Laura Chen

Hometown: Naperville, Ill. College and Major: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Ill., Biology Likely to do on a free weekend: "Clean my apartment before I can even think of doing anything else! If I had the time, I'd just love to listen to, or attend, a musical!" Guilty Pleasure: "I love musicals, and I studied in Austria, which is why I really love 'The Sound of Music." Best Advice from Parents: "Finish my food; don't waste things.  I take this to mean all opportunities. Take advantage of whatever life gives you, use it to the fullest to be the most helpful."

Meet Laura Chen,
Mayo Medical School Class of 2010

Laura Chen entered medical school because she wanted to help people - and Mayo Medical School took her at her word. By day three, Laura was accompanying her mentoring physician and was observing consults with allergy patients.

"It was so awesome, I could hardly believe it," says the Naperville, Ill., native who majored in biology at the University of Illinois, in Urbana-Champaign. "I really got to see how the Mayo model of care works to make the experience the best for the patient."

Two things impress Laura most about Mayo medicine in action. The first is how friendly all Mayo staff are to patients - from the nurses to the receptionists to the physicians. Everyone. "It's like there was only one patient in the whole clinic: the person they're helping," Laura says.

Second, she is impressed that advanced technology is smoothly integrated into a Mayo Clinic consult. The system she used is a Mayo-developed electronic record-keeping system that integrates all patient test results, histories and treatment records into a single confidential database that is easily accessible by authorized Mayo Clinic physicians.

Most surprising, the technology supports the human touch, rather than detracts from it, Laura says. "You can immediately see how that's so much better for the patient because it coordinates all their records so the physician can really interact with the patient, and at the same time, get a comprehensive understanding of a person's health history at a glance. They don't spend their time with patients shuffling through piles of paper records or folders. Nothing is lost in the mail, or forgotten. I thought, 'Why doesn't every place use this system?'"

Why Medical School? Laura's Turning Point
Laura didn't realize she wanted to be a doctor until halfway through college. Though she enjoyed the life-science overview her biology major provided, a volunteer experience in the pediatric department of a public hospital led her to medicine. Says Laura: "That was really the first time I'd spent time around sick kids, and it really affected me."

So profound was the experience that what began as a short-term effort to help out and seek new experiences, became a 2 ½-year-long volunteer labor of love. "Once you're around these kids, and you see Halloween from the perspective of a 10-year-old who can't go out and trick or treat, it really changes you. Not only did I want to develop my technical skills, but it helped me realize I loved the humanistic side of medicine," Laura says.

Life at MMS
Despite the rigorous course work at MMS - four hours of lectures each morning, followed by afternoons of clinical immersion shadowing her mentor, or small group study, and long evenings of study - the schedule is fun. "I know it sounds crazy, but we are all so close, we really enjoy this experience," Laura says. "The closeness, the feeling that we are in it together and that it is really worth it, is really energizing. We go to class together, we study together, we play and hang out together - we've even made time to play kickball twice a week."

Laura's Advice
As an Illinois native, Laura considers herself fairly winter-wise, yet is wary of Minnesota winter. She picked an apartment a 10-minute walk from school to make sure getting to class and clinic would never be a problem. From all accounts she's heard, the winter isn't as hard to cope with as many people expect it to be, largely because Mayo and Rochester both have astounding winter-management tools to blunt its impact. Even so, some of her MMS peers are worried—so she's offered some winter outreach counseling:  "I've had to coach a few people who aren't used to snow about wearing hats, and explaining that mittens are warmer than gloves."