{"id":103,"date":"2014-01-21T21:22:50","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T02:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/?p=103"},"modified":"2014-05-09T15:40:34","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T19:40:34","slug":"compassion-and-science-meet-on-rosa-hernandezs-road-to-geisel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/2014\/compassion-and-science-meet-on-rosa-hernandezs-road-to-geisel\/","title":{"rendered":"Compassion and Science Meet on Rosa Hernandez’s Road to Geisel"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Denise Henry<\/em><\/p>\n

As a child growing up in Los Angeles, Rosa Hernandez ('17) sometimes entertained the dream of becoming a doctor. \u00a0She says her knack for relating to others in \u201clay terms\u201d while simultaneously thinking in scientific ones, ended up being a perfect fit for her journey into the medical profession.<\/p>\n

\"Geisel
Geisel student Rosa Hernandez with her parents Daniel and Maria Magdelena, at her graduation from MIT<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A first-year student at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hernandez\u2019s love of learning and helping others was forged from the example of her parents, who emigrated from Mexico.\u00a0 Their hard work and entrepreneurial spirit led to opening a small shoe-vendor business at an LA-area swap meet and creating a family tradition of embracing higher education.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey always emphasized education,\u201d says Hernandez, who embraced her parents\u2019 passion for knowledge and emerged as a first-generation college student, following her older brothers Daniel and Richard to do her undergraduate education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n

During Hernandez\u2019s studies at MIT\u2014where she earned a degree in brain and cognitive science\u2014her interest in the brain\u2019s resiliency and fragility led her to explore neuroscience beyond the classroom and inside the lab.<\/p>\n

Hernandez joined a research team to study casual learning development in toddlers. She examined and compared social and physical causes and their effects on early childhood learning.\u00a0 While Hernandez\u2019s work in the laboratory tapped into her proficiency in science, she says the experience helped her realize that her academic interest would best serve others in a more direct way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t see myself doing research with results that take years to reach the public. I wanted to harness my love for science and combine it with something that really matters and that is more immediate, and to put it to use to help others,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In 2011, from a patient\u2019s bedside at\u00a0Cl\u00ednica Guadalupana in<\/em>\u00a0Colima, Mexico, she spent the summer shadowing surgeons.\u00a0 It was there that Hernandez saw her future as a doctor, where she could celebrate her passion for science and bring compassionate care to others.<\/p>\n

At\u00a0Cl\u00ednica Guadalupana,\u00a0<\/em>Hernandez met a patient before her surgery. Their relationship began with a conversation and a discovery of some common ground between two women. It ended that same day, after the patient\u2019s surgery.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter we talked about our families and histories, I asked her if she minded if I observed her surgery,\u201d Hernandez said. \u201cShe asked me if she would ever see me again, and I told her it was unlikely. That conversation really stuck with me and showed me the transient nature of doctor-patient relationships. In a short time of interacting, you develop such a deep relationship. Patients entrust you with their secrets, with their bodies, with their lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a doctor is not just about having sufficient medical expertise. Of course, it\u2019s vital to have knowledge of treatments and drugs, but it\u2019s also about people coming to you with their deepest secrets and in their scariest moments, and being compassionate in that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hernandez says her experience working at\u00a0Cl\u00ednica Guadalupana not only gave her a deeper appreciation for patient-physician relationships, but also\u00a0revealed a bold disparity in medical care.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Mexico, necessities are bare. Iodine solutions are stored in old Gatorade bottles. They make the best of what they have. It\u2019s no comparison to the availability of resources at a top-notch hospital like Massachusetts General,\u201d says Hernandez, who, as an undergraduate student, also shadowed surgeons at MGH.<\/p>\n

Likewise, Hernandez says her first year at Geisel has opened her eyes to the health and economic challenges local residents face. During her recent service project through the organization Listen, Hernandez met with residents of nearby White River Junction, Vermont, who said they forego their health care to heat their homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t have money to pay their gas bills and they are still working to pay bills from the year before. Learning about their struggles and how very different they are than those of residents of Los Angeles, where heating a home is rarely necessary, gave me an appreciation of the [hardships] those in the local community face,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

At Geisel, which not only sheds light on those challenges, but also works for their solutions, Hernandez says her path to becoming a physician is clearly marked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took a strong interest in Dartmouth, where everyone is so over-the-top and genuinely kind,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s such a great environment conducive to learning \u2026 and to making a difference in other people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

--By Denise Henry<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From a patient’s bedside in Mexico, Rosa Hernandez saw her future as a healer. Discover more about this first-year medical student’s journey from Los Angeles to MIT to Cl\u00ednica Guadalupana in Mexico to Geisel and Dartmouth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,1],"tags":[23,39],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-improving-lives","category-news","tag-global-health","tag-students","author-15"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4r3h1-1F","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":933,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions\/933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}