From `Runner to resident

CSUB alumna Archna Patel is resident physician at Mayo Clinic in Arizona

By California State University, Bakersfield

November 15^th, 2022

Archna Patel wasn’t sure when she first came to California State University, Bakersfield in 2011 whether it would help her achieve her career goals.

Patel, who wanted to get into the medical field, was concerned that coming from a smaller school would make her less competitive when it came to being accepted to a top medical school and that it would ultimately be a detriment.

That didn’t turn out to be the case. She received her bachelor’s in chemistry with a concentration in biochemistry in 2015 and went on to earn a master’s degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2020 as well as her doctorate from the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine in Minnesota last year.

Now, Dr. Patel is working as a resident physician at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona.

“I credit CSUB for helping me learn the things I needed to learn to be a competitive applicant and compete with students from bigger schools,” she said. “I had such personalized instruction there. The experiences I had at CSUB will always live with me and impact what I do.”

Dr. Patel is currently in the second year of her internal medicine residency, which she expects to last at least one more year. She is responsible for six to 10 patients a day from a variety of practice areas, including oncology and cardiology.

“You really get a wide range of exposure,” she said. “Some things you don’t end up liking, but even if I might not want to be a cardiologist, it’s important for me to know all of these areas of medicine.”

Resident physicians are often the first people patients see when they are admitted to the clinic. They are responsible for documenting their medical history, coming up with a treatment plan and serving as a go-between for the patient and their attending doctor.

“It’s also about learning from the attending physician. You can tell them what you think is going on and then they will refine it,” she said. “Learning from them is a big part of being a resident.”

The residency is a big commitment for Dr. Patel. It is typical for a resident to have six-day work weeks of 12 to 14 hours a day, and sometimes it can be even longer.

“You’re pretty much living at the hospital. I spend more time at the hospital than I am in my own home,” she said. “The people there become your second family, naturally.”

Another significant challenge is the emotional toll the job can take. Dr. Patel frequently sees a lot of sick patients, young and old, and often must break bad news to them and their families.

“I still get butterflies each time,” she said. “You want to try to empathize with each person and their family and be mindful of what they need from you, whether that’s just a shoulder to cry on, answers to their questions or even a prayer.”

In particular, treating patients with COVID-19 has been tough for Dr. Patel, especially since family members are unable to physically be near patients.

“I have literally served as a liaison between a patient and their family,” she said. “I have been gowned up holding a patient’s hand, telling their family on FaceTime that they’re not going to make it. Here I am witnessing this family telling this person how much they love them, how strong they are. It’s hard when we can’t do anything more than that.”

On the other hand, there have been times when Dr. Patel is able to provide good news to patients, such as that they are eligible to receive a much-needed organ transplant.

“I have seen multiple patients cry tears of joy. It really motivates me a lot,” she said. “Many patients are grateful to just be listened to. It is really rewarding to see when people express that gratefulness. It shows there’s so much more to this profession than just administering medication.”

Despite some of the challenges presented by the residency, Dr. Patel said it has been a very valuable experience so far.

“I love it. It’s been great,” she said. “It’s a very rewarding role, and it’s a very special place.”

Dr. Sarah Umar, program director for the residency, said Dr. Patel has been excelling in the residency.

“We’ve been lucky to have Archna here as one of our residents,” she said. “Her enthusiasm, down-to-earth attitude and skills as a leader have already led to great success in her young career. She is always found with a smile on her face and works tirelessly to improve the lives of her patients. We are looking forward to watching her continued growth and progression.”

'A human right'

Dr. Patel, a Bakersfield native, has been interested in a career in medicine since she was a teenager. While she doesn’t have any members of her family who work in the health care field, she served as a caregiver for several members of her family, including her father and grandmother, and found that it was something she did well.

“Being a first-generation student, I want to do things that make my parents proud. It’s a sound career choice, something I could take pride in,” she said. “But beyond that, I wanted to be able to help people. I wanted to be able to possess a skill that could be used no matter where I was.”

Dr. Patel’s experience working part-time as a research assistant at Kern Medical between 2013 and 2016 helped to further cement her desire to become a physician. During that time, she said she saw a lot of health disparities among patients, people who had the same disease or condition but whose treatment and outlook differed due to socioeconomic factors.

“We would get a lot of migrant workers who couldn’t get insurance because they were undocumented,” Dr. Patel said. “You would see them come in at the last minute with something like a cut on their finger. But because they had untreated diabetes, now that finger had ulcerated and had to go. It didn’t have to come to that. They either couldn’t afford it or just didn’t want to be exposed and get in trouble.”

Seeing patients have avoidable health outcomes like that was really hard for Dr. Patel and led her to want to make a difference.

“I saw a lot of patients failed by the health care system, and I got really angry,” she said. “I was hoping to get into the system and help make it better.”

Dr. Patel said her experience in Kern County has made her more attuned to socioeconomic challenges than some of her fellow residents in the program. While Scottsdale, Arizona — where the Mayo Clinic is located — may be different from Bakersfield and Kern County, she has still seen similar experiences play out.

“We have very wealthy patients fly here from other countries. They have every option to be able to get treated and go home,” she said. “Then we have other patients who may not have health insurance and can’t continue to be seen by us because their insurance isn’t accepted here.”

Dr. Patel said she has had patients from Native American reservations who don’t have access to electricity, running water or fresh food.

“You’re sitting there telling them they need to get their diabetes under control, but they don’t even know where they’re going to get their next meal,” she said. “It’s very frustrating as a physician. You know what they need to do to become healthier and get better, but I can’t help them get those other elements in place to be able to do that.”

While there are things that doctors have no direct control over, Dr. Patel believes it’s important to provide quality care to patients regardless of their background or economic status.

“Health care, I believe, is a human right. Everyone deserves to be treated appropriately and should have access to health care,” she said.

A guiding hand

Despite her busy work schedule, Dr. Patel finds time to be an active alumna at CSUB. Over the years, she has helped students by giving them advice and sharing her own experiences.

Dr. Patel has spoken to students through the Kern Students for Medicine club on campus and has also participated in the `Runner Alumni Mentor Program.

“This journey is not easy. Sometimes you don’t know what you have to do to get there and there’s a lot of steps,” she said. “I think students deserve to know what to expect and to develop a backup plan. It really does help when you have a guide.”

Dr. Patel knows how it feels. She wasn’t certain at first what she wanted to major in when she first came to CSUB. While she already had a medical career in mind, she wasn’t confident in her ability to do it and considered other options.

Dr. Patel started off as a nursing major but ultimately grew to love chemistry and majored in that instead. She went on to earn the Top General Chemistry Student award from the CSUB chapter of the American Chemical Society in 2013 and 2014.

“A lot of people really rooted for me there, pushing me to be a doctor when I wasn’t sure of myself,” she said. “I credit CSUB with me getting to this point in my life. CSUB was very good to me.”

Dr. Patel was also involved in the Helen Louise Hawk Honors Program and was part of the first cohort of the Sensational Sophomores Leadership Program in fall 2012.

“Archna excelled as a leader and her passion for excellence was evident in everything she was involved in, both inside and outside the classroom,” said Dean of Students Emily Callahan. “We are incredibly proud of the accomplishments Archna has achieved and have no doubt she will continue to shine brightly and make a positive difference in this world!”

Dr. Patel enjoys being able to give back to CSUB by guiding students and hopes to continue to mentor as many as she can in the future.

“It feels really good to be able to help,” she said. “Some of best things that I hear from students is when they get accepted to multiple schools. It’s a really proud moment when you have students who can get accepted to big-name schools.”

While Dr. Patel is well on her way to finishing her residency at the Mayo Clinic, her education is not yet finished. She is considering whether she wants to become a chief resident, which would add another year to her program. She is also planning to participate in a fellowship that would take two to three years to complete.