Meet the Doctors Luanda Grazette, M.D. Specialty: Cardiology Home: Cambridge, Massachusetts Favorite medical movie: Andromeda Strain What was your primary motivation for becoming a doctor? I wanted originally to do research. I've always been interested in science and research. But I'm also a people-oriented person. I wanted to work with people. What was your greatest moment as a doctor so far? Wow. That's a hard one. It's hard to describe that without sounding self-aggrandizing....But, a while ago, when I was a clinical fellow, there was a patient, and I suspected a certain diagnosis and suggested it to the senior person in charge, the attending physician, and my diagnosis was pretty much dismissed without consideration. He didn't want to do what I was suggesting. As he was walking out, about to tell the family that the patient had died, we decided to give my approach a try and the patient lived to walk out of the hospital. What has been the most unexpected aspect of being a doctor? I think I'd have to say the time commitment. Do you have a hero? Well I don't know about a hero per se, but I really admire Dr. Judah Folkman. He had an idea that went totally against the grain of current approaches to cancer therapy. One would imagine that there must have been times when there wasn't a lot of support for such a radical idea. I remember when he lectured to us in med school, and at that point there wasn't even a thought, really, that clinical trials might occur in the near future. He's kept working on this idea for decades. He didn't give up. [For more on Dr. Folkman, see "Cancer Warrior".] Did medical school prepare you well for the profession? Yes, it did. As well as you can be prepared for something that's always changing, and given that you get your general education and then everyone goes off into different specific fields. What is the hardest part of your job? Not being able to always meet the patients' or families' expectations. Patients have expectations and hopes and ideas about what should happen, and what can happen and sometimes it's hard to meet those expectations. Especially where heart transplants are concerned. Sometimes there's a shortfall. You can give a patient some relief, but sometimes you can't do that much more. And that's hard. That's always hard. Knowing what you know now, would you choose again to become a doctor? Yes. I think I would probably do some things differently along the way, maybe. But I would still be a doctor. Next: Elliott Bennett-Guerrero, M.D. One Night in an E.R. | Meet the Doctors | The Hippocratic Oath Today M.D. Specialties | The Producer's Story | Medicine Through Time Resources | Transcripts | Site Map | Survivor M.D. Home Editor's Picks | Previous Sites | Join Us/E-mail | TV/Web Schedule About NOVA | Teachers | Site Map | Shop | Jobs | Search | To print PBS Online | NOVA Online | WGBH © | Updated March 2001