Getting Things Started

I've been excited for this for a few months now. Sometimes, you worry that your anticipation and expectations may not be met when you finally arrive. Even though it has only been my first week, I cannot express how my time with my mentor, a radiologist, and the overall experience already surpassed anything in my imagination.

But first, I'll talk about how I got there. Many folks will take the bus down (and in the future that will likely be Cornell's Campus to Campus line -- it has all the snacks and amenities that will make any graduate student enjoy the 4.5 to 6 hour trip to Manhattan). Since I live near the area, I decided to see my family and they drove me in. I will just say we were warmly welcomed by the Father's Day city traffic, especially by the bridge tolls!

With the driving out of the way, I got settled in and enjoyed the view of 1300 York, the main entrance to Weill Cornell Medical College. Every morning, you get to see clinicians and staff of all kinds flood into the doors and it motivates me to get into gear.

The View of the Medical School
 From 510 Olin Hall
The mornings are pretty routine as well. I am content with a yogurt and a cliff bar. It's quick an easy and I can get out the door in five minutes. I have already set up meetings with my clinical mentor, Dr. Martin Prince in Radiology, so I make my way down York Avenue to get to the office and talk about the necessary research directions.

On Tuesday, I got to go  way up Manhattan at Columbia Presbyterian to watch my mentor read some radiology cases. As an aside, Dr. Prince holds dual appointments at Cornell and Columbia. He comes in on Tuesday to work on the huge case load. You really appreciate the pace kept by these clinicians during such a busy time. What's even better was that my mentor demonstrated some of the clinical needs at the radiologist's screen. On my end, I was even able to start forming my own ideas and approaches to the problems and patterns seen in the clinical cases. Such an experience has me motivated to work on my current immersion project and even on related research directions in my career!

The rest of the week consisted of my project setup, getting on IRBs and servers - all administrative things that can fill up a post but not really get anywhere. What I will note is this: my Dr. Prince spent a lot of time getting me familiar with radiology cases and research areas in the field. My experience with him so far has been nothing short of incredible. Each day has been an exciting step closer to realizing my project, and I am currently loving the work. As the days roll on, I hope to share all of the places I have seen. All I can say is that I can't wait to see what's in store.



A view along the walk to
Dr. Prince's office on 55th street


The Breakfast of Champions on the
bed, but it gets the job done, and fast.


Location: 1300 York Ave, New York, NY 10065, USA

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