter or how just brushing her teeth exhausted her.
Her dad painfully realized that the family couldn't fully connect with her.
"She was on a path that we could truly not walk," her dad says.
Sarah never joined a cancer support group and now wishes she had. A group would have been a good place to turn, and she'll recommend that her patients join one.
It has been three years since her last cancer treatment. Sarah feels back to full strength, but every six months she gets a reminder that she's still a patient.
That when she sees Dr. Armitage for a checkup, to make sure the cancer hasn't returned. She gets anxious before every visit.
Her most recent appointment was last week. Everything looked good.
Her long-term outlook is excellent, Armitage says.
Armitage, a professor in the UNMC College of Medicine, says there's no doubt Sarah's experience will boost her as a cancer specialist. She will relate to patients in ways others can't.
Sarah's mom says simply, "It's in her heart."
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