Health and Society
SANKET DHURVA
It is my honor to recommend my outstanding mentor, Rita Redberg, for the Pathway to Discovery in Health & Society Project Mentor Award. She has been a superb mentor this year on our project examining the characteristics of clinical trials used by the FDA in its approval of cardiovascular devices. Specifically, I appreciate her enthusiasm, encouragement, teaching, involving me in technical aspects of the project, and career mentorship.
Dr. Redberg is always enthusiastic about meeting and makes time nearly every week to ensure that our project is moving along. She always responds to my emails in between meetings and follows up on the myriad of questions that we pose to FDA officials, academicians at other institutions, and other people who work on medical devices and clinical trial quality. Dr. Redberg also has been encouraging when we have ideas, not just about this project, but also for future take-offs; she uses her knowledge and experience to find the best way to address future research questions. She is very passionate about the necessity of rigorous clinical trials that are applicable to our patient populations in the U.S., which can then guide us in optimally using our limited health care resources to improve meaningful patient outcomes. This is particularly relevant at the present time with the plans for health care reform under President Obama, including comparative effectiveness research. Her interest has truly been inspirational to me and has become a passion of mine; I hope that my future career will involve clinical research similar to our current work because I am motivated by the importance of having solid clinical evidence for our interventions.
This research has also been a wonderful learning opportunity for me. I have been unfamiliar with some of the cardiovascular technologies that we have examined and Dr. Redberg has been wonderful about teaching me so that I can better understand how they are used. For example, she explained different aspects of electrophysiology devices and the important outcomes to monitor in ablation of atrial arrhythmias. She has also helped me to understand why certain interventions do not work as well in women as in men. This broader understanding has made the data gathering process more enjoyable and informative, as I hope to be a cardiologist in the future and have a curiosity about the devices that are currently used.
I also appreciated that Dr. Redberg kept me involved in the more technical aspects of our projects, which both have kept me involved as an integral member of our research team while also teaching me about the logistics of research. For example, she asked me to contact a statistician and a BREAD consult over the past couple of weeks to help with data analysis. She has always been available to answer my questions when I was confused and asked me only to do things that I feel comfortable with. Being involved in the minutiae of producing and publishing original research, always with Dr. Redberg’s help quickly available, has helped me to more thoroughly understand what research entails and will be an invaluable experience for my future work.
In addition, during the 2008-9 school year, I applied for an internal medicine residency and Dr. Redberg provided invaluable guidance. Not only did she write a letter of recommendation and advocate for me, she also put me in touch with her colleagues at different institutions in order for me to get their viewpoints. Most importantly, she helped me to ask the right questions in finding the best place to train: from thinking about proximity to loved ones to the best research opportunities and diversity of experiences. While there were no easy answers, it was good to have such a dedicated mentor who helped me to find the best match.
In summary, I am nominating Dr. Redberg for the Pathway Mentor Award because she has been extraordinarily committed to my Pathway project, specifically, and to my education, more generally. She has added significantly to my fund of knowledge and made me more passionate about having rigorous clinical trials and using our health care resources more effectively. She has always been friendly, warm, and inspirational to my interest in involvement at the macro level in medicine through health policy. If there are any further questions about my nomination for Dr. Redberg, please feel free to contact me.