{"id":5611,"date":"2023-07-01T22:57:50","date_gmt":"2023-07-02T03:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/?p=5611"},"modified":"2023-07-01T23:03:48","modified_gmt":"2023-07-02T04:03:48","slug":"interviewing-dr-john-r-perfect-a-man-changing-the-medical-field-with-one-pathogen-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/?p=5611","title":{"rendered":"Interviewing Dr. John R. Perfect : A man changing the medical field, with one pathogen at a time"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"https:\/\/scholars.duke.edu\/file\/i1831252\/image_1831252.jpg\"
Presenting Dr.Perfect<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This week, I had the honor of interviewing Dr. John R. Perfect, who serves many roles here at Duke University, with his primary role being that he is Chief of the Infectious Diseases Division at the Duke School of Medicine. He is also the Principal Investigator of my lab, \u201cThe Perfect Lab,\u201d which focuses on the different aspects of medical mycology and works to understand fungal pathogenesis at the molecular and genetic levels. Dr. Perfect is a physician-scientist driven by passion and with one important goal in mind: \u201cto help people.\u201d This is his story and how he came to be the man he is today.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He grew up in a small town in Ohio. One fun fact that Dr. Perfect enjoys sharing about himself is that his father worked as a butcher, and being a butcher\u2019s son, allowed him to gain knowledge about meats and exposed him to blood very early in his life. I asked Dr. Perfect, \u201cWhen\/How did you become involved in science?\u201d. He told me that he began thinking about careers around 7\/8th grade, and at that time, he was considering three different careers:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Farmer<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Teacher<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Doctor\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    However, he weighed out his career choices and realized what he truly wanted to be. He knew that to be a farmer; one needed to be married into or inherit the business because it\u2019s expensive to run a farm. There is also a much-needed craftsmanship trait to farmers that comes in handy when a problem happens at the farm (whether it\u2019s with the machines or livestock), and creativity has to come into action to solve it the best a person can. This was a \u201cno\u201d for Dr. Perfect. \u201cWell, why not a teacher?\u201d. Dr. Perfect has been a professor at the Duke School of Medicine school and loves to pass all his knowledge to students appreciative of it. However, Dr. Perfect does acknowledge that not all students share the same passion or ambition about school, which is reflected in their participation and commitment to their work. Teaching a class consisting of students who are all very interested and focused is a priority for Dr. Perfect to have. Otherwise, he would find it to be frustrating to teach a class with students who are not all willing to work hard and collaborate to understand the subject. Teaching at the Medical School, in classrooms where the people there have worked extremely hard to get to where they are and are motivated to make a difference in people, is one of the motivators of Dr. Perfect to give lectures when he can. Being a Doctor was the career goal he set for himself, and he sought moments when he could be granted the chance to become involved.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Young Dr. Perfect had a friend whose dad was a doctor in their small town. This doctor would often be at their soccer games and treat any injuries that the kids would sustain from the games. Dr. Perfect offered to help with physicals for the team when needed, which gave him a glimpse into helping people with the power of medicine. One thing that surprised me was that Dr. Perfect did not have much exposure to the hospital setting of medicine before medical school. He had, however, helped around his friend\u2019s dad at the clinic (he dealt with the specialty of family medicine), but the setting and pace that medical students go through was something unknown to him which made him feel left behind compared to his other classmates who did have experience. Dr. Perfect was not discouraged and did not let his inexperience stop him. He graduated from Wittenberg University\u2013a small liberal art college in Springfield, Ohio\u2013 with a bachelor\u2019s degree in Art and being the first in his family. Afterward, he was on his way to attend the University of Toledo Medical Center in Ohio, where he completed 3 years of medical school. For his residency, he attended the University of Michigan for 2 years, and then he was off to Duke to fulfill a fellowship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    I asked him, \u201cWhy work specifically with Infectious Diseases?\u201d and he said, \u201cI picked Infectious Diseases because I like how it is sort of a puzzle to solve within the Human Body. From detecting\/narrowing down the diagnosis, testing different treatments\/antibiotics out (because the bodies of different people undergo different experiences with medication, so what works for some may not work for others), and analyzing the patients’ progress until they are recovered is all a part of this big puzzle known as the human body system. Dr. Perfect loves that he has the privilege of having some control over the human body (he was a part of the team that caused children to have a better chance of reaching adulthood because, before vaccines, that wasn\u2019t a possibility for many), and through research, he can have control over the disease and infection by \u201cspying\u201d on it (in a sense) and findings weapons to use against it for the good of public health. As Dr. Perfect recalled his experience with patients, he recalled a specific interaction with a patient that impacted his career.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Dr. Perfect highlights that HIV\/AIDS and COVID-19 are 2 of the biggest major outbreak in medicine. The patient that Dr. Perfect worked with had been diagnosed with HIV\/AIDS, \u201cBeing at their bedside showed me a side of scared people. Especially those diagnosed first with the diseases; they went through tremendous psychological challenges (not only death) but in their families. Some of them were not prepared to face the truth of coming out of their closets (specifically gay males). Rather than their families finding out by their mouth, they found out through the diagnosis of their children, who were now infected. The male patients infected wouldn\u2019t be protected, and what was worse was that their families rejected them after they found out they had contracted HIV\/AIDS instead of providing the support they needed.\u201d Dr. Perfect was saddened and empathized with these patients because he knew that what they needed most, at the time of their family\u2019s rejection, was the support, kindness, and reassurance of their physician that they were going to get through it because even though there are no vaccines available to help with prevention, patients with HIV\/AIDS are still able to live a fulfilling life with proper medication intake. Medication and vaccine discovery for infectious diseases is all thanks to the research that has been conducted thus far, and more is yet to be done to find better and faster methods to improve recovery. Dr. Perfect appreciates the patient interactions that as a physician, he is able to have and as a researcher, he is able to do more for his patients which is something incredible.<\/span><\/p>\n

    One of Dr.Perfect\u2019s favorite thing about his work is having the chance to travel around the world to communicate with people about his findings. Dr.Grunwald constantly emphasizes to us the message that \u201cWhat we do in the lab is useless unless we communicate that information with others.\u201d and that is exactly what Dr. Perfect does. Dr. Perfect has visited around 55\u201358 countries (and counting) and acknowledges that traveling has been an immense privilege for him as he has been able to witness different cultures and meet people of different backgrounds from which he wouldn\u2019t only educate but whom he could also learn new things from. One of the places on his bucket list is Egypt, which I hope he can accomplish soon. In contrast to his travels and interactions with Earth\u2019s inhabitants, Dr. Perfect mentions that the thing he likes least about working in science is that \u201cresearch can\u2019t be done without money.\u201d Grants are needed to be written, and the likeliness of those grants being funded\/approved is 1\/10, which is frustrating because a tremendous amount of work goes into writing them. Dr. Perfect doesn\u2019t mind writing but hates that funding is dependent on these grants and it is not continuous. Research is expensive and a helpful tool for society, but it lacks reassurance that it might work if funding is not provided. How is one to know if the findings are successful and can save a life or if it isn\u2019t without the research that’s done? One dream that Dr. Perfect wishes would come true is for funding to be continuous (maybe for a max of 5 years) so that he can continue conducting research with no worry of limitations for it and enjoy time doing it. Science shouldn’t be defined or limited by money because it’s impact goes way beyond that.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Lastly, one piece of advice that Dr. Perfect gave me and that helped him throughout his career is, \u201cIf you have the opportunity, then take it. Be prepared and do all that you need to do to get that position or reach that goal that brings joy to you. Work hard, and despite whatever forks may come up on the road, be flexible and overcome them because it will be worth it since you are being driven by passion and motivation. I wasn\u2019t in just one track growing up. Sample, don\u2019t necessarily take something just to take it but instead find stuff that you\u2019re good at and enjoy or love doing. If it takes time, take that time to do it. Life expectancy will be pretty long.\u201d. So with this in mind, I gained a new perspective and plan to take Dr. Perfect\u2019s advice as I advance further in my career. I hope you all, my fellow BSURF cohort, do the same.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Thank you, Dr. Perfect, for taking the time to sit down with me. It was truly a joy and honor to get the chance to talk to you more, and I thank you for all the work you have been able to accomplish, discoveries made, as it has helped advance medicine and helped many people along the way.<\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Photo received from: Dr. Perfect<\/i>. (n.d.). https:\/\/scholars.duke.edu\/file\/i1831252\/image_1831252.jpg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      This week, I had the honor of interviewing Dr. John R. Perfect, who serves many roles here at Duke University, with his primary role being that he is Chief of the Infectious Diseases Division at the Duke School of Medicine. He is also the Principal Investigator of my lab, \u201cThe Perfect Lab,\u201d which focuses […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58346,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[658481,79109],"tags":[658490,658502],"class_list":["post-5611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bsurf-2023","category-week-3","tag-bsurf-2023","tag-week-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/58346"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5611"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5614,"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5611\/revisions\/5614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/adhoc_org_trinity_hhr_fellows\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}