{"id":2112,"date":"2014-01-03T16:23:11","date_gmt":"2014-01-03T21:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/fyi\/?p=2112"},"modified":"2025-12-09T13:53:49","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T18:53:49","slug":"wabash-preparation-aids-medical-resident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2014\/01\/03\/wabash-preparation-aids-medical-resident\/","title":{"rendered":"Wabash Preparation Aids Medical Resident"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"a<\/a>
Jason Siegel ’08 with wife, Breanna, and son, Jack.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Richard Paige\u00a0\u2013 This most recent winter storm makes me wish I were in Jason Siegel\u2019s shoes.<\/p>\n

Ten days ago he and I were steps away from the Atlantic Ocean sharing the joys of a sunny, 80-degree day in Jacksonville, Fla.\u00a0 The snowfall blanketing campus today is not a reasonable facsimile for a white-sand beach.<\/p>\n

Siegel \u201908 would agree.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you move here, everybody, says, \u2018You are going to miss the seasons.\u2019 I don\u2019t,\u201d he said laughing loudly.\u00a0 \u201cI enjoy the 80-degree weather in December.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason is a resident at Jacksonville\u2019s Mayo Clinic.\u00a0 Four years as a biology major with a chemistry and math minor propelled him to medical school at IU before earning a residency at one of the Southeast\u2019s most reputable medical institutions.<\/p>\n

His focus is neurology \u2013 disorders of the nervous system.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not neurosurgery,\u201d Siegel said.\u00a0 \u201cNeurosurgery is a little sexier, I suppose, but we deal with probably 90-plus percent of the neurological diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Siegel\u2019s dreams of being a doctor date back to childhood.\u00a0 The neurology came a bit later.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always liked the sciences and when you are a little kid and you do well in school, you are either going to be a doctor, lawyer or astronaut,\u201d laughed Siegel.\u00a0 \u201cI love neurology.\u00a0 There was just something that fit.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very methodical discipline.\u00a0 You are testing so many different systems.\u00a0 It\u2019s like a big puzzle.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked Jason, now midway through his residency, what surprised him most about the medical profession, and he didn\u2019t mention long hours of study, patient care or the rigors of residency.\u00a0 He mentioned the grunt work \u2013 transcribing notes, putting in orders, calling nurses.\u00a0 The stuff you never see on television.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spend a lot of time at a computer typing notes, putting in orders, a lot of time on the phone calling nursing homes and nurses,\u201d said Siegel.\u00a0 \u201cThat part, I wasn\u2019t ready for.\u00a0 I never watch medical shows on TV, but I caught an episode of Grey\u2019s Anatomy a while back and you never see the any of the doctors writing progress notes or admission notes.\u00a0 That\u2019s something that isn\u2019t recognized\u2026just how much time we sit at a computer.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to prepping for a career in medicine, Siegel had these thoughts:<\/p>\n

My friends who went to bigger state schools had a little advantage over me in med school at first because you sit in a big lecture hall and you get PowerPoint lectures and you have to memorize them.\u00a0 It\u2019s straight memorization of notes and textbooks. There is not a ton of critical thinking.<\/p>\n

At Wabash it\u2019s the exact opposite, even in the sciences.\u00a0 There is a lot of discussion and interaction.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong, Biology 111 and 112 at Wabash was a lot of memorization, but there is a lot of compare and contrast.\u00a0 You have to think critically.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t a lot of that in the first two years of medical school.<\/p>\n

But in years three and four, and definitely in residency moving forward, you don\u2019t do that.\u00a0 It\u2019s taking a patient, figuring out what\u2019s happened, solving the puzzle and communicating that plan with the patient.\u00a0 You can be very good at memorizing textbooks, but you have to be good at making connections.\u00a0 That is where Wabash helped me the most.\u00a0 Thinking critically is something I do every day.<\/p>\n

In trying to take care of people \u2013 living humanely \u2013 I\u2019ve found there is a bit of resistance to people listening to doctors in general.\u00a0 Part of that resistance is because when you go to a doctor, you are bearing a lot, you are very vulnerable.\u00a0 Sometimes we don\u2019t appreciate that and deal with it very well.\u00a0 Having empathy for what the patient is going through, whether it\u2019s someone helping their mom with a stroke or someone who\u2019s just been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig\u2019s Disease, the undergraduate education I\u2019ve seen at other places doesn\u2019t prepare students as well as what I had at Wabash.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Wabash Q&A:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0What is your favorite Wabash tradition?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My favorite week every year is Monon Bell week.\u00a0 The campus just has a different energy.\u00a0 The freshmen staying up ringing the Bell, guarding the Bell.\u00a0 That\u2019s my favorite tradition, the Monon Bell festivities.<\/p>\n

If you could cook one meal, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m thinking of two things.\u00a0 One is a very tender New York Strip steak \u2013 juicy and pink in the middle \u2013 just perfect.\u00a0 The other thing is a perfect batch of chocolate chip cookies.\u00a0 I love cookies.\u00a0 If I could make my grandma\u2019s cookies \u2013 they were always soft and gooey, chocolate melted just right when they come out of the oven.\u00a0 If I could do that, I\u2019d be pretty happy.<\/p>\n

If you could give your 10-year-old self a piece of advice, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I would tell him to start figuring out who he is as soon as he can.\u00a0 Figure out what you are good at, and what you are not, as early as you can and let that guide you through big decisions in life.<\/p>\n

If you have a personal credo, what is it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a Greek temple for Apollo.\u00a0 There are three things inscribed on it: know thyself, all things in moderation, and in essence, know that you can\u2019t control everything.\u00a0 Those are three things that have guided me since high school and I\u2019m most cognizant of when making decisions.<\/p>\n

If in your dreams you could have\u00a0 created one great piece of art \u2013 painting, song, sculpture, prose, etc. \u2013 by any other person, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh man\u2026My favorite piece of art is a song called \u201cJupiter\u201d by Gustav Holst, a classical composer who played piano and trombone.\u00a0 He wrote a suite called \u201cThe Planets.\u201d If I could have written \u201cJupiter\u201d \u2013 it\u2019s my favorite song ever \u2013 that would be something to put my name on.<\/p>\n

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what are you doing in that picture?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m probably with my wife and son and we\u2019re all laughing.<\/p>\n

If you could wish for one thing in your future, what would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do people usually put that much thought into this? (laughs) I have to make sure this is right.\u00a0 I want to make sure my kids are on the right path\u2026figure out who they are, make good decisions and are happy and successful in life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Paige\u00a0\u2013 This most recent winter storm makes me wish I were in Jason Siegel\u2019s shoes. Ten days ago he and I were steps away from the Atlantic Ocean sharing the joys […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/01\/Siegel_family-picture.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3756,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2112\/revisions\/3756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}