Making the Rounds at UNLV School of Medicine

Making the Rounds

April 6, 2021 Issue 277

Friends & Colleagues,

There are times, like now, when I edit Charles Dickens’ opening paragraph in A Tale of Two Cities to include only positives: “It was the best of times...It was the age of wisdom…It was the spring of hope.” Yes, in times like these, when COVID-19 has brought us the worst of times, a long season of darkness, I rearrange one of my favorite paragraphs in the English language to accompany the growth and achievement at the UNLV School of Medicine. Wasn’t it the best of times when students in our Charter Class, spurred on by a dedicated faculty, came away from Match Day knowing that they all now can train in their chosen specialties? Can we not say that this school, born out of a very real medical and economic need for an academic medical center, catapulted Southern Nevada into an Age of Wisdom? Won’t this be a spring of hope as the students in our Charter Class go through our school’s first commencement on May 7 at the Thomas and Mack Center? How many healthy babies will our students bring into this world? How many people will live better lives because of them? How many lives will they save? How many times will we read about one of these pioneering students and say, “I knew them when?” In today’s newsletter, we feature Ashley Newell Prandecki, a member of our Charter Class, whose journey into medicine has been far from ordinary.

Marc J. Kahn, M.D.

Dean, UNLV School of Medicine

Medicine By The Numbers

Lung Cancer In The U.S.

In 2021, there will be about 235,760 new cases of lung cancer (119,100 in men and 116,660 in women).

In 2021, there will be about 131,880 deaths from lung cancer (69,410 in men and 62,470 in women).

Most people diagnosed with lung cancer are 65 or older.

The average age of people when diagnosed is about 70.

Lung cancer is by far the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women, making up almost 25% of all cancer deaths.

Each year, more people die of lung cancer than of colon, breast, and prostate cancers combined.

Overall, the chance that a man will develop lung cancer in his lifetime is about 1 in 15; for a woman the risk is about 1 in 17. These numbers include both smokers and non-smokers. For smokers the risk is much higher, while for non-smokers the risk is lower.

Black men are about 15% more likely to develop lung cancer than white men. The rate is about 14% lower in black women than in white women.

Black and white women have lower rates than men, but the gap is closing.

Source: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/lung-cancer/about/key-statistics.html

Business Management Student

Pursuing Her Dream Of Becoming A Doctor

Ashley Newell Prandecki's journey to medical school was far from ordinary. Coming from an athletic background, and an undergraduate in business management, Prandecki ended up pursuing her passion for medicine.

If you’ve received a degree in business management while on an athletic scholarship and earned another full scholarship for an MBA as well as a graduate assistant position -- you’d actually be making money while going to graduate school -- it would appear that you’re well on the way to a successful career in the business world.

But appearances, as we all know, can be deceiving.

They certainly were for Ashley Newell, who has since become, by way of marriage, Ashley Newell Prandecki.

“Although I had worked hard to put myself in a position that would allow me to make money while earning my master’s degree, my true passion, medicine, was calling me,” Prandecki says. “A business career wasn’t for me. I couldn’t do it.”

Today, Prandecki, now a member of the UNLV School of Medicine’s Charter Class, laughs as she thinks about that time in 2015, a month after her college graduation, when she decided to cast aside what seemed to be an opportunity too good to pass up, for the pursuit of a dream of a career in medicine -- an aspiration that she had earlier given up because she began to have doubts about whether she had the academic chops to make her dream a reality.

“This decision not to go to graduate school in business seemed bizarre to...disbelieving peers and bewildered advisors,” Prandecki recalls. “Their opinions tended to be, ‘It will take 10 years,’ ‘You could get a job without accumulating debt,’ and ‘It’s just too hard.’”

But Prandecki, who so loved doing science experiments during her early school years that her three sisters joked she was making Harry Potter potions, was tired of fighting her passion down... If she could do well on some science courses that would help get her into medical school -- during middle school she read a book her father gave her about medical diagnoses from cover to cover -- she was prepared to take out $200,000 in loans for the four years.

The truth is, her confidence had grown while attending Western New Mexico University. She graduated with honors after taking business courses that she didn’t have a real passion for. And her leadership skills were so exemplary she was made captain of the tennis team.

The person who most needed to believe that she had what it took to become a doctor -- Ashley Newell -- had come to realize that she did.

She took a year of science courses and aced them all. And she did well on the MCAT, the medical admissions test. It wouldn’t be long before the girl who graduated from Nevada Virtual Academy was accepted at the UNLV School of Medicine. Instead of having to take $50,000 in loans each year, she received a full tuition scholarship to medical school, courtesy of the Engelstad Foundation. “That meant so much,” she says.

"Because each life is so valuable, I want to be part of the team of heroes whose mission is to give those people a longer, healthier life, so they may fulfill that purpose set out for them.”

Ashley Prandecki, Charter Class medical student

On Match Day, she learned she would be able to do internal medicine residency training in Las Vegas, where her husband, whom she married during her second year of medical school, owns an air conditioning and heating company.

The more you learn about Prandecki’s unorthodox journey to medical school, the more you want to know. It turns out that even her path to a bachelor’s degree came via a road less traveled.

Born in Great Falls, Montana where her father was stationed as an enlisted man in the Air Force, Prandecki’s parents began having children only a year after finishing high school. “With me and my three younger sisters in diapers at the same time, it was nearly impossible for them to attain further education,” Prandecki says.

Prandecki’s family eventually moved from Montana to Las Vegas, where both of her parents now work at resorts on the Strip.

“While neither of my parents graduated college, they knew of the importance of receiving an education and wanted this for each of their daughters…My dad mentioned to me that being a doctor helping people would be a good career and gave me things to read about it. What I learned I loved...To overcome the financial hurdles associated with higher education, my parents identified sports as a path to college, specifically tennis. For years, my father coached us and we were fortunate enough to receive financial support for equipment, training and traveling from the Inspiring Children Foundation.”

With the goal of an athletic scholarship in mind, Prandecki’s parents placed her in the Nevada Virtual Academy online high school, where she graduated as salutatorian, so she could practice tennis four to six hours a day. She became a nationally ranked junior player, and in 2011 signed with Western New Mexico University to play tennis on a full scholarship. Eventually her three younger sisters were also able to secure athletic scholarships and graduate from college.

Prandecki went to Western New Mexico University with every intention of majoring in biology and then going on to medical school. At the end of the first semester, however, she received a “C” in her botany class and began to question whether she was able to pursue a medical degree. “I let myself believe that my online education simply did not prepare me enough. After discussing it with my advisor -- he told me going into medicine was incredibly difficult -- I changed my major to business management, what seemed to be a more practical option.”

No one is happier that her passion won out over practicality than Pradecki. She’s loved medical school, particularly her clinical rotation in internal medicine. “On that rotation, I realized how rewarding it was to guide a patient through every aspect of their care...It has also become increasingly clear that focusing on adult medicine provides the ability to dive deeper into more complicated concepts of pathophysiology and treatment while also allowing variety. I value the ability to learn many of each subspecialty’s intricacies and to learn about multi-system disease processes...I enjoy the puzzle of diagnosing complex patients.”

Prandecki has no doubts about her choice of a medical career.

“At the end of the day, many of us wonder what life is all about. I believe that each person in this world has a purpose for living, whether it is as the support system in a friend’s life or as the creator of a charity donating food for millions of children. Because each life is so valuable, I want to be part of the team of heroes whose mission is to give those people a longer, healthier life, so they may fulfill that purpose set out for them.”