Medical Student Selected for One Year at Harvard

Even with the family connected to other areas of knowledge, Edward Magaldi, 23 years old, has been standing out in his academic career, in the Medicine course. Former vice president of the Bahia League of Plastic Surgery, she has already completed internships in Paris, United States and has just been selected for a one-year program at Harvard that offers only 20 places per year for medical students and graduated physicians throughout the world. She was the only student selected from Brazil and will go to the American institution in February, where she will dedicate herself to the study of idiopathic cystic fibrosis. Learn a little more about this story.

 

- Tell us a little about this program for which you were selected.
I was selected for the Principles and Practice in Clinical Research (PPCR) program, which involves various activities such as workshops and distance courses. I saw a poster in Bahiana, at the beginning of the year 2013, and I got interested. It is a program offered by Harvard University for medical students and physicians who are interested in furthering their research. The program for which I was selected is the one of Research Fellow – a very important stage of education for Americans, as it counts for selection in residency programs, but which has no correspondence in Brazil. During this period, the student does not work in the clinical area, he dedicates himself to research.


- Is the research area the path you want to follow?
I always liked research. My monograph was a wonderful experience. When I found out about this program, I soon became interested, because it would be an experience that I would dedicate myself to for a whole year.


- How was the process to join the program?
This program offers only 15 to 20 places worldwide. Initially, the candidate must register on the website, send two letters of recommendation from teachers who accompanied him at some point in his education, curriculum, academic record, proof of enrollment and a letter justifying the interest in participating in the program. This documentation is analyzed and, from there, some people are selected for an interview via Skype with others fellows who are already there, participating in the program. Both fellows who interviewed me liked my profile and I was then referred to a second interview with Dr. Felipe Fregni, program coordinator and professor of neurology at the Harvard Medical School, also via Skype. At the end of this interview I was informed that I had been selected. The last interview was with Dr. Ivan Rosas, director of the lung disease research laboratory at Harvard University's Brigham and Woman's Hospital, who invited me to do the Research Fellow in your laboratory.


- These interviews were in English. Did you take any specific course for the health area?
No. I took an ordinary English course and during high school. But I had international experiences which, I think, were decisive factors for my selection. In my 3rd year of medicine, for example, I spent three months in Paris, where I was an intern at the Hospital Pitié-Salpêtrière. In the 4th year, I had another experience, for a month, at MD Anderson Hospital, in Houston, Texas (USA). I believe that this retrospective benefited me a lot.


- How did you get access to these internships? Have you signed up for any program?
No. I was going to Paris to study French, but I had the good fortune to meet, through my parents, Professor Jean-Jacques Rouby, head of the intensive care unit at the Hospital Pitié-Salpêtrière, who was visiting Salvador. In Paris, I went to the hospital in the morning as an intern and took a French course in the afternoon. It was wonderful. At the time I went to Houston, I was vice president of the Bahia League of Plastic Surgery and we had a plastic surgeon there. I told him my experience in Paris and he told me that I could spend a month in Houston like observer. I immediately accepted the invitation.


- What are your expectations regarding this experience at Harvard?
I know I have a lot of responsibilities. I'm going to spend most of my time in the lab working on both basic and clinical research, studying idiopathic cystic fibrosis. I will also take the main course of the PPCR program, for eight months, which works from the basic to the most complex level of developing quality clinical research.


- Is it the area you've been studying?
No. All my experiences were very varied. In Paris, the field I studied was intensive care medicine, in Houston it was plastic surgery and now it will be pulmonology. All are areas I like. In fact, there are few areas of medicine that I don't like. I think the medical student's education should be very broad. Personally, I decided since the 1st semester that I would only determine a specific area of ​​activity in the 12th semester of the course.


- Do you believe that your training by Bahiana does it contribute to your profile as a doctor?
Bahiana has been very supportive of my training as a whole. We always have the support of the academic-pedagogical supervision staff, Narciso Paiva is always close to the students. Two other professors also stood out a lot for me, including supporting me throughout this process, Dr. Manoel Juncal, urologist and Dr. Dilton Mendonça, pediatrician. I am sure that my learning so far at this institution was decisive for my selection by Harvard.