By Abby Nichols
Glancing at the storage boxes on the floor of his office in the Epidemiology and Cardiology wing of the Jewish General Hospital, Mark J. Eisenberg is apologetic. “I still haven’t quite moved in,” he explains. Eisenberg has maintained a self-described eclectic work schedule during the six months since his latest relocation, delving into a wide-range of duties which include supervising his research team, drafting studies, and attending to his clinical responsibilities as an interventional cardiologist.
As a young medical student, Dr. Eisenberg – now a professor of medicine at McGill University pursuing his academic and creative interests as a clinical researcher – admits that he, like most people in their early twenties, was a little lost. “I knew that I was interested in doing research and I knew that I was interested in being a doctor, but I wasn’t aware that you could combine the two. When I did my residency, I saw people who were combining them but there wasn’t a blueprint for me to follow.”
Now, after years of experience, Eisenberg has developed the blueprint in the form of a book, ‘The Physician Scientist’s Career Guide’, which he authored during a recent sabbatical.
“The goal was that in a couple of evenings you could read this and have a good idea of what this pathway is about and what you have to do in order to succeed. A few hours in the beginning will give you a much clearer picture of what ‘this’ is all about.”
To illustrate his work as a researcher, he hands me a copy of a recently published study investigating the effects of imaging radiation. It was a collaborative effort between himself and wife Dr. Louise Pilote, director of the division of internal medicine at the McGill University Health Centre. The study has garnered wide-spread media attention.
“Those are the galley-proofs,” he explains. “We do health-services research. I like to ask questions in the clinic based on what I see there. Such as: what kinds of patients need to have angioplasty? What’s the best way we can deliver the best-quality health care with the fewest amount of dollars? I’m really only interested in working on things that will improve direct patient care.”
Majoring in chemistry as a Cornell undergrad, Eisenberg describes himself as having been really quantitative and drawn to the bigger picture. So, instead of magnifying a single organism or pathogen, a curious Eisenberg eyed epidemiological studies, and headed south to Brookline, Massachusetts to earn a Master’s in public health at Harvard. For the next decade, he continued his training as a cardiologist at several institutions in North America and worked overseas in Ethiopia and Israel, exploring potential areas of interest, including straight-bench research.
“During Med School I took a year off to go to Israel, and while I was there I saw the Moscow Circus in Tel Aviv,” he recalls, describing a lone man twirling a stick and then placing a plate on top. The man ends up with thirty plates spinning at once. “The idea is to keep twisting the sticks so the plates don’t fall. That’s my life.” He leans back in his chair with a satisfied smile. “I love it.”
Instead of functioning in a purely clinical setting, Eisenberg sought to merge his two interests: scholastic research and practical patient care. “I ultimately decided that I’d rather be in a teaching hospital where there are interesting and exciting cases. I wanted to conduct research that would contribute to medical knowledge. Research also provided a creative outlet.” Eisenberg describes his career as a hybrid of the two – clinical work and research – and as a dynamic position that allows him to act as healer and explorer, iconoclast and cardiologist.
“That’s being a physician scientist,” he summarizes, “We get the ideas at the bedside, we design our projects, collect our data, analyze it, and then we take the results and apply it to patient care. What we’re doing is really not just bench-to-bedside but bedside-to-bench and then back to bedside.”
By Abby NicholsGlancing at the storage boxes on the floor of his office in the Epidemiology and Cardiology wing of the Jewish General Hospital, Mark J. Eisenberg is apologetic. “I still haven’t quite moved in,” he explains. Eisenberg has maintained a self-described eclectic work schedule during the six months since his latest relocation, delving into a wide-range of duties which include supervising his research team, drafting studies, and attending to his clinical responsibilities as an interventional cardiologist.
As a young medical student, Dr. Eisenberg – now a professor of medicine at McGill University pursuing his academic and creative interests as a clinical researcher – admits that he, like most people in their early twenties, was a little lost. “I knew that I was interested in doing research and I knew that I was interested in being a doctor, but I wasn’t aware that you could combine the two. When I did my residency, I saw people who were combining them but there wasn’t a blueprint for me to follow.”
Now, after years of experience, Eisenberg has developed the blueprint in the form of a book, ‘The Physician Scientist’s Career Guide’, which he authored during a recent sabbatical.
“The goal was that in a couple of evenings you could read this and have a good idea of what this pathway is about and what you have to do in order to succeed. A few hours in the beginning will give you a much clearer picture of what ‘this’ is all about.”
To illustrate his work as a researcher, he hands me a copy of a recently published study investigating the effects of imaging radiation. It was a collaborative effort between himself and wife Dr. Louise Pilote, director of the division of internal medicine at the McGill University Health Centre. The study has garnered wide-spread media attention.
“Those are the galley-proofs,” he explains. “We do health-services research. I like to ask questions in the clinic based on what I see there. Such as: what kinds of patients need to have angioplasty? What’s the best way we can deliver the best-quality health care with the fewest amount of dollars? I’m really only interested in working on things that will improve direct patient care.”
Majoring in chemistry as a Cornell undergrad, Eisenberg describes himself as having been really quantitative and drawn to the bigger picture. So, instead of magnifying a single organism or pathogen, a curious Eisenberg eyed epidemiological studies, and headed south to Brookline, Massachusetts to earn a Master’s in public health at Harvard. For the next decade, he continued his training as a cardiologist at several institutions in North America and worked overseas in Ethiopia and Israel, exploring potential areas of interest, including straight-bench research.
“During Med School I took a year off to go to Israel, and while I was there I saw the Moscow Circus in Tel Aviv,” he recalls, describing a lone man twirling a stick and then placing a plate on top. The man ends up with thirty plates spinning at once. “The idea is to keep twisting the sticks so the plates don’t fall. That’s my life.” He leans back in his chair with a satisfied smile. “I love it.”
Instead of functioning in a purely clinical setting, Eisenberg sought to merge his two interests: scholastic research and practical patient care. “I ultimately decided that I’d rather be in a teaching hospital where there are interesting and exciting cases. I wanted to conduct research that would contribute to medical knowledge. Research also provided a creative outlet.” Eisenberg describes his career as a hybrid of the two – clinical work and research – and as a dynamic position that allows him to act as healer and explorer, iconoclast and cardiologist.
“That’s being a physician scientist,” he summarizes, “We get the ideas at the bedside, we design our projects, collect our data, analyze it, and then we take the results and apply it to patient care. What we’re doing is really not just bench-to-bedside but bedside-to-bench and then back to bedside.”