20 Questions: Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD, Medical Oncologist

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Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD, is a professor of medicine in the department of medical oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School, as well as a biomedical researcher focused on translational studies with potential clinical impact regarding human breast cancer. Dr. Polyak has been a member of the Harvard Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) graduate program since 1999, and as a BBS faculty member, she has participated in teaching several graduate courses and giving talks at departmental retreats and minisymposia. She has also participated in new student recruiting events by interviewing prospective students, attending dinners/receptions, and welcoming new students. Dr. Polyak received her MD summa cum laude from Albert Szent-Gyorgyi Medical University in Szeged, Hungary (1991), and her PhD in cell biology and genetics from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences (1995). She was a research associate in cancer genetics at Johns Hopkins Oncology Center, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (1995-1998).

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Mistakes to Avoid During Your Medical School Admissions Interview

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Earning a medical school admissions interview is a significant accomplishment. Many programs adhere to rigorous academic, extracurricular, and research requirements when selecting candidates for in-person meetings. Though you should view this as an opportunity to communicate to admissions interviewers why you are a perfect candidate for the school’s incoming class, be aware that a poor showing can harm applicants. Below are several blunders to avoid during your medical school interview:
1. Failing to articulate your career plans

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The Fatal Failings of Evidence Based Medicine

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The medical system (and much of the culture) these days is focused on group outcomes, not individuals. Personally, I think that stinks.
In medicine, this failing comes from improper use of what was originally a good idea—evidenced based medicine (EBM). EBM was developed to help overcome anecdotal medicine, in which a seemingly successful therapy in one patient gets adopted by a physician as the “way to go” and then preached to his trainees as the management of choice, and over time becomes unexamined gospel. “Anecdote-based medicine” is a form of groupthink, and groupthink is bad in general and particularly bad for the patient sitting in front of us on an exam table.
There needed to be some way to help doctors realize that an individual patient response is not generalizable to others.
EBM evaluates groups of patients to determine statistical responses to interventions. It was created (initially) to help doctors determine whether an intervention is likely to work in an individual patient. In that way, it was originally kind of the obverse of anecdotal medicine.

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An Apology from a Resident

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Dear Third Year Medical Student,
Congratulations! Your two years of textbook learning are complete and you are ready to launch into your clinical training. It’s an exciting time and you’re likely super-eager to jump in, get involved and save a few lives (or at least stand by helpfully while other people save the lives; let’s not get ahead of ourselves). You have high hopes of becoming a key member of your team, taking care of your patients and learning as much as possible. What you will quickly discover is that your experience will be strongly colored by the residents with whom you will work closely. As a medical student, I had the opportunity to work with some truly great residents. Enthusiastic about their field, they worked to incorporate me into the care process and would take a moment, however brief, to draw attention to valuable teaching points that I might otherwise have overlooked.

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3 Tools to Help You Prepare for Interviews

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Strong interview preparation allows you to give meaningful thought to what qualities you bring to the table and why you might be a good fit for a particular school.

A Day in the Life: A Look at the Medical School Clerkship Year – Part II

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Make sure to check out Part I here!

The remaining day

Following rounds, teams will typically “run the list,”or quickly review the to-do items discussed during rounds and delegate the work as necessary. Since medical students typically cannot input orders, which include things like prescribing medications, scheduling diagnostic imaging and tests, and requesting labs, this usually involves more administrative tasks: obtaining medical records from outside institutions, following up on tests, and other ancillary tasks. Most rotations also incorporate some form of formal teaching in the curriculum. As such, students may be expected to attend lunch lectures with residents or may have their own lecture schedules. Some attending physicians enjoy giving quick teaching sessions and will set aside 30-45 minutes to talk about a particular clinical topic (e.g., management of diabetes, working up an acid-base disturbance, and other common issues) each day in addition to the more formal teaching opportunities scheduled by the clerkship.

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A Day in the Life: A Look at the Medical School Clerkship Year – Part I

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A caveat, an introduction

To try and describe the clerkship year of medical school – the year-long, in-depth experience for students to actively participate in patient care in a clinical setting, usually in the third year – to those who haven’t experienced it firsthand is a difficult task. I steadfastly believe that medicine is an experiential endeavor, one that cannot be truly understood by someone until he has undergone it himself. The fact that each trainee has his own unique set of “critical-incidents,” to use a term from the medical education literature (1), that profoundly shapes the physician he will become makes the task even more arduous. Nevertheless, I will do what I can to try and give a good look at a day in the life of a third year student and what the experience entails.

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