We were working on our research and it was time to do our interview. I knew I needed to find someone who knew a lot about red blood cells. At first, I thought I should find a hematologist and asked my mom if she knew any. She had a colleague at work, MD Richard Francis. He works for Columbia University, but he isn’t a hematologist. Richard is a Clinical Pathologist who works in blood donations and research. Richard gave me answers that might be useful for me and might help me find answers to some of the sub-questions. I started out with trying to find a person to interview and when my mom knew someone I could interview, the first step was over. I had to make my questions, which frankly didn’t take too long. These were my questions:
- Why did you want to become a clinical pathologist?
- Was drawn to it
- How long have you been a clinical pathologist?
- 10 years
- What are the requirements for becoming a clinical pathologist?
- Just having the right degrees
- What do you focus on in your department?
- Blood transplants
- How do you professionally develop in order to keep with all of the new information about red blood cells?
- Every year there are conferences where people share new information with other doctors of their department
- What is the best thing about being a clinical pathologist?
- Doing research and learning new things, basically everything.
- What do you enjoy the least about being a clinical pathologist?
- When people don’t understand when you can’t do a certain thing but they still ask for it.
- How has the technology for clinical pathology changed since you first became a clinical pathologist?
- The technology for genetics and DNA has become more advanced.
- How do you find out that a person has a type of red blood cell disorder?
- A person finds out that they have a symptom and then
- Do all red blood cell disorders have the same symptoms?
- Some are similar and some are not.
- How many red blood cell disorders don’t have treatment?
- Only when the amount of red blood cells is little or too much in the blood. You then would have a blood transfusion.
- Are the red blood cells treatments similar to one another?
- Depends on the disorder
- What future technology inventions could be a breakthrough for clinical pathology?
- More difficult and advanced technology for genetics and DNA.
My mom and I reached out to Richard and we asked him if we could interview him (which he was more than happy to). I then came up with a list of questions and was ready for the interview. I put on the audio recorder and I began the interview. I finished the interview and went over everything. I realized that I didn’t even know that clinical pathology used devices related to DNA and genetics. The hardest part of the interview was coming up with the questions.