Internal Medicine Interest Group
Physician STATs
1. Name: _Jim Evans____________________
2. Age: 51____________________________
3. College: __University of Kansas_________
4. Medical School: _University of Kansas___
5. Residency: _UNC_Chapel Hill___________
6. Fellowship: __U of Washington (Seattle)__
a. Reasons for selecting your residency/fellowship: I enjoy patient care and the intellectual rigor
that is integral to internal medicine. It is a field that encourages deep thought. Likewise,
medical genetics is intellectually highly stimulating and moreover, with burgeoning
technology, genetics will play a greater and greater role in our understanding of disease,
health and patient care.
7. Current title(s): Professor of Genetics and Medicine, Editor-in-Chief, Genetics in Medicine (the journal
of the American College of Medical Genetics).
a. Reasons for current title (may include brief trajectory of your career, interests or even how your
interests have changed over time): I didn’t know that genetics was a career option until I was
well into my internal medicine residency. At that point I got to Know Francis Collins and
realized that one could specialize in it. Moreover, with the increasing relevance of genetics to
common diseases, and our increased ability to analyze the human genome, it was (and is)
clear that there would be many applicable aspects to the practice of internal medicine.
My trajectory has extended from R01 funded lab research as my major endeavor, to primarily
clinical work. One of the great things about genetics is that you can tailor what you do to your
varying (and likely changing) interests with regard to patient care, basic research and clinical
research.
8. Have you had any seminal moments during your medical career – particularly ones that ignited an
interest in your chosen field? Working with inspiring and brilliant clinicians and researchers. There are
many such opportunities in the arena of medical genetics.
9. What other career options were you considering? Within medicine: hematology/oncology or
endocrinology. I briefly toyed with neurosurgery. Outside of medicine: Physics, Evolutionary bioloigy,
literature or acting.
10. What – in all honesty – do you do? I have a really nice mix of patient care (consultations), teaching and
research. If you’re thinking about medical genetics you will likely be at an academic setting. You don’t
have to do research (lots of medical geneticists are primarily involved in patient care) but a
disproportionate number are engaged in research. And most are at academic settings. Though there
are increasing opportunities in industry and perhaps in the future, with the advent of robust and
widespread genetic analysis there will be opportunities for more of a private-practice experience.
11. What is your favorite part of the job? There are so many great aspects to it that it would be hard to
pick. Probably the constant interaction with interesting and brilliant people, ranging from students to
senior colleagues.
12. What is your ‘least favorite’ part of your job? Managing personnel. I don’t really like being a “boss”.
13. What is the dirtiest part of your job? I don’t think this probably applies to my field.
14. What is the part of your job that you least expected to be doing? Sequencing entire human genomes!
This was science fiction a few years ago. And now we’ve embarked on a research project in which we
are fully sequencing the genomes of a few select individuals in an effort to identify novel cancer
genes.
15. How do you see your specialty changing in the future? Genetics will increasingly permeate every field
of medicine. We will need informed thoughtful and smart people to try an make sense of the
avalanche of information.
16. Do you work in public or private medicine? Academic or non-academic? Public/academic. Though for
a while I was in private practice in internal medicine.
17. What are your hobbies? Biking, reading, traveling, cooking, a bit of hiking.
18. How much personal freedom do you have? Lots.
19. How flexible is your job in terms of scheduling and tasks? Extremely flexible. I feel like my own boss
but without many of the hassles that would be implicit in being in a private practice setting. Other
docs and patients think of us as the specialists and appear to value what we do so we have some
latitude to arrange our schedule and lives accordingly. In biochemical genetics there are emergencies
so you can get that if you like to have that “fix” but most of genetics isn’t emergent in nature. Though,
in the realm of prenatal diagnosis there is often a sharp time frame in which things need to be done.
So there’s lots of flexibility; it’s nice.