TTUHSC students enjoying their experience in Odessa
Clapp, of Dennison, is one of a class of 21 welcomed to the Permian Basin during a July Odessa Chamber of Commerce reception. The Odessa American also spoke to his peers Elsa Parra from San Antonio, Victoria Phan of Dallas and David Stamps of Phoenix.
“I was kind of a weird kid,” Clapp said. “I had a severe illness when I was 9. I was hospitalized for a month. Just interacting with doctors in the health care system there it just confirmed that was exactly what I wanted to do.”
Clapp said he had a severe case of pneumonia that progressed into empyema. The Healthline website said empyema is a condition where “pus gathers in the area between the lungs and the inner surface of the chest wall.” He was in the hospital for a month and turned 10 there.
Although it’s still a possibility, Clapp said he’s not convinced yet that he’s going to be a cardio-thoracic surgeon.
He is on a Navy health professions scholarship where the Navy pays for medical school. Cody: on a navy health professions scholarship. Clapp said he currently is in the Navy Reserves. After graduation, he’ll go on active duty as a military officer.
Mike Callaway, regional assistant dean in Undergraduate medical education, said the four students are part of a 21-member class. They had heard coming to Odessa would provide them with more personal attention from residents and attending physicians and more opportunities for hands-on experience.
“It’s been a good learning experience here,” Phan said. She added that the students started in early July.
Parra said she got into medicine because she realized it was a field where one can constantly learn and the brain is always stimulated by new information.
“But mostly, you have a very unique relationship with humanity,” Parra said. “You get to build a lot of one-on-one relationships and serve other people. That’s ultimately what drew me to the profession is the combination of serving and helping others and also being able to use my brain a lot.”
Phan said she always wanted a career that she would enjoy for the rest of her life. She agreed with Parra that every day offers something new.
“It’s not the same thing over and over, so you can’t really get bored,” she said. “I love interacting with people. I like helping people, which is so cliché, but medicine was all that combined for me.”
Stamps originally wanted to go into business.
“Then I started to see how my friends were working super-hard, not really happy with the work they were doing and not really feeling like they were getting a lot out of it. So I kind switched gears because both my parents are actually physicians. I decided I was going to go down that path,” Stamps said.
His parents also met at Texas Tech in Lubbock and Stamps said he liked the fact that he was going to follow in their footsteps. Stamps added that he was drawn to Odessa because of the smaller group size and he had done well in college when his classes were smaller.
He added that not having to compete against as many other students and residents for procedures and experience and word-of-mouth that the Odessa campus offered “really good clinical experience” were plusses.
“At the end of the day, I just think it’s amazing the variety in terms of the different specialties and just the work you do you can work in a hospital,” Stamps added. “… There’s always something new you can be doing. It’s pretty unique to this field. At the end of the day, we’re all working hard. There’s some satisfaction from helping others and curing disease, if that ever happens sometimes.”
As for adjusting to Odessa, the students said that hasn’t been a problem. They all live in the same apartment complex, as well.
Being from Phoenix, Stamps said traveling is always a big event because it takes a long time to get anywhere.
“Here it’s different. You get to see real country; people who are actually creating value when they’re doing their work grabbing oil or doing farming and stuff. It was kind of cool to see that and get to meet those patients who are out there working tough jobs and don’t have access to health care easily. It’s been nice to meet those people and get to see what actually affects them” and what their needs are, Stamps said.
“It’s a lot different than in Phoenix where … there are so many different facilities where they can get care,” he added.
The students also get to see a lot of West Texas because they go through clinical rotations around the region.
“Philosophically,” Callaway said, “… we don’t think staring at a windshield is educational, but we’ve never been shy about asking them to drive to Big Spring to the psychiatric hospital, for instance, or Midland or ORMC. It’s wherever we think they’ll get the best experience.”
Ruth Campbell covers education for the Odessa American. Reach her at 432-333-7765 or 432-333-7765 or rcampbell@oaoa.com
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