Who am I?

1/22/16

Welcome to my blog!

My name is Sparshee Naik and I am a senior at BASIS Scottsdale. For the last few months of my senior year, I will be doing a Senior Research Project called MRI: My Radiology Insight, where I will be spending my time at Mayo Clinic in the Radiology Department. I hope to keep you all updated on my experiences as I answer the research question in my proposal!

My Senior Research Project will be with Dr. Anshuman Panda, a radiologist at Mayo Clinic. I was offered an internship with him through another doctor, Dr. Amy Hara, who came to give a speech about professionalism at our school. When I asked her if she had any internship opportunities, she referred me to Dr. Panda and his research on the effectiveness of partial MRI’s vs. complete MRI’s. I am very excited to be working with Dr. Panda and as someone who comes from a family of doctors, I too want to be a physician in the future.

I became interested in medicine when I witnessed my grandfather perform a surgery at the young age of 10. I was amazed as he took a worm out of a woman’s eye, and it led me to the realization that thousands of processes are happening any given moment in our body to keep it functioning. My interest in medicine led to my attendance at a library program where students were shown the objectives of physicians; we used stethoscopes, saw ultrasounds, and even got to keep a copy of an X-ray of our hand.  I still have the X-ray to this day but seven years later, the X-ray makes as little sense now as it did then. My fascination with how to decipher information from that black and white picture still continues. I've always wanted to go into the medical field, and interning at Mayo Clinic will allow me to better understand the different fields. I am particularly interested in radiology because, whether it's in tv shows or real life, their diagnosis allows other doctors to assess a treatment; they carry a heavy authority. With Dr. Panda, I can further explore the daily life and responsibilities of a radiologist.

I will be meeting with Dr. Panda next week to discuss how often I can come in and when and also so I can get an overview of what my role will be as an intern. For ten weeks, starting February 4th, I will intern for at least fifteen hours a week at Mayo Clinic. It’s an experience I’m greatly looking forward to and I hope you stick with me as I start my internship!