Wendy Smith had been in the UVA Health University Medical Center’s neurology unit for a few days when, late one weekend night, a patient care technician came in to take her vitals before her next infusion. He addressed her as “professor Smith,” which was odd, she said, because everyone else on the floor had been calling her by her first name.
She looked up. The name on the room’s whiteboard was “Arnav” – a name she vaguely recognized. But her brain was foggy, and the young man in scrubs looked different from the student she remembered. Then he told her. He was in Smith’s Time and Memory in the Arts course several weeks prior.
“I was like, ‘What are you doing here?’” Smith said. “It was surreal.”
That recognition had come to Arnav Bandam a few moments earlier, when he spotted a notation on her chart: “University of Virginia employee.” He stuck with calling her “professor Smith” at the door. Calling patients by their first name is standard practice for patient care techs, but it felt wrong here, he said.
Bandam works as a patient care technician on UVA Health University Medical Center’s neurology and neuro-ICU floors. In a chance encounter, he cared for Smith, his former professor, when she was treated for migraines earlier this year. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)
“I was mostly surprised,” Bandam said. “I knew that I was treating the greater Charlottesville community, but it hadn’t really clicked until I was helping someone I previously knew.”
The encounter was unlikely, but not entirely surprising. The first-year student from Fairfax has been working toward a career in medicine since before he set foot on Grounds. At 16, he cold-emailed Dr. Ukpong Eyo, the principal investigator at 鶹ƽ MicroglEyo Lab – which studies microglia, the brain’s immune defense cells, and their role in brain development – and was invited to join Eyo’s team. For years, he conducted remote research on the links between brain vascularity and Alzheimer’s disease under the supervision of postdoctoral researcher Tré Mills. He earned his EMT certification last summer, and once at UVA, he continued the lab work in person.
Now, Bandam spends roughly 10 hours a week in that lab and another 12 as a patient care technician on UVA Health’s neurology and neuro-ICU floors, taking vitals, assisting nurses and helping patients with daily needs on a weekly 12-hour shift.
“It does get tiring,” he said, “but it’s definitely rewarding.”
When Bandam filled out his first-year engagement course preferences before arriving last fall, he gravitated toward Smith’s Time and Memory in the Arts course – partly for scheduling reasons, and partly because the subject touched on something he already cared about: how the brain makes sense of the world.
The aesthetics engagement course runs for seven weeks and centers on discussion and active learning. Smith says the format allows students and professors to get to know each other quickly, in contrast to the large lecture courses that first-year students often take.
“You may be the only professor who knows that student’s name,” she said.
Bandam poses in the MicroglEyo Lab, where he spends three days a week examining links between brain vascularity and Alzheimer’s disease. In high school, he began contributing to the lab’s research remotely after cold-emailing principal investigator Dr. Ukpong Eyo. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)
Bandam found Smith’s course included more neuroscience content than he expected. “This class showed me a lot more about the intersection of art, psychology, philosophy and science,” he said.
When the class screened “See Memory,” a documentary about an artist with PTSD exploring neuroplasticity, Bandam stayed afterward to keep discussing.
“He would stay after class whenever we talked about things more specifically related to neuroscience,” Smith said.
Smith was admitted to UVA Health’s neurology unit in January for treatment of a severe migraine that had persisted for six weeks and required several days of IV infusions. She had been in the hospital for a few days when Bandam came in to take her vitals.
They talked about Bandam’s dream of going to medical school, about the course they shared and the strangeness of the moment.
Bandam came back in the morning to take her vitals again. Smith, reflecting on the encounter, kept returning to what it means for a first-year student to spend his weekend nights on a hospital floor.
