Faces of U of T Medicine: Amanda Khan
From the lecture hall to the television studio, fourth-year MD/PhD student Amanda Khan isn’t afraid to show off her smarts. Khan was recently a contestant on Canada’s Smartest Person, which sees participants compete in challenges that test their musical, linguistic, logical, social, physical and visual aptitudes. She spoke with Erin Howe about her experience competing on the CBC’s interactive show.
What prompted you to apply to compete on Canada’s Smartest Person?
I wanted to show young women that it is possible to be both a medical student and a scientific researcher as part of the combined MD/PhD program. Historically, women have been underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields and in MD/PhD programs across North America. I wanted to show that a combination of a biomedical engineering PhD and a degree in medicine can be a great career path for women. I am also the President of the MD/PhD program at the University of Toronto, so I am passionate about getting people to learn what we do!
What did you like best about your experience on Canada’s Smartest Person?
Being on Canada’s Smartest Person definitely made me go outside of my comfort zone. I had never been on TV before and it was an awesome experience for me. I like to try new things and this is definitely something a lot of people have never done before!
What do you find most exciting about your studies?
The best part of the MD/PhD program is that it provides me with the skills to identify a problem in medicine and to solve it, too. I love the fact that my PhD work — making laparoscopic surgical tools that can alert a surgeon when they are exerting too much force on organ tissues — can make surgery safer. Laparoscopic surgery is very different from open surgery. In open surgery, you directly touch and feel organ tissues. However, in laparoscopic surgery, we use long, awkward tools through small ports in the body. These tools diminish the sensation surgeons feel when touching tissue and can lead to tissue being inadvertently crushed. We currently don’t have a mechanism to compensate for this, so that’s why I decided to dedicate my PhD work to creating one. I hope that my novel surgical tool can help decrease surgical complications and shorten people’s recovery from surgery.
What are your career goals and how is the Faculty of Medicine preparing you for that future?
My goal is to become a surgeon-scientist. I’d like to be a practicing surgeon and then run my own surgical engineering laboratory. I would also like to become a professor in biomedical engineering and lecture at the University of Toronto. The combined MD/PhD program has been instrumental in my career path. Not only does the program prepare me for a medical career, it is also helping me develop the skills necessary to become a great scientist. This program has opened my eyes to so many possibilities I didn’t even know existed. As well, its flexibility allows me time to be a teaching assistant in two Engineering Science courses and teach my own graduate course in Applied Science and Engineering. This allows me to work on my curriculum planning and lecturing skills.
What’s your favourite thing about the Faculty of Medicine?
My favourite thing about the Faculty of Medicine is how diverse the students who make it up are. My peers are all incredibly talented and come from a wide variety of educational and cultural backgrounds. I am very privileged to be a part of such a wonderful student body. Not a day goes by that I am not in awe of the achievements of my peers and how well rounded each student is.
