Bert Vogelstein Interview (page: 2 / 4) Cancer Researcher	Print Interview

Was medical school an obvious extension of your high school interest in science?

Bert Vogelstein: When I graduated high school I thought I wanted to go into medicine. Part of the reason was that Johns Hopkins was here in Baltimore. I grew up here and I knew a lot about Johns Hopkins. I was always reading about it and it seemed like a great place to be and to study.

When I went to college I initially thought I was going to major in pre-med kind of courses, but I took math courses and I found them much more intellectually stimulating than the standard pre-med courses. So, I decided to major in mathematics and, in fact, went to graduate school in mathematics for a year. I finished college early, so I had an extra year to kind of fool around, and I went to graduate school. I took graduate courses in math. And, I began to feel, even though math was incredibly intellectually stimulating, it didn't have the practical edge that I wanted. I wanted to be able to do something for people.
[ Video ] Low High    [ Audio ] Quicktime	[ Key to Success ] Integrity

Maybe that comes from my 13 rabbi forbears. I thought math was great, but I felt like I was playing chess. It was a wonderful game, but I wondered whether I would ever be able to apply what I was doing to helping other people.

I didn't really know much about medical science or biology, but I thought, "If you go to medical school, they'll probably teach you about that stuff." So I applied to medical school. I had taken the requisite courses in college, I got in, and enjoyed medical school.

Soon after that, I recognized that research was what I really liked. I recognized that by doing it. I think it's very difficult and wrong for people to assume that they will like something just because they've heard about it or read about it. You really can't tell until you do it.

The first summer after medical school I did some research in a lab with a gentleman named Howard Densis, and I immediately knew that this was fun. This was exciting, this was something you could really apply your innovative skills and your creativity to. And, that's the way I continued through medical school. Whenever I had a chance in the summers, I would take off quarters or semesters to do research. And that's kind of when I decided to probably concentrate on medical research.
[ Video ] Low High    [ Audio ] Quicktime	[ Key to Success ] Preparation

I still didn't know whether I wanted to be a physician, too. That was a very difficult decision. They're very different careers, and I didn't decide that until later.

What event was a turning point for you?

Bert Vogelstein: There were two turning points that decided for me what I eventually wanted to do. The first one was after I had finished medical school. I was an intern, learning how to take care of patients.

One of my first patients was a little girl who was diagnosed with cancer. Actually, I diagnosed her cancer. Her parents brought her into the clinic because she looked pale and she was bruising, and a few simple tests showed that she had cancer. The little girl was only four at the time, and the look on her parents' face is something that has indelibly etched in my mind. It was terrible in the sense that I couldn't tell them anything about their daughter's disease. I couldn't tell them 'why' or 'what.' I could offer some encouraging words about some therapies that may potentially help, but what they really wanted to know was, "Why?"
[ Video ] Low High    [ Audio ] Quicktime	[ Key to Success ] Courage

The father of this little girl was a mathematician and I related to him quite a bit from my college days. And, he just wanted to know, why "my little girl" got this terrible disease, why her, and why this plague? And, I just shook up my hands. "I don't know, nobody knows." It's just this total black box, this thing that just struck people randomly, when they shouldn't be struck. And, right then and there it became clear to me that, if I wanted to spend my life on a puzzle, on a problem that I could apply my skills towards, that was going to be a good one.
[ Video ] Low High    [ Audio ] Quicktime	[ Key to Success ] Courage

I knew it would be hard, and I knew I'd probably never get there. But, I thought, that's something you could spend your life doing and feel like you're trying to do the right thing, and trying to make a real contribution. And, if you're successful at all, you could obviously feel very good about what you've done.
[ Video ] Low High    [ Audio ] Quicktime	[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

That was one turning point, but I still had to decide whether I should continue to see patients and practice medicine, or devote all of my energies to research. It was not something that I intellectualized about. Those kinds of decisions have to be made through experience. I tried doing both.

I found myself during the days seeing patients and during the nights going to the lab and trying to do a little bit of research. And, I found at night I was really happy. I felt stimulated. I couldn't wait to get to the lab at night so I could start experiments. I found them very intellectually challenging, and I liked playing with the toys. And at that point, I decided that this is what I enjoy doing best. And, this is probably the best way to be able to ensure, if I am going to make a contribution, that I will, by spending all my time doing one thing, research, rather than trying to treat patients and also do research. Those were the two events that most clearly shaped my future.
[ Video ] Low High    [ Audio ] Quicktime	[ Key to Success ] Passion

Bert Vogelstein Interview, Page: 1   2   3   4