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Surgeon finds MUSC ‘best of everything’ by Heather Woolwine Public Relations On June 1, Wendy Cornett, M.D., joined the accomplished staff of the Department of Surgery Surgical Oncology division.   With a special focus on endocrinology, Cornett arrived at MUSC after receiving a master’s degree in clinical research and finishing a fellowship in surgical oncology research at Duke University in North Carolina.   “Coming here was really the best of everything,” she said. “Why not MUSC? It offers the opportunity to conduct research and clinical practice in an environment and community that is great to live in.”     Originally from Ohio, Cornett’s parents encouraged her from a young age to pursue her medical aspirations. “No one in my family prior to me had gone to college, so there wasn’t anyone who could tell me that I wasn’t capable of doing it. My parents didn’t make a lot of money, but they supported me in every way they could.”   With the help of scholarships and financial aid, Cornett graduated from Wittenberg University with a bachelor’s degree in biology and then began medical school at the University of Cincinnati. “I was pretty sure that I wanted to be a family doctor and in anticipation of that, I worked in a rural family practice. The physician there excused me one day so that I could observe and assist during a surgery for one of our patients. I fell in love with surgery that day. I was hooked.”   Cornett threw out her family medicine internship applications and filled out the ones for surgery. The rest, as they say, was history.   Going on her second full month at MUSC, Cornett explained what lies in her immediate future.   “I’m drawn to endocrinology and therefore focus on the thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal glands, so my clinical practice and research interests involve those structures. Within endocrinology, tumors are fairly common, but most are not malignant,” she said. “I spent 13 months in Australia studying endocrine surgery and two years at Duke looking at very rare, hereditary cases involving endocrine cancers. I’m interested in all types of thyroid cancers, and I’m also involved with some breast cancers.”   While Cornett explained that most of the cancers she deals with are usually treatable and curable, her multidisciplinary training pushes her to discover even more about how the endocrine system works when it’s well and when it’s not.   “The Surgical Oncology division is quite strong in basic science research, but I would like to help advance the division in terms of clinical research where I can,” she said.   Cornett lives on James Island and has enjoyed her quest to learn more about her new environment, as well as its many culinary delights. “It’s pretty amazing that you can’t get a bad meal down here,” she joked.     Friday, July 15, 2005 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.