{"id":1628,"date":"2021-12-01T18:24:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T18:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/biological-sciences\/?p=1628"},"modified":"2022-03-03T17:17:41","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T17:17:41","slug":"1628-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/biological-sciences\/1628-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Class of 2021: Undergraduate research inspires future physician-scientist to bridge the bedside and the bench"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Mason Clark was in middle school, his beloved grandmother suffered a serious heart attack.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Mason Clark, Class of 2021, is the recipient of the Coleman D. Oldham Honor Scholarship. (photo by John Russell)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She <\/span>survived, thanks to the help of the local hospital, and the experience led Clark to his life\u2019s purpose. <\/span>Partly out of gratitude and partly out of curiosity, he began volunteering at the hospital and was drawn in by the possibility of helping others like his grandmother.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI fell in love with the hospital and with this idea that you can use science and critical thinking to alleviate people\u2019s suffering,\u201d he said.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Owensboro, Kentucky, native entered Vanderbilt planning to become a physician. He got involved in research, he said, to \u201ccheck a box\u201d for medical school admissions. But by the end of his first semester in the lab of Assistant Professor of Chemistry Lars Plate<\/a>, Clark was rethinking his plans. He realized that research also played a key role in alleviating patients\u2019 suffering and began to consider how he might bridge research and medicine in his post-Vanderbilt life. A molecular and cellular biology major<\/a>, he\u2019ll begin a fully funded, eight-year M.D.\/Ph.D. program at the University of Illinois at Chicago this summer.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf we understand things at the really small level, then slowly we\u2019re going to be able to understand things more at a human level, and we\u2019re going to be able to use that to improve how patients are treated,\u201d he said. \u201cNow what I really want to do with my career is to be a liaison between the lab bench and the bedside.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Read the full article.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Mason Clark was in middle school, his beloved grandmother suffered a serious heart attack. She survived, thanks to the help of the local hospital, and the experience led Clark to his life\u2019s purpose. Partly out of gratitude and partly out of curiosity, he began volunteering at the hospital and was drawn in by the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":1630,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[11],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2021\/12\/22133633\/20210305JR014-768x1152-1-e1638383021316.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/biological-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/biological-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/biological-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/biological-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/biological-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1628"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/biological-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1632,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/biological-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628\/revisions\/1632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/biological-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/biological-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/biological-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/biological-sciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}