Mary Cain, Stanford MD Student

My dad is an anesthesiologist. Growing up, I had exposure to medicine, but he was the sort of parent who didn’t push any of my sisters or I to go into medicine as well. He would come home and share his stories from work, and I heard all of the “bad,” but really focused on the moments that were just really beautiful and a sign that medicine is a privilege of a career because you get to be there on the worst days of someone’s life.

I was a professional athlete growing up. Most of my gap years were doing advocacy and trying to make sports better and safer for the next kid. I want to leave sports safer than I found it when I entered it.

I had functional popliteal artery entrapment syndrome: an artery was getting entrapped in the back of my knee and manifesting where I would lose control of my lower leg. I had the condition for seven years, and it went undiagnosed until I met Dr. Lee in 2023. I had surgery in March of 2023, and then I took the MCAT in April, and my leg was definitely swelling during it, and I was like, “Well, I can't leave.”

Now at Stanford, I’m in the Medical Scholars Research (MedScholars) program with the surgeon who did surgery on me: Dr. Jason Lee.

I came up with this research project in winter quarter and designed it with Dr. Lee and Dr. John Cabot, a resident whom I work with very closely. This is a rare condition, but we have the largest patient population that I’m aware of that’s ever been written about in the literature. I’m going back and trying to interview patients so we can better understand the diagnostic journey and long-term outcomes from the patient perspective. I’m trying to better understand what potentially impacts somebody’s ability to return to sport, but also just return to full function post-surgery. As it stands, surgical success nationwide is quoted around two of three people. I’m curious to improve those odds and hopefully better understand this patient population.

About the author

Catherine Wu is an undergraduate student at Stanford University interested in biology and the humanities. On campus, she enjoys writing for The Stanford Daily and other ways to learn and share stories of members in her community. She hopes to pursue a graduate or medical degree on a pre-med track.