Andyshea Afyouni - UCI Medical Student Speaks on Seeking Discomfort, Why Happiness Falls to the Lowest Common Denominator and Starting a Video Diary (#011)

Hey there friends! This is Michael Le. Thanks for tuning into
another episode of Pass the Mike where I have the pleasure of
sharing the narratives of imminent or current medical
professionals. In short, my job is to build you a community of
mentors from the folks that have come before you. I couldn't be
more happy to kick this podcast off today with my good, no,
great, friend, Andrew Shea Afyouni. That's A-N-D-R-E-W S-H-E-A
A-F-Y-O-U-N-I. He has a VERY impressive list of accomplishments,
so please bare with me as I do my due diligence in celebrating
his work thus far.


Andrew graduated Summa Cum Laude—that's the highest designated
Latin Honors reserved only for those in the top 5 percent of
College graduates—with a degree in Neuroscience and a minor in
Biomedical Research Minor. Because of our overlaps in graduation
year, Major and Minor, I have been fortunate enough to spend much
time alongside Andyshea.


While the Bruin family will be sad to lose a brother, Andy won't
be far. He is attending UC Irvine's School of Medicine in August
2020. He was admitted last year and decided to take a research
year to spend some much needed time with his family before diving
headfirst into medical school curricula. In that year, he works
in the Endourology Research Team, working with physicians to
facilitate clinical studies in the OR and translate his findings
to the basic science laboratory. This past November, he traveled
to Abu Dhabi to present his work on US-guided Renal Mass
Biopsies, Laser Stone Lithotripsy and Endockscopes at the 38th
World Congress of Endourology.


UCI has been his home for years now—not only is his family
nearby, but he has many old ties with the school of medicine. He
participated in the UCI Summer Surgery Program as part of the UCI
Department of Urology in 2012 and conducted over 500 hours of
research in high school studying autonomic cardiovascular
physiology, regulation and higher level neural processing in
various animal models. If many of those words don't make sense to
you, don't worry, I feel exactly the same way.


And that's just in high school. When Andyshea got to UCLA, he
took off running. He continued his work on autonomic
cardiovascular regulation in the department of Anesthesiology and
Perioperative Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine,
where his work was published in the American Journal of
Physiology. He then transferred his expertise to the field of
Neurobiology, writing a thesis examining the role Smad1 plays in
the differentiation of dorsal spinal sensory interneurons from
mouse embryonic stem cells.


You may get the idea that Andyshea is a one-trick research pony,
but that can't be farther from the truth. I don't know many
people as generous and giving as the guy and that's exemplified
by his volunteer work. He's served as the external vice president
of the Saving Hearts foundation, whose mission is to prevent
Sudden Cardiac Arrest through awareness, education and action.
The foundation provides free preventative heart screenings to
young competitive athletes to test for warning signs of Sudden
Cardiac Arrest (SCA). In addition, Andy served as a Database
intern for the Mobile Clinic Project,a student-run, nonprofit
street-side clinic based in UCLA. He was responsible for
chronicling and organizing medical and social records of clients
that the Mobile Clinic Project interacts with and serves.


You can find Andy if you want to say hello, ask a question or
wonder how in the world he does everything via e-mail at
andyafyouni@gmail.com, that's
A-N-D-Y-A-F-Y-O-U-N-I-AT-G-M-A-I-L-DOT-C-O-M. Clearly, you can
tell he's a busy guy so I'm personally grateful to carve out some
time to have a nice conversation with him today. Andyshea,
welcome to the show.