UTHSC News: New Vice Chancellor for Research Happiest When Helping Others Solve Problems

Jessica Snowden, MD, did not set out to be a scientist. The new vice chancellor for Research at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center initially planned to be a pediatrician and a teacher.

That is, until an infectious disease fellowship expanded her view of medicine and health care.

"I was in Arkansas for my fellowship and the person whose lab I worked in and who was in charge of my training program said, 'Come try research. You never know what you're going to like until you try it,'" she recalled. "It turned out I really did like having a different way to solve the problems I was seeing in my clinical work. I could go around in the hospital and give you antibiotics for whatever is wrong with you, but I also then could go back and answer questions about, well, gee, why has this happened to you over and over again and is there something different we can do about this that might make you have a better long-term outcome."

Read more on our UT Health Science Center News website.