Going All In

Like many medical students, Elizabeth Duplechain has a wide variety of scientific interests and is using the early portion of her education to determine exactly how she’ll practice medicine. A unique opportunity this summer helped Duplechain further explore intriguing options while gaining invaluable clinical and lab experience.

^{NYITCOM-Arkansas student Elizabeth Duplechain}

Duplechain, a second-year student doctor at NYITCOM-Arkansas, was one of 12 students from Arkansas medical schools who were selected to participate in the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Partnership in Cancer Research (PCAR) summer internship.

The eight-week program allowed Duplechain to work in a lab with a clinical research team, hear lectures on cancer-related topics, work with standardized patients, and participate in medical simulations, such as breast needle biopsy exercises.

The PCAR program operates through the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute. It is funded by a National Institutes of Health grant and provides paid internship opportunities for individuals who have completed their first year of medical school. 

Duplechain moved to Little Rock just days after wrapping up her first year of medical school in Jonesboro. It was the perfect opportunity for her to gain practical experience and learn about oncological medicine.

“I have a strong interest in research, but I really wanted to do something during the summer where I didn’t have to balance my time in the lab and my time in the books,” Duplechain says. “I wanted to be able to go all in, and I did. My family has a history of breast cancer, so the PCAR program was really attractive to me. It was a great experience.”

For her clinical research, Duplechain was assigned to Kimberly Stephens, Ph.D., who works at both UAMS and Arkansas Children’s Hospital with a focus on pain medicine. Duplechain participated in a project that is examining peripheral neuropathy in cancer patients who receive paclitaxel, a common cancer medication. 

“Peripheral neuropathy is a common side effect of paclitaxel, and it’s very painful for the patient,” Duplechain says. “It causes numbness and hypersensitivity of the hands and feet and makes the patient sensitive to hot and cold. It usually gets worse with more rounds of chemotherapy, so we wanted to see how the calcium channels respond to multiple cycles of the drug.”

Duplechain’s team did that by injecting mice with the drug to better understand the impact at the cellular level.

“That’s how you can start creating medication or therapies to help mitigate it,” Duplechain says. “Prior to this summer, I did not have any wet lab experience. Now I can work under the hood, do calcium imaging, culture and keep cells alive outside the mice body, and I performed a microscopic dissection. It was a well-rounded experience that allowed me to learn a lot of different procedures.”

Duplechain also spent time with Sarah Harrington, M.D., a palliative care physician at UAMS who works mostly with cancer patients. That experience opened her eyes to the possibility of a career in the field.

“I’d never really thought about palliative care before this summer, but it’s something I’m really interested in now,” Duplechain says. “You learn how to have those hard conversations with patients at the end of their life and deal with their symptoms to treat them. It’s tough, but it’s also very fulfilling.”

Palliative care physicians perform a one-year fellowship after completing a three-year residency. Duplechain is keeping her options open, but she likes the fact that there are many paths that could lead her there.

“You can do any specialty before you go into palliative care,” Duplechain says. “I’m really interested in internal medicine and emergency medicine, and either of those would be really beneficial for a career in palliative care.”

While the majority of PCAR participants are UAMS students, the program offers a spot to NYITCOM-Arkansas students as well, and Duplechain feels very fortunate for the opportunity to participate.

“The people were just great,” Duplechain says. “Everyone was so welcoming, and they have such an outstanding work environment there. The experience I gained will truly impact my career forever, and I’m extremely grateful that I got to participate.”

By Casey Pearce