About

I am a fourth year medical student at the University of Vermont. Volunteering here in Kigali, Rwanda with Team Heart to replace heart valves in 16 adolescent children. The story of how I got here is a long one but you can begin reading my unfinished summary here:

Hello,

My name is Bridget Colgan, I am a fourth year medical student volunteering with Team Heart here in Kigali, Rwanda for their 10th medical missions trip to the Land of a 1000 Hills. I begin writing this on my flight over from Brussels to Kigali.

How did I get here? Well, that story goes back to long before this 9hr55min plane ride. In short, I wanted to be a doctor since I was at least nine years old, maybe longer. I took a round-about way to get here, which I have found most people are in agreement has made me well-rounded. I was a music education major in college, have a master’s in trumpet performance, and played as a professional trumpet player for a year before completing the science pre-requisites for application to medical school through a two year post-baccalaureate program and finally applying to medical school.

While applying to medical school I also applied to the US Military Health Professions Scholarship Program and once accepted to medical school was also commissioned as a second lieutenant in the US Army in August 2013. I will be completing my residency in general surgery at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii beginning June 1 this year.

My interest in medical mission trips has always been present, for a long time it felt like just a dream. The year before my post-bac program, I was nannying for a family, the father of which was a radiation oncologist in the Navy and they had a map of the whole world in the kids playroom that read at the top, “Doctors Without Borders.” Every day I would be playing with the children upstairs, I would see the map and think, “That’s what I want to do.”

Fast forward to my third year of medical school and in enters Dr. Bolman, Dr. Leavitt, and Ceeya. I was always interested in surgery, and though I can’t remember exactly when cardiothoracic surgery entered my mind I know at the very least it has been since I met a cardiothoracic surgeon while playing in a brass quintet in Vail, Colorado the summer of 2008. So when I had to set up my schedule for my third year of medical school, I strategically placed surgery in the middle of my rotations – late enough in the year that I had time to learn how to present a patient, write notes, and have somewhat of a clue as to what is going on but early enough that I would be able to make a decision whether surgery was truly the right fit for me in order to set up my fourth year rotations and residency interviews. Once my surgery rotation was scheduled I had to choose which subspecialties I would rotate on – although it was tempting to rotate on neurosurgery and orthopedics “just for fun”, I chose cardiothoracic surgery because I needed to know if I was going to plan my residency in general surgery with the intent on going into cardiothoracic surgery whether or not this was something I could really see myself doing.

My first time ever scrubbing into a CT case was with Dr. Bolman in November 2015. I remember standing there quietly for the first half of the case until he asked me maybe one question and I wound up telling him my life plan – to pursue a general surgery residency at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, possibly serve for one year and then go into fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery or go straight into fellowship, complete my service with the military, retire from the Army in 20 years and practice as a civilian. I remember after I finished, saying, “Well, that’s one idea at least” and he replied, “That sounds like more than an idea, it sounds like a plan.” I told him his case was the first CT case I had ever scrubbed into and he said he thought it might have been the first time he was ever the surgeon on the first case someone who hoped to go into CT surgery had seen. It was definitely a memorable moment in my life. I remember driving home that day with so many mixed emotions feeling both exhilarated at the thought of my dream becoming a reality and terrified at the thought of my life dream becoming a reality. I had witnessed in person the intensity of cardiothoracic surgery – the dichotomy of cutting into someone’s chest with a saw followed by the most delicate, precise suturing imaginable sewing a needle through a person’s heart tissue, all the while literally being the heart for the patient for a few hours of their life through the perfusion machine. Each surgery requires all the necessary knowledge and skill but also seems to always require the necessary hope that the surgery will be life giving and not life taking.