Interview Assessment #3

Physician - Dr. Guerra

Profession - Interventional Cardiology

Location - North Texas Heart Center

Date - November 13, 2019 4500 Medical Center Dr, McKinney, TX 75069

Time - 9:00am

Analysis

November thirteenth was an interesting day to begin off as before I set off for the

interview the day had a horrible start. Before departing to the clinic that morning my car began to

have troubles as the trunk would not close and I could feel the anxiety beginning to build up. My

first thoughts from that point forward was this interview would be an atrocity as I would be too

flustered to carry out a professional interview aiming for a mentorship as well as gaining

information in the field. However, this was not the case as once I arrived and learned that Dr.

Guerra was being held up at the hospital for a short amount of time which in turn gave me time

to situate my emotions and be fully prepared. Before the interview began I had looked into where

Dr. Guerra had completed his education and was absolutely blown away as he was not only a

Harvard graduate and went to Vanderbilt for fellowships and at the University of California -

San Francisco which was in my mind intimidating. As a high schooler and talking with a

physician that went to multiple high prestigious schools is not only like a dream but also

worrisome as I felt a small mistake would be detrimental.

As the interview Dr. Guerra was inviting which soothed my nerves and as the interview

began gave me some wonderful information. Beginning with their electronic health recording
system where each patient was documented and explained its flaws. This was surprising to learn

of its flaws as I expected the technology used by physicians to be beneficial and well rounded yet

their system featured time lost and frustration attempting even make a single not took more than

twenty seconds and as he guided me through the system explaining and showing each function it

became apparent that ease of access was not its priority. The system was made more for data

recording used by administration but, made the day to day task of interacting with patients more

focused on the paper work and not the patient as a whole which is not what medicine should be

focused on. This is one flaw in the system should be improved and leads me into just how flawed

each hospitals data system is. Is it just medical city data recording system flawed? Is this

recording system leading to burnout or even medical mishandling? Outside of the health records

Dr. Guerra demonstrated some of his more rare tasks with showing me videos and pictures of

some procedures he has performed focusing on the placement of a stent in the left anterior

descending artery which runs down the heart. He went into depth of how the stent is coated in

chemotherapy drug which stops “encroachment” upon the stent so that the artery does not begin

to heal over the stent and cause an even bigger clot. This was new to me as before I believed

stents were just metal stents that were placed in an artery and I could not be farther from that. All

of the information Dr. Guerra shared with me that day was astounding as I plan to further expand

on it with addition research with further understanding physician burnout, deeper anatomy focus

as during the interview Dr. Guerra used certain terms that were foreign for me even though I felt

if I should have known this previously. Out of the two interviews I have attended this was the

most beneficial and plan to build even on top of this one with future interviews with Dr. Guerra.

The final take away from the interview with Dr. Guerra was that he was a potential mentor and

open to the idea and even an invitation to an orientation for new employees at Medical City of
Dallas which the speech is led by the CEO and Dr. Guerra. This interview left me with hope that

I can get a mentor and even that Dr. Guerra could be my potential mentor as he is highly

knowledgeable about the field through past education and experiences.