Session 12 with Dr. Chad Zhao
I am a current Anesthesia resident at UT Houston Health Science about to complete my final year of training. I was born in Tianjin, China but spent most of my life in Houston, Texas. I attended Rice University for my undergraduate studies where I obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Cell Biology. I earned my M.D. at UT Houston Health Science Center. After finishing this year of my Anesthesia residency, I will be going to University of California San Francisco to complete an additional 1-year fellowship in Cardiothoracic Anesthesia which will provide me additional expertise to take care of patient undergoing complex intra-thoracic surgeries such as open-heart surgeries, aortic surgeries and heart and lung transplants. In my spare time, I like to play tennis, go bouldering, and play video games.
Educational Background /Journey to Medicine
Born in China => moved to Houston
High school
Maintained GPA (3.8) and had good standardize test scores (APs and SAT)
Took 17 APs
Didn’t research
Part of Debate Team, Robotics Team, Chemistry Olympiad, Economics Competition
Volunteered (1000 hrs)
Volunteered at Houston’s cancer care for teens in the summer => transitioned to working 3hrs throughout high school
Helped out with IT issues and talked to patients
Camp counselor for disabled students for one month every summer
Recommendations for high schoolers
Do general science research
Take challenging courses and keep GPA above 3
Take statistics b/c helps you understand research paper
Look for nearby hospitals to volunteer at
Book Recs
Open Heart - Stephen Westaby
About the difficulties of Open Heart Surgery and residency
This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay
About being an OBGYN resident and the struggles
Went to Rice and majored in Cellular Biology
Maintained GPA (3.66) and did well on the MCAT (7.5 hours)
For medical school GPA should be at least 3.4
Researched and presented a poster
Didn’t prefer researching, but recommends research in college because dictates how medicine is practiced
Continued to volunteered throughout college
Shows medical school that you can be involved
Passionate about volunteering
Loved playing video games and tennis; found bouldering hobby
Handled stress by doing things that made him happy (e.g. hanging out with friends and playing pool)
Experience at Rice
Challenging, but nurturing
Built a strong group of friends, studied together
Had a great support system
Not too many difficult courses
Recommends joining Pre-med society and gain leadership experience and be involved with community in college
Not too difficult to get research at Rice
Many institutions are desperate for undergrad student researchers
Recommends cold emailing professors
Labs don’t usually expect prior experience and train students and grad students conducting research
Feels that Rice prepared him for Medical School
Had to adapt to difficulty of Rice
Built strong study habits
Allowed students volunteering opportunities
Medical School
What Admissions look for research
Publications and poster presentations
Had summer research experience and 2 poster presentations
Volunteering
trained volunteers
Hobbies
Talked about hobbies in Interview to relate to interviewer
First two years
Very similar to undergrad, taking courses and exams
Next two years
Learned how to interact with patients and make decisions
When you figure out what you want to do with your life
Switched what type of physician he wanted to be late in the game (6 months before applying for residency)
Originally wanted to become a trauma surgeon, but didn’t because didn’t want to do the long and tiring training
Why Medicine?
Interested in Human physiology
Recommends taking a physiology or kinesiology course
Watched medical shows (e.g. Grey’s Anatomy)
Stable life style
Parents were physicians - comfortable with the field
Recommends that prospective prospectives physicians should become doctors only if they really want to become a physician
Believes that prospective physicians don’t need to have perfect grades
Anesthesiology
Why Anesthesiology?
Originally wanted to become a surgeon, but realized that anesthesia is calmer
What do anesthesiologists do?
Don’t just sit back => help in emergencies
Helps in cases of emergencies (e.g. nerve block)
Work on ventilator => keeps people alive when they are undergoing surgery
Implant IVs (e.g. arterial IVs)
Initially took a long time to learn how to do it
Are Anesthesiologists legally liable for patients’ deaths
Usually patients don’t remember
Just need to prove good intent and ethical practice
Usually the patients who die are in critical condition before surgery => death inevitable
More about learning from mistakes
Read a lot of recent case studies to know what mistakes not to make and what decisions to make
Medication
Less is more generally
Follow some general guidelines
Personalize medication dosage to patients
