Tierney Wolgemuth '16

Hometown: Lancaster, PA

Majors: Biochemistry, LACS

Extracurricular Involvement:

Traveller
Peer Tutoring
Summer Research Scholar
Chi Omega

Off-Campus Experiences:

Summer Research Assistant at Franklin & Marshall College
Spring Term Abroad (Corporate Social Responsibility) in Copenhagen

Why did you apply for the Johnson Opportunity Grant? I recently decided I'd like to apply to medical school and felt that an intensive internship would be a great opportunity to gain more exposure to the field and confirm my interest in medicine. This would not have been financially feasible had I not gotten the Johnson Opportunity Grant.

How did your work under the grant apply to your studies at W&L? My experience in Argentina applied to my Latin American and Caribbean studies minor as well as my general interest in medicine. My time in the hospital, paired with the courses provided by my host organization, helped to put my knowledge of both medicine and health care systems in the Latin American context.

Post-Graduation Plans: I plan to apply to medical school during my senior year and hopefully enroll the fall after graduation.

Advice for prospective or first-year students? Just go out and do things! This applies to both your time in Lexington and wherever your summers take you. Go backpacking, take an adventure alone, or even just visit a local landmark. Many people get into routines during both the week and the weekends that cause them to lose sight of the less exploited opportunities that W&L offers. Understanding this has elevated my college experience from good to incredible and allowed me to do so many exciting things I never expected to do.

I spent six weeks this spring interning at a two hospitals in Cordoba, Argentina. The first, Hospital Maternidad Provincial, is a public women's hospital focusing mostly on obstetrics. The second, Hospital Rawson, was the first infectious disease hospital in the country and remains a prominent hospital in the field. The internship had both observational and practical components.

My days at the hospital began at eight, when I met with the doctor I was assisting that day. Except for Wednesdays, when I worked a twelve-hour shift in la guardia, or the emergency room, I worked in a consultorio, or external office, until one in the afternoon. The specialty of the consultorio varied weekly, and included obstetrics, high-risk pregnancy, adolescents, and general gynecology. At Hospital Rawson nearly all patients were suffering from infectious diseases and were therefore not separated into different departments but kept in a single ward.

In both hospitals, my responsibilities involved assisting doctors in whatever way necessary. I would call patients, take temperatures and blood pressures, measure pregnant stomachs, find fetal heartbeats, complete paperwork, and assist in minor procedures such as spinal taps and catheter insertion. After training, I was also able to perform some procedures on my own, such as removing stitches from cesarean incisions. A large part of my time was also spent reviewing patient histories and observing general patient-physician interaction.

This time in the hospital impressed upon me several things. The first is the vital importance of education to the development of a society. Of course this is not a new idea, but one that I had never seen so personally and so poignantly. During my time at Maternidad Provincial, I reviewed hundreds of patient histories of the pregnant women. In all of those, only once did I see a check in the box marked embarazo planeado. When asked about the failed method of birth control, "none" was nearly always the answer. These women were typically unemployed and often had four or more children already. They did not want more children, they simply did not know any better. Unfortunately their ignorance was culturally exacerbated, encouraged both by societal expectations and a government that pays larger stipends with each additional child.

Another observation I made was the extreme lack of respect shown by the physicians to the patients in the hospitals where I worked. Doctors spoke disrespectfully to patients and talked poorly of them to me once the patients had left the room. This treatment was common throughout both hospitals, generally accepted by nearly every doctor I observed. However unfortunate, these observations gave me a very clear idea of the type of doctor I would like to be someday: one who listens without judgment and advises without condescension. In regards to my career, this is perhaps the most influential thing gained by my experience in Argentina.

Unless it was Wednesday, my day in the hospital was finished after lunch and I had the afternoon free to experience the city. Cordoba is the second largest in Argentina and home to nearly a dozen universities. My afternoons typically involved visiting a museum, exploring a new neighborhood, or taking a bus to a nearby town in the Sierras of Cordoba to go hiking. In the evenings I cooked dinner with my roommate, an English student interning with the same organization, InterCambio Cultural (ICC). We also attended weekly courses held by ICC, which typically concerned Argentine culture or politics.

I was not required to work over the weekend and I used the time to take full advantage of Argentina's incredible diversity. During my six weeks in Argentina I visited Mendoza (wine country near the Andes), Salta and La Quebrada de Humahuaca in the northwest, Buenos Aires, and Iguazu Falls in the northeast. I also explored a great deal of the nearby Sierras, vising towns such as La Cumbresita and Villa General Belgrano. These weekend trips, involving overnight busses and crowded hostel dorms, marked the first time I had travelled truly alone. The experience was spectacular. I met people traveling from all corners of the world and experienced a freedom I'd never known. Never before had I felt a culture so fully and so genuinely. Of course, my mother was in a perpetual state of panic during those six weeks, but even she agrees that the experience was worth her (perhaps well-placed) anxiety.

I can already recognize that my experience in Argentina will be one of the best of my college years. Through the hospital internship, I grew in both my interest in medicine and my knowledge of the field. I was also able to identify the style of relationship I aim to have with my patients and recognize that this relationship is possible only through my own unprejudiced and compassionate conduct. The language immersion both at work and with my host family elevated my Spanish communication skills to nearly fully conversation, a skill indispensible for a modern American doctor. And perhaps most importantly, I grew in my independence, my worldview, and my desire to never stop exploring opportunity both at home and abroad.