Meet our Newest Ph.D. - Doug Atchison

Congratulations to Doug Atchison, who successfully defended his dissertation on Wednesday, February 8th titled: "Modulation of Renin Secretion by Renal Cortical Interstitial Calcium."

Doug started his academic career as an economics major at Michigan State University. It wasn't long before he realized his true calling was working "towards a higher and nobler goal" and changed his major.

He spent time volunteering at the Cristo Rey Clinic in Lansing, which confirmed for him that medical school was in his future, but he'd also spent considerable time doing research in his father's pharmacology research lab and in Dr. Gregory Fink's lab (both at Michigan State University), which fascinated him as well. "Working in a research environment has helped me develop attributes that would benefit me as a physician. It has forced me to develop higher-level critical thinking and complex problem solving skills. Problem solving in a research environment is far more difficult than many problems in the classroom setting because I had to learn to discern patterns from large amounts of diffuse data while attempting to find an explanation for why a data trend occurred. Furthermore, I had to develop a sense of independence along with self motivation. I have grown to enjoy learning about the ideas presented in lecture in a more in-depth manner while having to apply what I know to generate new or insightful ideas."

To resolve this dilemma, Doug joined the MD/PhD program here at Wayne State in 2006. After completing his first two years of med school, he selected to do the PhD portion of his program in Physiology, under the mentorship of Dr. William Beierwaltes.

Doug will spend the next couple of months writing a few more articles on his research before returning to Medical School in July to complete his last two years.

Congratulations Doug!