What Advice Does a Sickle Cell Expert Have for Medical Students?

More Programs and Publications Featuring Dr. Andrew Campbell

In this program:

Sickle cell disease expert Dr. Andrew Campbell from Children’s National Health System shares his key points for medical students to consider in this Heart Behind the White Coat (HBWC) program. Watch as he explains the traits it takes to be a provider of sickle cell care and the areas of SCD research that need more attention to improve care for patients.

Read Transcript

Dr. Andrew Campbell:
I would say it's a passionate group of patients that continue to need care from providers that are compassionate, understanding, that believe them when they say they're in pain. We need those compassionate providers. I think that's, if you really ask me, I think the most important thing is if you're not compassionate about providing care and being a patient advocate for your patient, I'm not sure if this, if sickle cell is for you.

Because it's going to be, in some cases, it'd be up-and-down battle with pain as pain develops. It increases in adolescents, and sometimes you may not know what to do. We’ve got to guide them through this. You have to provide different treatments for them. You have to tailor their care. You have to be open to try new things sometimes. So you have to be compassionate about pain.

Secondly, sickle cell is a disease of healthcare disparities, in terms of the under-researched, poorly understood, and the lack of, I think still the lack of appropriate therapies. So making a difference, going to public health to help make...to be part of stakeholders that play a role in improving access to care for sickle cell disease patients.

If you're going to research. We need more research in this area at a basic science level even, to provide additional understanding of the pathophysiology that may lead to therapies that may be tailored to patients. We still need...we still have a lack of, I think, enough therapies for patients with sickle cell disease.

And thirdly, things. Curative therapy, such as bone marrow transplant and gene therapy. That's another area that medical students are going to. And I would hope that you would think about sickle cell disease, because, again, it's a lifelong condition. So if there's something that we can do to cure the disease in childhood, that would be the best thing, because this is a disease of age, ongoing damage to the organs.

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