“You will never get to where you want to go if you stop trying”

Dr. Ana Weil is an infectious disease doctor at the University of Washington. In the hospital she only sees patients who have had organ transplants and then picked up an infection. In her lab she studies the bacteria in our gut, and her main focus is cholera, a disease most people in the US never think about.

She grew up in a small town in Washington without many AP classes, and she already knew in high school that she wanted to study infections.

The part I keep thinking about is near the end. She told me she has sent hundreds of emails to researchers that never got a reply. Then I asked what she’d tell herself at 15, and her answer is the title of this article.

Lightly edited so it reads easier. The words are hers.

She knew in high school, just not which job

You’re a doctor who sees patients and also runs research. Back in high school, did you know you wanted to go into medicine or infectious disease, or did you figure it out later?

“These are big questions. So, I would say in high school, I did know that I wanted to study infectious disease. I think that is unusual, though, for someone to know that that early on, and I didn’t know at the time if I wanted to study it at a population level, like an epidemiologist, or if I wanted to be a physician, or if I wanted to work in a laboratory doing basic science.”

“I didn’t really know that much about those three different areas, but those are all very distinct careers in health and in medicine. So in high school, what I knew was that I wanted to study infections, and that I was really interested in microbes and microbiology.”

A small town, and the mentor who changed her mind

Who made the biggest impact on getting you here?

“I would say the biggest impact on me was one of my early mentors when I was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley.”

“I grew up in a quite small town in Washington state, and so I didn’t have access to a whole lot of really specialized educational opportunities in high school, or a lot of AP classes, or anything like that. So when I went to college, it was really a new world for me. One of my first jobs in public health was at the California State Health Department, and I had a mentor there who just really took an interest in my career.”

“She was an MD herself, and after getting to know me, she said, ‘I know that you are gonna be the kind of person who wants to work with patients.’”

“She really encouraged me when I was trying to decide if I wanted to apply to medical school or go to graduate school in public health. She helped me commit to the longer path of going to medical school, which is more work and more expensive, and I was nervous about embarking on that. She really helped me make that decision, and she is still a mentor going forward.”

Find what you can get lost in

A lot of people I know aren’t sure what to do. Should they pick a field they think they’ll excel at, or one they love?

“I think people, especially at this point in life, should be exploring their interests and trying to gain more experience in areas that they feel passionate about. It tends to be that the things we like and are passionate about are also often our talents, the things we’re good at. Those things kind of go together.”

“Think about what types of topics and work you feel like you can kind of get lost in, where you are enjoying the process. Something you can delve into and really be immersed in, and find satisfaction in. Those are the types of topics I would encourage people to explore further.”

“Within any area of study, there are many, many ways to apply it. It could be the biostatistics of a problem, or the social impact of that problem. It could be something very quantitative or very qualitative. Finding the match between what’s meaningful to someone and what they enjoy is really where I think the sweet spot is.”

Want to go into medicine? Start with people

A lot of teens care about health, but they don’t have the experience or know how to break in. Are there projects they could do at home, or with a professor?

“In health generally, there are many, many ways to get involved in the community. Learning about vaccine science, for example. Why people get vaccines or don’t, how much they can help, and the risks too. That’s a topic that affects everyone’s life. Just being educated about it and talking to people about it is a value to the community. You could say the same thing about heart disease and exercise, or nutrition. There are a lot of areas of health that are part of our daily lives that people can learn about.”

“But especially for people interested in medicine, I would really encourage people to work with the general public in some way. Volunteering at the local library, or any other volunteer work where you get to know and interact with different parts of the public. Kids, elderly people, vulnerable populations. Talking to people at different education levels with different cultural backgrounds.”

“That’s a huge part of becoming a physician: learning how to build trust with different types of people, and having perspective about how people receive you and how you can best communicate with them. Any type of volunteer work or community service is a really good way to find out if you like interacting with the public, which is a big part of being a physician, and also to get better at it and understand the needs of your community.”

> What you can do > - Volunteer somewhere you’ll talk to lots of different people: a library, a food bank, a senior center, a hospital program. > - Pick one health topic that affects everyone (vaccines, exercise, nutrition), learn it well, and help people around you understand it.

What is the gut microbiome?

In simple words, what is the gut microbiome, and why does it matter when someone gets a gut infection?

“The gut microbiome is the bacteria that naturally live in the gut of humans. Actually all animals and all organisms have bacteria that live in their body and on their body. They have a lot of functions that are part of how our body works, like digesting food.”

“What we study is how these bacteria can increase your likelihood of getting an infection, or how they interact with your immune system to help protect you against getting one.”

Doctor or researcher? It depends on your patience

What is it like being a researcher and a doctor at the same time?

“In the hospital, there’s a lot of interacting with patients and with trainees, like medical residents and medical students, and a lot of teaching. I only work with patients who have organ transplants and have infectious complications from that, so they’re people who are immunocompromised. A lot of medical work, especially in the hospital, is functioning as part of a team.”

“In the laboratory, it’s also a team, but we’re studying questions with a much longer horizon. In the hospital, we’re looking at diagnosis and treatment in a short period of time. In research, it can take weeks to months to find the answer to a question.”

“So one major difference is when you feel like you need a payoff to be satisfied in your job. If you’re the kind of person who needs immediate gratification, and to know that what you’re doing is working, that is much more compatible with clinical medicine than with research. In research, you have to be patient. You have to try things a lot of times and be okay with failure, as you’re exploring areas that have not been studied before.”

Why a Seattle doctor studies cholera

“One of the reasons people like me exist, caring for patients and working in research, is that we have a better understanding of what types of discovery in the lab could actually impact human health.”

“I study infectious diseases of the gut, and the main infection I study is cholera, which is a severe diarrheal disease. It’s not very common in the US, but it’s a very big problem especially in Africa and Southeast Asia. So the patients I’m thinking about in my research lab are people who live in poverty in those parts of the world and who don’t have access to clean water.”

“At the end of the day, the goal is the same no matter what: to improve human health, so that people can live the lives they want to live instead of dealing with infections.”

What keeps her going

Research can come with a lot of setbacks. What keeps you motivated?

“The highlights of a research career are those times where discovery occurs. Maybe data in the lab isn’t adding up, or something’s happening that doesn’t make sense, and then there’s one more step, and it all fits together like a puzzle, and the answer to the original question becomes clear. Those moments are really important.”

“Another thing that really keeps me going are my colleagues. The people in my lab, who are really committed to improving human health, especially for the world’s most vulnerable people who live without clean water. And my collaborators at universities around the world. Each of us has different expertise, but together we can answer research questions none of us could have answered on our own.”

“Working in research can sound kind of isolating, like you’re working away on a problem by yourself. But the truth is that it’s also a team sport. The people in my lab are the main reason that keeping going in the face of frequent disappointment, which does happen, is made much easier.”

Hundreds of emails that never got answered

This was the question I cared about most.

A lot of teens are too intimidated to email professionals, because they don’t think they have enough experience. What would you tell them?

“I do get a lot of emails from students and people of various ages and levels of training, and I really try to reply to all of them. I think a lot of people do, even if it’s just to say, ‘I don’t have space in the lab right now, but thank you for your interest.’”

“The ones that catch my eye are the ones that seem sincere. I can tell they’ve done some reading about what our lab does, they have a real interest, and they have a realistic expectation of what they can contribute based on their level of training.”

“So keep it simple and straightforward, and sincere. Not written by AI, for example. Those things will definitely help in getting responses. But also, don’t be afraid to just contact lots of people. I’ve definitely sent hundreds of emails, between high school and graduate school and medical school, to researchers I wanted to work with that went unreplied to. You have very little to lose by reaching out, other than the time you spend writing the email. So don’t be afraid to reach out. You really don’t have anything to lose.”

> What you can do > - Read about a researcher’s work before you email them, and say what you read. > - Keep it short, honest, and in your own words. > - Be realistic about what you can help with. > - Send more than one. No reply is normal, not a no to you.

What she’d tell herself at 15

If you look back to when you were 15 or 16, what would you tell yourself?

“I would definitely tell myself to be persistent. If there is something I want to work on or accomplish, just keep working at it. That was definitely how I got to where I am today.”

“I took a winding path, from undergrad to medical school to graduate school and into research. I didn’t think I would end up as a researcher. I just followed what I was passionate about, and I put a lot of energy into finding good mentors and investing in them. Those are the people who really helped me at some of the critical points. So I would tell myself to invest in mentorship.”

“And to be persistent. You will never get to where you want to go if you stop trying. If you just keep at it, chances are it will work out, or it’ll take you on another path that you didn’t even expect.”

“Getting into research is a long road, and going to medical school is also a long road, but these are really amazing careers that are very satisfying, and important for the world we live in.”

Thank you to Dr. Weil and the University of Washington for making the time.

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