UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology APRIL 2023 - Flipbook - Page 38
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
You started in the arts, why did you pivot to
Radiation Oncology?
Our Editor recently caught up
with PGY-5 Dr. Matthew Farrell
to discuss his background,
experience as a UCLA Radiation
Oncology Resident, and
forthcoming work.
Talk to me about your childhood and
upbringing. Do any other family members
work in medicine? Do you have siblings?
M: I grew up in Sacramento. My parents are
now retired but were both psychiatric social
workers in the Emergency Department at UC
Davis. It was a tough job—long shifts performing
urgent psychiatric evaluations and delivering
difficult news to patients and their families. But
my parents still returned home refreshed and
in good humor. When my sister and I were kids,
my father used to tell us that the E.R., his place
of work, stood for Emergency Restroom rather
than Emergency Room, and it was his vital role
to point people in the right direction when they
really had to pee. “That way,” he would call out
heroically.
My older sister is an emergency and critical care
veterinarian at UC Davis. Her first patient as an
official vet was a turtle that had its head stuck
in its shell. She has done chest compressions
on a tiger while surrounded by staff aiming
tranquilizer guns at the animal in case it woke up
angry.
My wife, Jessica, is a brilliant internal-medicine
physician who works in primary care. She and
my family helped inspire me to go into medicine.
M: Toward the end of my creative writing MFA
program at the University of Oregon, I was trying
to decide what to do with the rest of my life. I
had narrowed it down to three possible career
paths: creative writing professor, screenwriter,
and doctor. I had no idea whether I had the luck
or ability to succeed in any of these careers,
but all of them seemed exciting and rewarding.
Then, as I was re-reading and revising the
short stories I had written over the last two
years, I had an epiphany. Most of my stories
centered on characters navigating loss and
illness, specifically cancer. I realized that the
stories of people with cancer were compelling
and meaningful to me. So I decided to explore
medicine, starting by shadowing physicians
and joining a pre-medical post-baccalaureate
program. In addition, my wife was applying to
medical schools at the time, and I can think of
no worthier footsteps to follow in than hers.
I understand you’ve spearheaded a narrative
workshop for medical students. Do the arts
play a role in medicine? Does creative writing?
How does medicine/Radiation Oncology
benefit from institutions/departments finding/
exploring this intersection?
M: Dr. Puja Venkat and I will be leading a
narrative medicine elective course for 4thyear medical students at UCLA. It will involve
reading, writing, and sharing stories related to
medicine. The structure is modeled after creative
writing workshops, in which writers meet as a
group to share and critique their own work. Over
the course of the 3-week elective, students will
write and revise a work of narrative medicine
and submit it to an academic journal with the
goal of publication. Our hope is that the elective
will provide students with an opportunity to
gain confidence in their voices, process their
experiences in medicine, grapple with diverse
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