By Juliana Riverin
Assistant Managing Editor
“Paging (future) Dr. Cohn.”
Instead of indulging in some fun in the sun, Costa senior Yoshi Cohn spent one week of her summer vacation shadowing a number of doctors in Salem, Oregon.
“I split up my time between different doctors in different fields for a week, which let me experience different kinds of medicine,” Cohn said.
Thanks to the efforts of her aunt, Urgent Care doctor Anne Nunes, Cohn was given the opportunity to observe and shadow several doctors that specialize in eight different medical fields: dermatology, spinal pain, anesthesiology, neurosurgery, gynecology, radiology, urgent care, and family medicine.
“Any opportunity for a young person to become more knowledgeable about the medical community is great,” Dr. Thomas Kallay, assistant professor at Harbor-UCLA, said.
“Being exposed to different fields can help people find what they really want to do in medicine.”
Cohn began her week by shadowing residents as they did their rounds and checked on and interacted with their patients. The first field she studied was dermatology, under Dr. John Young.
“I got to see them take out a lipoma, which is essentially a bubble of fat under the skin, but in the end I decided it was not for me,” Cohn said.
Next, Cohn went to a spinal pain clinic, where she shadowed Dr. Paul Chen, a pain specialist. During her time with Chen, she observed multiple steroid injections, a procedure in which steroids are injected into a patient’s spine in order to ease their pain. While at the spinal clinic, Cohn discovered that her favorite field thus far was anesthesiology.
“Just chatting with the anesthesiologist at the spinal pain clinic was so interesting; I think I’m definitely going to look into it,” Cohn said.
In addition to anesthesiology, Cohn is also considering pediatrics as a possibility in terms of future careers, due to her interest in science and the fact that she enjoys working with children.
“I really love working with kids, but I don’t think I want to be a teacher,” Cohn said. “I’ve always liked science, though, so I think pediatrics would be a good blend for me.”
Cohn finished the week by shadowing more doctors; watching a neurosurgeon operate on the C3 and C4 vertebrae found in the neck; observing the methodology of X-Rays with a radiologist, and following an Ob/Gyn, an urgent care doctor and a family practitioner as they saw patients.
“Since freshman year I’ve known I want to get into college where your bachelor’s and medical degrees are combined, but I wanted to see what the medical field is actually like before I apply,” Cohn said. “Getting to see all the different specialties and all the ways I can take medicine did exactly that.”
Her existing passion for the medical field and the experiences she was exposed to during the week she spent shadowing a diverse group of medical professionals have contributed to Cohn’s conviction that the medical field is for her.
“Shadowing the doctors was exciting,” Cohn said. “Seeing what it’s like to interact with patients really secured the thought that I’ll be applying to that program.”
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