Shadowing doctors has me ready to be an M.D.

Medical student Mona Roshan conducted research at Baptist Hospital and gained insight into her future career as a radiologist.

Medicine & Health Sciences

By Angela Nicoletti

December 4, 2023 at 12:50pm

Mona Roshan spent a lot of time in her second year of medical school watching experienced board-certified radiologists at Baptist Health work. No, she wasn’t on a clinical rotation. She was conducting research.

The third-year medical student in FIU’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine authored a recently published paper showing how a new radiology reporting style increases accuracy and speed — a win for both patients whose treatment plan hinges on accuracy and radiologists often juggling a large workload.

Now, Roshan is sharing how her experience doing research was an opportunity to inform changes in her future field, while also giving her a true behind the scenes glimpse at the real world of radiology.

How did you get involved with this specific research project?

I’m very interested in pursuing diagnostic radiology and had the chance to meet and connect with Dr. Ricardo Cury at an event hosted by the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. I expressed my interest in radiology and how I hoped to do some type of research in the field.

Later, he reached out and told me about an opportunity to get involved in a study where we were comparing different dictation styles to determine which one was more accurate and could make workflow more efficient for radiologists.

So, what was the experience like?

It was rewarding and confirmed my interest in this field — and that this is what I want to pursue in my career.

I loved learning more about radiology through this experience. It felt like a mini radiology rotation. I went to different sites throughout the Baptist Health system and was able to shadow various types of radiologists in different specialties and recorded them with an eye tracking device. While I was recording them, I was also able to observe their work more closely, how they put together these reports and what that was like.

I was essentially getting a glimpse into a “day in the life of a radiologist.”

I saw how this new dictation process really did speed up the process. Radiologists review numerous images in a day and then put together reports. At hospitals like Baptist, there’s a lot of demand. So, this could really help streamline the process.

Roshan presenting her research at the FMA Meeting (left) and in the field volunteering with the Linda Fenner 3D Mobile Mammography Center (right).

Do you want to continue doing research?

Yes! I’m currently in the planning stages with Dr. Cury and Baptist Health on a cardiac imaging project.

One of the reasons I wanted to go to medical school was to continue doing research. Medicine is a field that’s constantly evolving, and I want to be a part of that. That’s what research is for — lifelong learning and to contribute to discoveries that could advance medicine and the profession.

Whatever residency I match into when I finish medical school, I want to continue doing research, just like my mentor, Dr. Cury. I aspire to be like him in the future. He’s truly my role model.

Why are you passionate about radiology?

Ever since I was a child, I’ve always wanted to become a doctor. My grandfather, who was a doctor, would share stories about his life as a physician and I wanted to be like him.

Medicine is a service to humanity. And a really fulfilling profession. What’s special about radiology is its role as a converging point for all medical fields and its central position in preventive care.

Radiologists are the glue of medicine, at the frontlines of the diagnostic process when patient are admitted to the hospital. Radiologists also serve as physicians’ consultants, engaging in discussions about complex patient cases and offering management recommendations to the various subspecialties, which I find truly fascinating. I don’t know which subspecialty I’ll eventually choose, but right now I am interested in neuro-radiology, breast radiology, and cardiac imaging.

What would you love to do next?

I volunteer on FIU's Linda Fenner 3D Mobile Mammography Center over the weekends or the afternoons I don’t have class because it’s rewarding to be part of a team that provides free mammograms to uninsured women. Every volunteer shift is an opportunity to practice compassionate medical care.

Speaking to patients and sharing knowledge helps alleviate the fear that patients may experience. I’ll never forget the time when there was a patient who was so nervous about her mammogram. I engaged in a conversation to provide comfort while educating her on the mammography process. My goal was to normalize the situation and convey how courageous she was to come in, how it was a great step in prevention.

I’ve also recently completed a research project alongside classmates that explored risk factors for inconclusive mammograms on the Mobile Mammography Center. I had the opportunity to present that research at the 2023 Annual FMA Meeting.

I’d love to continue doing work like this and have been dreaming of a free ultrasound clinic similar to the Mobile Mammography Center, traveling to various places in Miami to provide free ultrasounds to the underserved. Ultrasound is an excellent imaging tool because it involves no radiation, is quick and can be used to examine various organs — such as the kidneys, gallbladder, thyroid and more — to detect different problems.

We are still in the early planning stages, but I would really like to try and make this happen. It’s definitely a dream.

How did you get involved with this specific research project?

So, what was the experience like?

Meet the student behind the research

Do you want to continue doing research?

Why are you passionate about radiology?

What would you love to do next?