| Name: | Dr. Suarez | |
| Job Title: | Cardiology Fellow | |
| Place of work: | Texas Tech University Medical Center - Internal Medicine | |
TQ team: What motivated you to pursue a cardiology field of study?
Dr. Suarez: Well it all started first with pursuing a medical career when I was in high school. My father was a doctor, also a cardiologist, and I always saw how he lived his work, how he really enjoyed what he did. Basically seeing him do what he did with so much enjoyment was what really moved me to try to become a doctor. And then always I think a very positive influence from him, seeing how he liked the field of cardiology itself, made me go toward it. Basically a very big influence from my father. It is also an area where you can really help people.
TQ team: Has it turned out to be what you expected so far?
Dr. Suarez: Well, this is only me second week into my fellowship of cardiology
TQ team: Oh, I see
Dr. Suarez: So far it is what I thought it would be.
TQ team: Great. Well congratulations on your accomplishments so far. Um, what was your major in college and where did you attend?
Dr. Suarez: I'm going to be a little bit atypical in that sense because I went to medical school in a foreign country, I'm from El Salvador, and we go directly to medical school from high school so we don't go through college. It's 8 years medical school. All of our basic sciences all of our what would be here premed classes we take during the first few years of med school there. So, I don't have a major degree... I'm just a doctor (chuckles).
TQ team: What aspect of your job do you enjoy the most?
Dr. Suarez: Um. . . making a good diagnosis, treating a patient according to that diagnosis, seeing that the patient gets better, and seeing that the patient appreciates that. That is probably what I enjoy the most.
TQ team: Take us through a typical day of work for you.
Dr. Suarez: It varies with the rotation you are in. Typical day of work . . . it's going to depend on what you are doing. If you are doing the intensive care unit, basically you have to be here a little early, see all your patients, make decisions regarding those patients, run with your bosses, with your attendants, run with your interns and then make decisions about what to do with those patients. Are those patients good enough to go to be transferred to the ?front? Do these patients need procedures? Can those patients go home? Usually it's 10-15 patients a day that you take care of, and that is five days a week. If you are in the heart station, which is this (points around himself) mainly you see out patients, patients that are not in the center. These patients come to have tests done to see if they have any heart condition, or to follow up how their heart is going. Um, what can I tell you . . . this is not a job where you can be sure that you will be coming at 8:00 and leaving at 5:00. Right now I'm doing the area of pediatric cardiology. We are trying to be ?go? cardiologists but we're required to do some training in pediatrics. Basically what we do mainly is help patients, clinics with children with heart conditions. What we are trying to do is to learn to detect and recognize murmurs when we are listening to children's hearts and learn to take a history, which is somewhat different in heart disease in children and adults. There is also an area called the council service. In that area one of us is required to follow patients throughout the floors. They are in patients but they are not in the intensive care unit, but they are also not well enough to be at home. . . so they are not out patients and we are being consultant to those patients for management. That may also be a difficult job during the day and it is difficult to say just what is regular. A day may be an easy day: following a patient, or you may need to do procedures, or you may need to be seeing all the patients in the emergency room at that time. There is... there is not a typical day.
TQ team: That is exciting right? I mean it keeps up the excitement level.
Dr. Suarez: Um... (smiles) sometimes it's not the excitement level but the stress level, it keeps it up.
TQ team: What stage of your career are you in right now?
Dr. Suarez: It's called fellow. I already went trough my residency so I'm now a fellow.
TQ team: Well, congratulations again.
Dr. Suarez: Oh, you don't have to congratulate me it's just another stage.
TQ team: What advice would you give to "aspiring young cardiologists"?
Dr. Suarez: Well that is probably something that I would be asking someone to give me, because that is what I am right now. Um. . . read, read, read, work hard, and always if you don't know, ask. This is a very difficult area in which if you don't ask, if you make a mistake, it may be fatal, maybe bad for the patient. And you always need to know your limitations. And try to learn; learning doesn't come just from the books but from your everyday work. Which is a nice thing. You are learning from your practice, you are learning from your books, and you are learning from your teachers. But that is the advice I would give people, and it's probably the advice they would give me if I had to ask them.
TQ team: Well, that's good advice. We appreciate your time, you have been most helpful. We've got one final question: What is your favorite movie?
Dr. Suarez:
I have so many favorite movies, I couldn't say. One movie that I remember
I liked, but it's not probably my all-time favorite, is The Rock.
