Anne Warrington and Michael Beasley are both 4th year medical students. They met in January of their first year at the UI Carver College of Medicine and were engaged to each other this past spring.
What is your hometown?
Anne:I was born in Casper, Wyoming but moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa when I was 12. I consider myself “from Wyoming” but a true Midwesterner at heart.
Mike: My true home is Papillion, Nebraska. However, since my father was in the Air Force, Las Vegas, NV, Wichita, KS, Salt Lake City, UT and Misawa, Japan have also all been home to me.
How or when did you become interested in science and medicine?
Anne: When I was a little girl, my grandfather always used to tell me to pick a profession where I could go to work every day and “make peoples’ lives better.” This didn’t take on the meaning of medicine for me until I was a teenager. When I was 12, I started going to work with my mother in the summer. She is a speech pathologist who helps to run an early childhood special education class in the summer. I started working that summer as a teaching aid and one-on-one assistant for special needs children. It was then that I became interested in working with children. As I grew older and continued helping my mother, I began to sit-in on family meetings where the child’s pediatrician was often present. I was instantly attracted to the way that this person was able to impact children’s lives. From that point on, my eyes have been focused on medicine as the source of my life’s work.
Mike: I have always been interested in science, at least as far back as I can remember. I think the first time I became interested in medicine was when I was about nine years old in Las Vegas, Nevada. My mom was a NICU nurse and used to take me up to see these little babies that were literally smaller than my hands. At that point I became pretty fascinated with the human body.
How or why did you choose the UI to attend medical school?
Anne: While I wasn’t born in Iowa, I have been a Hawkeye since day one. My grandfather and father are both alums of the College of Dentistry, so I was wearing Hawkeye cheerleading uniforms for Halloween before I could walk. As a resident of the state of Iowa, it seemed silly to go elsewhere when one of the top medical schools in the nation was 20 minutes from my “permanent address.” I attended the U of I as an undergraduate, as well. During those four years in Iowa City, my experiences in research and working in the hospital only strengthened my desire to stay at the University of Iowa for medical school.
Mike: I actually applied to Iowa basically because it was relatively close to Omaha and it had good numbers. I made it my first interview thinking that I could practice interviewing here since I really had no strong desire to get in. However, I knew within an hour of being here that it was the place I would go to school. Something about the people I met and the great new facilities just made it feel right. From that point it was just a matter of waiting and hoping for an acceptance letter.
Is there a teacher, mentor or Carver College of Medicine faculty member who has helped shape your education?
Anne: As a junior undergraduate student, I was given the opportunity to conduct research with Dr. Jeff Murray in the department of Pediatrics. I continued that research throughout my junior and senior years of undergrad, as well as before my first and second years of medical school. Throughout the 5 years that we have known each other, Dr. Murray has served as a mentor, teacher, and friend. He has helped me through some of the toughest decisions I have ever had to make; academic and otherwise. He has also served as an excellent role model in the realm of running an extremely busy research lab, while continuing to round on inpatient pediatric floors and be dedicated to his family. I no longer place limits on my goals based on my aspirations to have a family and do research as a clinician.
Mike: My mentor in undergraduate was one of my professors for many of my biology courses. He was so excited about everything he taught that he made you excited about learning regardless of the material! He was always there helping me along in my education and showed me what it meant to be passionate about your career. Since being here at Iowa, it has been amazing to have so many brilliant faculty members be our teachers from first year on. It is amazing how many of them seem to genuinely want the best for our education, despite their time constraints and own careers!
What kinds of opportunities or advantages does being a medical student at Iowa provide? What about challenges?
Anne: As far as I am concerned, the opportunities available as a medical student at Iowa are limited only by a student’s own imagination. The faculty here truly listens to the students and the evidence of this can be seen throughout MERF (with the addition of the student lounge after student input, for example) as well as in the limitless interest groups available with the constant encouragement to form new groups if willing.
On a more personal level, I met my fiancé during my first year of medical school. We were engaged in May of this year. Our relationship has added another tier onto our medical school education. During the first two years, it was great to have someone who truly understood the stress and challenging nature of medical school but it was difficult at times because, by nature, we are competitive creatures! We came to an agreement early on to not share test scores, which may not have been necessary but I think helped tame my competitive drives a bit. However, the love and support that we have had for each other through the worst of times (boards studying, for example) has given us a closer bond than perhaps we would have had if we weren’t in this together.
Mike: The opportunities are endless. I think there are few other schools if any that can offer the quality of education and sincerity of students, staff, and faculty that Iowa does.
The challenges are mostly just trying to balance your personal life with your work and school. Being in a relationship with another student has its advantages and disadvantages. It is wonderful to have someone that truly understands and realizes what you’re going through at all times. However, it also is tough to find time with each other, especially during the clinical years when you have very different schedules.
Please describe your professional goals and interests.
Anne: Mike and I are both currently applying for pediatric residency programs. We both came into medical school interested in pediatrics and both have stayed true to this interest, though I wavered a bit more in my decision-making than he did. Initially, I thought I would want to be a general pediatrician with work hours flexible enough to allow time for family first. Through experiences with other physicians, however, I have found that I could specialize and have that same freedom, to a degree. I am unsure as to what I will do post-residency, but I am excited to figure it out!
Mike: I plan to go into a subspecialty of pediatrics. Right now, hematology-oncology is at the top of my list, but who know what residency will bring. I will most likely stay in academic medicine and be involved in both clinical practice and laboratory research. I also look forward to the opportunity to teach residents and students once I am staff.
What are some of your outside interests?
Anne: Right now, wedding planning is a big part of my life. Other than that, Mike and I enjoy eating, going to movies, and taking day-trips to Chicago, especially if a Coldplay concert is involved!
Mike: Outside medicine, my life revolves around baseball and college football. As a native Nebraskan, I live and die by the successes (or failures as of late) of the Huskers. I also have a great time at the Hawkeye games. Baseball has always been a part of my life, whether playing, umpiring or coaching. Being from Omaha, I also find few things more enjoyable than the College World Series. I have recently picked up golf, and am at the wonderful stage of being far too terrible at the game to be frustrated by my lack of ability to play it.
Do you have an insight or philosophy that guides you in your work?
Anne: My father is fond of saying, “time flies whether you are having fun or not.” I admit, it’s not a quote by Aristotle or Socrates but it does ring true, especially in a business where you could easily become consumed by work and lose sight of the things that truly matter. I try to have fun and laugh as much as possible, even in the midst of a serious profession such as medicine. One of things that I love about pediatrics is that you are surrounded by little miracles of nature every day who like to keep things simple, love to laugh, and can’t help but have fun. I hope to never lose sight of why I chose pediatrics---but I am fairly certain that my patients would never let that happen.
Mike: Changing medicine and changing lives…alright that’s not true. I wish I could say I have some brilliant philosophy that guides my actions, but basically I just try and do whatever I possibly can to make the patient as comfortable and happy as possible. If you treat every patient as their illness, they will feel like a patient and focus on their illness. If you treat them like a person – answer their questions, respect their choices and independence, address their fears – then they will at least feel like you are respectful of them as a person and not simply a task. When it comes down to it, the better the patient’s day is, the better mine is!
If you could change one thing about the world (or the world of medicine), what would it be?
Anne: I guess I would simply like everyone in the world to be more respectful and a bit more patient with each other. It really is a lot more ambitious than it sounds. If I find a good way to make that happen, I’ll be sure to share that with everyone.
Mike: I would love to see medicine turn away from its current path of becoming a business run by businessmen and return to a science run by physicians. Unfortunately, our technology of medicine has grown much faster than our economy. The sheer costs of medicine have turned it into a business – a business that is quickly approaching bankruptcy. Hospitals are not assembly lines, and should not be run as if they are. With each attempt at “streamlining” our practice, we risk the quality of care to our patients. The money these steps may save in eliminating what a business man believes to be an unnecessary test, is quickly spent in extended hospitals stays that may have been avoided. Coupled with the fact that medications have names that are as well-known as movie stars’, we find ourselves in a drowning art. Unfortunately, the cure for any dying practice is not small changes, but revolutions at its very base – changes that will likely only be made after failure is unavoidable
What one piece of advice you would give to students who are interested in applying to medical school?
Anne: I would tell them that it will be the hardest they have ever worked and at times they will want to quit, but at the end of the road they will be left with four years filled with amazing experiences, an absurd amount of knowledge, and people who will be in their lives forever.
Mike: Know that you want it and why. I know of a number of people who fall into the trap of, “well I get great grades, so should I be a doctor or lawyer…I’ll pick doctor.” While I applaud their choice between the two, I feel like a career in medicine requires way too much of yourself to do it “just because.” I know that even at the worst points thus far in my career, I have always been able to say that I am where I want to be, even it is difficult.
What do you see as "the future" of medicine?
Anne: The Drs. Beasley.
Mike: The future of medicine lies in its roots – patient satisfaction. The finest physicians I know succeed by treating a patient for the patient. Not to change their lab values, not because that one article says that it is the “standard of care,” but because that is what is best for the patient. I can work as hard as I can to get someone’s glucose that 2 points lower so it is within range, but if he or she is miserable, I have to ask myself whether I am truly succeeding.