UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute Assistant Professor and Breast Surgical Oncologist Dr. Daniela Ochoa shares a minute-by-minute account of a typical day.
| 5:15 a.m. | Alarm sounds; silence it quickly, hopefully before baby girl hears it and wakes up. Shower, search out outfit of the day (no scrubs today), complete hair and makeup. |
| 6:15 a.m. | Start coffee, put lunch bag together, get my protein shake and water bottle ready to go. |
| 6:30 a.m. | Leave in a hurry, again, because somehow time flies every morning and before I know it I’m in danger of running late. Carrying multiple bags like always. I keep thinking I can somehow trim how much I carry with me on a daily basis, but oh well. |
| 6:45 a.m. | Arrive at UAMS, navigate my way through Parking 3 parking garage. |
| 7 a.m. | Multidisciplinary breast conference starts. We (surgeons, medical oncologists, radiologists, pathologists, radiation oncologists, genetics, behavior medicine, social work, research colleagues) all review the previous week’s surgeries and resultant pathology to form a treatment plan agreed upon by the entire team and provide our group’s recommendations. |
| 8 a.m. | Preoperative conference starts. We review the coming week’s surgeries to ensure everything is ready and no final details need to be completed. |
| 9 a.m. | Clinic starts. I visit with patients including benign and malignant breast pathology to discuss surgical indications and treatment plans. I enjoy getting to meet with patients and working to help guide them through their journey in a time of anxiety and uncertainty. This is one of the most rewarding parts of my work. Sometimes this visit includes a biopsy procedure in the office. We work our hardest to accommodate same-day procedures when necessary, but this sometimes can set our clinic schedule behind. I therefore sometimes end up running from room to room for the remainder of the day apologizing for running behind. |
| 2 p.m. | “Morning” clinic is complete. Grab a quick lunch and work on charting/documentation of today’s clinic visits. |
| 4 p.m. | Administrative and education time. Today I am meeting with medical students for our small-group mentor meetings. This involves a group of four third-year medical students, and we all meet weekly to review topics and work through patient-care scenarios. |
| 5 p.m. | Return any phone call messages and address any pending emails. Ensure everything is ready and prepared for the coming day before leaving the office. |
| 6 p.m. | Leave UAMS, again navigating my way through Parking 3 and hoping there is not too much traffic heading back to West Little Rock. |
| 6:30 p.m. | Arrive home to a beautiful smiling toddler who greets me with an excited hug! I enjoy some playtime and quick stroller walk around the neighborhood with my husband, daughter and Duncan, our 3-year-old English mastiff. |
| 7-7:30 p.m. | Gather around the table to eat dinner together and then proceed to clean the messy toddler eating area. We’re still working on learning to keep the food off the floor! |
| 8 p.m. | Baby bath time! |
| 8:30 p.m. | Baby bedtime zzzzz. |
| 9 p.m. | Unwind time, which usually involves reading some news headlines and trying to stay somewhat caught up with current events. Try to get to sleep by 10 p.m. in anticipation of another busy day tomorrow. I expect I will likely wake with baby overnight at least once, but tomorrow’s day will be a full day of operating, working to stamp out breast cancer, and we want to make sure we are well rested and ready! |
Plan B: I like to think that if I had not ended up in medicine that I probably would’ve become an engineer.
I say this because I was always a math and science kind of person and think I could have potentially enjoyed that as well. Admittedly, though, I have no actual experience in engineering!
For ways to support the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute visit Cancer.Uams.Edu/Get-Involved.