Meet Dr. Reginald Low, Department Chief, Cardiovascular Medicine

Video Transcript

When kids grow up they always have their favorite classes in school and for me I always did better in the science and math area than I did in the humanities. And so that and the fact that my folks were in healthcare made me want to go into something in human service. And so medicine was a good fit for me. Well, I knew I wanted to be in the healthcare field from the time I was in high school. But my decision to go into medicine actually came quite a bit later after college. I actually started dental school and then while I was in dental school I decided I wanted to go into medicine. So after a year I applied to medical school and was accepted.

I think that there are a lot of options for teenagers in terms of college. You know, sometimes you want to go away for school, sometimes you go to junior college for a couple of years. And I don’t think it makes all that much difference. Well, I think the important thing is when you’re in school, that you study to learn and not just memorize and pass tests. And you really should have a passion for learning and that learning and knowledge that you gain from the learning will stay with you forever. And I think that’s the most important. You should always strive for excellence. And you want to excel in whatever you do. I think you have to distinguish yourself as being an outstanding physician in the particular specialty that you’ve chosen. But to be chief, I think that requires another kind of desire to organize, administrate, oversee and build programs.

And so I started in academics on the faculty of one medical school and then I went to another medical school and we’re involved in the teaching and training of residents and fellows as well as medical students. And during that whole process we’re building programs. And so if you like building programs then you find a niche for yourself where you learn about organization, administration and leadership. And so you have to have all of those skills. But not everybody that goes into medicine really enjoys all of those things because a lot of those things, even though they are all lot of fun and they are very rewarding, they carry with them their own set of headaches, as you know, just running this kind of program. So if you enjoy building programs and leading and mentoring then I think this is a very good thing to do.