Though she started in the field of neuroscience research, once Dr. Kim Lee experienced working directly with patients and their families, her career's focus turned toward acute care and vascular neurology. The fast pace nature of hospital residency may seem dizzying at times, but Dr. Lee says when she is able to step back and reflect, she realizes just how much she has learned along the way. Following residency, she'll return to her “favorite city in the world”—New Orleans—where she plans to dive into the richly diverse culture the city offers.
Tell us about your background.
I was born in Monroe, Louisiana, which is rural northern Louisiana. I moved when I was young and grew up in Western Pennsylvania. I attended college at Princeton University. While there, I took some time to follow one of my mentors to do research at the National Institutes of Health and continued that for a few years before starting a MD/PhD program at Tulane University. The focus of my research was neurogenesis and hippocampal plasticity, which I examined from multiple perspectives. At the NIH, I mostly focused on its role in aging and diabetes, studying various interventions in animal models. At Tulane, I studied the role of neuroinflammation in infectious disease models in non-human primates.
How did your path lead to medicine and ultimately neurology?
I majored in psychology with a focus in neuroscience. Princeton didn't have a neuroscience degree at the time, but you're required to do projects in three different areas of psychology, one of which was neuroscience. In that field, I worked with Dr. Elizabeth Gould, with whom I completed my senior thesis project on neurogenesis in rhesus macaques. When I moved to the NIH in Baltimore, I was exposed to more clinical and translational research. I was initially interested in pursuing clinical work as it would apply to translational research studies; however, when I went back to complete pre-medical prerequisites and shadowing, I discovered I really enjoyed neurology and the clinical experience outside of a lab.
What are your plans for the future?
I'm planning to do a vascular neurology fellowship at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans, which is my favorite city in the world. I ultimately want to work in an inpatient setting - whether that is inpatient care/consults in an academic center or as a neurohospitalist in a community hospital, is to be determined.
What has been the biggest challenge of your residency thus far?
In residency, we're so busy with the volume and complexity of patients that we see. This is one of many great things about Vanderbilt, but also one of the biggest challenges we have here. You're going at full steam whenever you're working, so at times, it can feel like you're just trying to keep up. As I've gone through the program, I've come to realize how much I've learned and the wide breadth of experience we get here. Coming out of this residency, you certainly feel prepared to take on any future endeavor.
What is your favorite part about being a doctor?
My favorite part about being a doctor is taking care of patients in the acute care setting, forming that initial assessment and making decisions that can really impact a patient's care in that moment. Additionally, neurologists see the most interesting cases, and it's always exciting when you figure out a tricky diagnosis.
Aside from the fellowship, what else does the future hold?
My husband and I just put an offer on a house in New Orleans, and we're looking forward to returning to the community and our friends and family down there. Once we are able to safely open up after the pandemic, we will be excited to get back into all of the food, music, sports, and festivals. There's something about New Orleans—the sense of community, the resilience, the diversity, and the culture that's there. It's unlike any other city. Plus, Mardi Gras 2022 is going to be wild!
What are your other hobbies and interests?
I do a lot of yoga, including acro-yoga, which keeps me balanced during residency. Nashville has a lot of great yoga studios, and pre-pandemic, there was an active acro-yoga community that would get together to practice. Recently, I've been doing a lot of cooking, especially southern dishes as well as learning recipes from my mom. I've been trying to get in touch with my Vietnamese heritage by acquiring more recipes from her. My husband and I also love to go hiking, and we're trying to make it to every waterfall within 2-3 hours of Nashville. We have a Great Pyrenees mix, Baloo, who loves to tag along with us.
What is something you find interesting about the future of neurology?
I'm interested in the associations between inflammation, immunology, and development of neuroprotective therapies. Right now, there is only one approved pharmacological therapy for acute treatment of ischemic stroke, which is aimed at reperfusion. My hope is that there will be more therapeutics in the future that target neuroprotection, reducing infarct size, and improving long-term recovery from stroke and other neurologic disorders. For years, preclinical studies in animal models have had success in a wide variety of therapeutics that reduce stroke size and improve functional outcomes; however, these have not translated to successful therapeutic in human clinical trials. Bridging that gap by designing preclinical studies that more closely match clinical trials or by studying FDA-approved medications that are approved for other indications is something that I would like to see in the future.
How would your co-residents describe you?
I would hope that they would describe me as supportive, someone who's willing to step up and help out however they need, whether it's covering a call shift or watching their cat. They would also probably say I talk about New Orleans too much.
