Whether it’s Grey’s Anatomy, ER or General Hospital, this CBS undergraduate sees where the media gets medicine right, and sometimes a bit wrong.
Who are you?
Danielle Amundsen; Junior; Biochemistry major, Spanish Studies and Public Health minors
Where is your hometown?
Waunakee, WI
What CBS Circle are you leading this year?
I'm leading a CBS Circle called Community Perspectives: Healthcare in the Arts and Media. We look at the different ways health and healthcare are portrayed in the media and news, TV shows, movies and books to get a better understanding how they might affect the general population's view on health and healthcare.
Why did you want to lead a group about that topic?
I took WRIT 3405W (Humanistic Healthcare and Communication) last spring. One of the major themes I got from the class was the importance of empathy and patient-centered care. Understanding patients' perspectives is an important aspect of this, and media definitely has a big affect on patients' views on health and healthcare.
Why did you want to lead a CBS Circle?
Many of my friends in CBS are interested in various pre-health professions, but we don't often get the chance to talk about the humanistic side of medicine in our biology classes. We learn about tumorigenesis and inheritance patterns of genetic diseases in classes but not necessarily what a patient feels when receiving a diagnosis. By leading a CBS Circle, I had the opportunity to meet other students interested in both the art and science of healthcare.
What’s been the most interesting aspect of you leading a group?
I really enjoyed learning how to better facilitate conversations. It's really interesting to see how everyone picks out and interprets different details of an episode of Scrubs or House. As the discussion continues, we come up with a lot more ideas together than any of us could alone.
What are your career aspirations? Why do you want to go into that field of work?
I hope to go to medical school after graduation. I love how medicine is an intersection of cutting-edge science and the relationships between patients, doctors, and the entire healthcare team.