Meeting Dr. Cathy Bryant

So today is the second time I have had face-to-face contact with Dr. Cathy Bryant. The first time we met, I was ringing up her purchases at my school's bookstore. We happened to talk about the pre-med program at DePauw University (my school) and medicine in general and out of the blue, this opportunity arose.  Had I not been working as a cashier that day, I probably would have spent ~$4000 to do shadowing in Jamaica. Given, the weather is a lot warmer than in Indiana and I was excited about being able to wear shorts in the winter, but if given the choice between paying and not paying for a cool medical experience, I think I'll save my money for when I actually get into medical school.

Speaking with her I learned more about her path to becoming a certified Family Medicine doctor who was kind enough to give me this (free) opportunity. Dr. Cathy Bryant is an alumnus from my school. She graduated from with a degree in Biology and a minor in French in 1986. She graduated from Indiana University School of Medicine in 1990 and completed her family medicine residence in Minnesota. She currently does her practice at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana and is the mother of two young children. She is also involved with the family medicine residency program at St. Vincent. Even though she has graduated from DePauw, she still keeps ties with our university by being on the Alumni Board. In fact, it was during Old Gold weekend that we met.

One interesting fact about Dr. Bryant is that she also picked up Spanish and uses it more in her practice. In fact, it was during an on campus Winter Term that she had her first Spanish class. She then continued her study of the language by taking a year of Spanish during her senior year. However, she told me that she felt comfortable using her Spanish with her patients only after taking a Spanish course in Mexico during her residency. For her it was important to fully immerse herself in the culture in order to better understand the language. So for you people out there (such as myself) who want to pick up another language but didn't have time to in college, there is still hope and more importantly: TIME!!!

 I had MANY questions for Dr. Byrant and they'll be spread throughout this blog. Each post that has her name on it will have some of the questions I asked. The links lead to Youtube videos.

Question #1: What was the inspiration for coming up with this program?

Question #2: What have been the benefits and/or disadvantages of being a bilingual physician?

Question #3:How are you able to balance being a doctor and a mother? part1/part2