Scrubbing in for life
UO feeds student’s love of science, medicine
Katie Cobb was sixteen when she assisted on a surgery for the first time. The University of Oregon senior knew right then that she wanted to be scrubbing in for life.
During the operation, the doctor asked Katie to put a clip into a patient’s chest.
“That kind of faith in me was really inspiring,” she says. “It made me believe that I could do this, too.”
The surgery was during one of the four summers Katie worked in a breast cancer clinic in Portland. Since coming to the UO, Katie, a biology major from Portland, has spent three summers at Oregon Health & Science University researching how Alzheimer’s disease affects men and women differently. Her work in the OHSU lab forms the basis of her thesis in the University of Oregon’s Robert Donald Clark Honors College.
“What keeps me going is knowing that the research I do will be affecting real people,” Katie says. “There are not a lot of viable therapies for Alzheimer’s yet. Meeting patients and seeing their needs and excitement for research makes me feel like what I do actually matters.”
Katie makes sure her work matters in other ways, too. During her time at the UO, Katie traveled to Honduras on a volunteer trip. There, on a tour of an eye clinic, she saw firsthand the impact physicians have around the world. Ultimately, Katie wants to share in that impact.
“Maybe oncology, maybe neurology, maybe pediatrics, I’m not sure yet,” she says of her possible future medical specialty. “What I’d really love to do is go to a developing country, live with the people, and work with them to build a clinic from the ground up. That would be amazing.”