Dr. Michael O'Connor '78 is a giver: He's a cardiothoracic anesthesiologist in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, he's a Captain in the Medical Corps of the US Naval Reserve and serves as a community instructor in "Grant writing in Public Health" through the Northeastern Ohio University's Master in Public Health Program. In his "spare time," he's an instructor in HIV/AIDS for the American Red Cross.
Helping people is just what he does.
So when he received a call from the Dr. Tom Dooley Society asking if he'd be willing to mentor Notre Dame Preprofessional Studies undergrads, he agreed. But he's not just doing it for the students: O'Connor is getting just as much from the experience as the students he mentors.
"To be honest, I get goose bumps from it," O'Connor said. "I'm an educator, and it's unbelievably rewarding to teach people who are just starting out because you can really make an impression on them."
It's doctors like O'Connor that Dr. Matt Hubbard '02 had in mind when he formed the Dooley Society two years ago. Hubbard, then a third-year medical student at the University of Rochester, was lamenting over the lack of resources for Notre Dame students looking for guidance through the process of selecting specialty and residency programs. With all the Domer medical professionals out there, surely there had to be a way to connect them with undergrads for the purpose of mentoring and networking.
Enter the Dooley Society. Named after Notre Dame alum Dr. Tom Dooley, a US Navy doctor in Indochina and founder of MEDICO, the Dooley Society became "official" in 2005.
For the first nine months of its existence, it had only three members, including Hubbard. By the end of 2006, membership had grown to more than 900. Today, the Dooley Society reports more than 1,000 registered members, including O'Connor, though he isn't the most active member in the organization.
"I'm not a big participator when it comes to meetings and seminars, but mentoring is different," O'Connor explained. "It has rewards you don't expect."
Some of those rewards come by way of lessons O'Connor learned from the students he mentored. "You always learn from your students," he said. "Not in terms of medicine, but in terms of human nature. They are so idealistic and willing to learn. It's inspiring."
The first student he mentored was Amanda Cinalli, now a senior at ND.
She joined him during Christmas break in 2006, but rather than have her merely "shadow" him while he worked, O'Connor decided to get Cinalli more involved.
"I wanted her to leave here with some actual experience," O'Connor said. "So I got her into surgeries. We developed a curriculum with goals and kept track of the things she was doing. At night I gave her articles. When she left here, she had a cardiovascular rotation from the Cleveland Clinic Heart Center to put on her resume."
Part of the "above-and-beyond" experience O'Connor provides for his students is to help make up for what he says is a lack of resources for premed students. "I didn't have the opportunity to get hands-on experience. I didn't get any mentoring," O'Connor said. "And when you apply to med school, one of the first things they ask you is what kind of exposure you've had to the medical field. I didn't have any. And I wanted to remedy that for future doctors."
Want to make a difference for ND students preparing for a career in medicine? Visit the Dooley Society website and learn more about becoming a member.
