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Welcome to American Heritage School's Patriot Podcast, hosted by the students of the podcast class at the AHS campus in downtown Salt Lake City. Each episode features students interviewing professionals, experts, and inspiring guests to explore real-world experiences through the lens of The Seven Principles of Personal and Civil Liberty. These conversations are designed to uplift, educate, and spark meaningful dialogue within the family.
Tune in with your family each week to learn together, reflect on the values that matter most, and be inspired to live with greater purpose and principle.
Learn more about The Seven Principles of Personal and Civil Liberty here: https://slc.americanheritageschool.org/the-seven-principles
What's up? What's up? What's up?
Speaker 2:We're here at American Heritage School
Dr. Sarah Franklin:in Salt Lake City, and this is the Patriot Podcast
Nodoka:where we get to talk to different professionals
Speaker 2:about their awesome jobs. At AHS, we strive to live the seven principles of personal and civil liberty.
Nodoka:So we'll be talking to each professional
Matthew:about how they apply
Dr. Sarah Franklin:these principles each day.
Matthew:Let's dive right
Speaker 2:in.
Nodoka:Let's dive right in.
Speaker 2:Let's dive right in.
Nodoka:Hi. I'm Noda Kaito. Welcome to the American Heritage School Patriot Podcast.
Matthew:Today, we are privileged to talk to doctor Sarah Franklin. Doctor. Sarah Franklin is associate professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Utah and is also an associate director with the rural and underserved in the School of Medicine. She is passionate about exposing young individuals to new career paths in medicine and science, creating meaningful educational opportunities for students and mentoring them along their academic journey. Lastly, doctor Franklin is a passionate humanitarian who started Hope Humanitarian in May 2016 in response to the world's refugee crisis.
Matthew:Doctor Franklin, we are looking forward to learning from you today.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm really excited to be here.
Nodoka:Doctor Franklin, will you please give our listeners a brief self introduction, including your education and career track? How did he become interested in medical research? And will you also tell us about your humanitarian work?
Dr. Sarah Franklin:Yes, I'd love to. I grew up in rural Utah, Grew up on a cattle ranch. I loved exploring mystery novels, watching the x files. Have you guys ever heard of that? I really loved a lot of that exploratory and discovery things in my life.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:And as I started in my academic journey, I had a lot of wonderful teachers that we didn't have exposure to a lot of things in this small town, but they created a lot of field trips for us to go to Cedar City and see cadaver lab to see the different parts of the the human body both inside and outside and what like a diseased lung looks like. Wow. So really fun opportunities there. And then as I got a little bit older, I also had the opportunity to start college classes a little bit early when I was 16. There was a close community college right next to the high school.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:And one of my first classes that I took there was chemistry one zero one, and I just loved it. It was part of that discovery phase that I really loved, and that started me on the journey down the chemistry path. And I loved chemistry, and I thought I wanted to stay in chemistry, I thought I wanted to stay and do research, or work in a clinical research lab. Mhmm. And once I started down that path, I decided to do an internship at Pacific Northwest National Labs in Washington.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:And that was where I was first introduced to the concept of biochemistry. So I didn't have any biochemistry courses in my high school and even the community college that was close by did not also have biochemistry. And so I had never even heard of biochemistry. So it's a subfield of chemistry. And when I was first introduced to it at PNNL during my internship, I just fell in love with it and I knew, you know, I went back to college that after that summer and immediately changed my major to biochemistry.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:Okay. And that kind of started me on that career path to stay in what's called basic science research.
Nodoka:I also love to study biology and chemistry. So that sounds so good. Yeah.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:I ended up getting a bachelor's in biochemistry and then a PhD in biochemistry. Okay. And I actually first started studying the eye. So my dissertation work was on an eye disease. In the sciences, once you finish a PhD, you go on to do additional training that's called a postdoctoral fellowship.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:Okay. So it's similar to a residency for a medical doctor, but it's additional training once you have your degree that's really focused on what you wanna do. And that's when I kind of switched to the to the heart. And so I ended up studying the heart while I was at UCLA before I started my own research lab.
Matthew:At American Heritage School, we try to live by the principles of personal and civil liberty. Which of these principles has most guided your career?
Dr. Sarah Franklin:You know, I really loved reading through your principles of personal and civil liberty. I was really impressed that these are a foundation for your school. Kind of in addition to my work as a scientist and studying the heart, I have also been involved in humanitarian work. And with that humanitarian work, I've had a great privilege to travel around the world Mhmm. And to visit a lot of places where people are really struggling.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:So we have worked with a lot of refugees as well as orphans. And so oftentimes we visited refugee camps where people had very little. And I was always impressed with how generous and kind those people were, that in the face of having very little, having to leave their homes, they often met us with great generosity and kindness. And that was always something that stuck out with me. Kind of along those lines, and some of the experiences I've had within that, I would say the two principles that kind of stuck out to me in reading through your personal and civil liberty principles was that God is our loving heavenly father, and that he's endowed each of his children with the gifts of life, the freedom to choose, and a divine identity and purpose.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:And I really really love that last part, a divine identity and purpose. There's different phases of life. Sometimes you have phases that are just really joyful and happy, and then we all go through phases where they may be really hard and be accompanied by tears or just anxiety. We'll all experience all of those in our life. But I think at the end of the day, it can be really grounding to know that I have a divine identity and purpose, that I'm here for a reason.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:There might be times where you wonder, why am I here? What is my purpose? This feels so pointless or hopeless. And not only have I felt those things at times in my life, but I've seen a lot of people who have felt those at times in their life. And there's even been times where I've been I've been speaking to other people about humanitarian work, they've they've asked, you know, is how do you deal with that emotionally?
Dr. Sarah Franklin:Does it feel like you go there and it's just a place that like God has abandoned people? And I always say no, it's actually the exact opposite. More than any place I've ever experienced in my life, they have God in their heart, so close to their heart. And when you lose everything in your life, your home, your possessions, you start to focus on the basics of of humanity. Right?
Dr. Sarah Franklin:You start thinking more about and valuing your family members, Valuing the people around you even if they aren't your family members. Even valuing the small and simple things of life that when you do have a pillow and a blanket Mhmm. Even if you're sleeping on the ground, you know, you have a few comforting things. Or one time I will never forget is in a refugee camp in Greece. We were working with refugees and they had food rations that they were given every day.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:Very basic plain food. But Mhmm. Oranges are very abundant in Greece. And so every day, every person got one orange and that was the only fresh food they got. It was also the only sweet thing they ever got.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:And we were there for a week and as we were going about our work, we were trying to help them with food and clothing and some other projects. Mhmm. They were so kind to save their orange that they got every day in the hopes that we might pass by their tent that day and they could give it to us as a gift. I know a lot of times in my life, if my nieces and nephews are coming over, I wanna take my favorite cookies, my Oreos, and I'm gonna hide them. Right?
Dr. Sarah Franklin:I'm gonna hide them in the back of the cupboard because I wanna save them for me. Yeah. And it was just the exact opposite with them. They would take their most valuable thing, their their orange that they had every and that's what they would save to give to us as a gift.
Nodoka:Thank you. What interests or skills should a student develop now to succeed within the medical and science fields? Why do you recommend a high school student explore profession in these fields?
Dr. Sarah Franklin:You know, the University of Utah is a very interesting place. They have a lot of opportunities.
Nodoka:Oh yeah. And one of
Dr. Sarah Franklin:the things that's really wonderful about them is that they have multiple hospitals there on campus, and that's right next to all of the research facilities. So not only are there a lot of patients that are coming, but there's a lot of scientists that are studying various diseases.
Nodoka:Oh, I didn't know that.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:Because we typically think of a medical doctor sees a patient, and then a scientist discovers things. Yeah. But what really naturally happens at the University of Utah is that you have doctors and scientists that are all working together to really explore human health Mhmm. Understand human health
Nodoka:Oh, yeah.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:And then take it to the next level to develop new therapies, new tools, and really to be able to help humans with whatever health condition that they have. So one of the things that I would say is if that's something that's interesting to you, to try to get exposed to that field earlier on, so that you can really kind of understand what an individual would do in that field and then also if that's really something that you like and wanna go into. It can be hard to decide where Would you wanna go into one or another field, Right? So I think what really helps is once you get exposed to something more fully, then you can say, oh, I loved that. Or, oh my gosh, I hated that.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:I definitely don't wanna go there. Right? Or sometimes when you get exposed to something like me, I got exposed to chemistry and I loved it so much. But it wasn't until I got exposed to chemistry that then I found out about biochemistry. So sometimes you have to travel down that path Uh-huh.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:Start down the path, right? Because sometimes we get so scared to even start down the path that we don't take those steps. But sometimes it's starting down that path that you learn firsthand, okay, I do love this or I don't love that or oh, I liked this but what I found I loved even more was this other thing that I only learned by going down the path. So I would say if there's opportunities to shadow somebody in the medical field or the science field, if there are opportunities to do internships or fellowships, look for those opportunities. Or if you come across podcasts online or videos online to learn more about someone that's posted about what their career journey was.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:All of those things can help you better understand if that might be something that you wanna go into.
Nodoka:I'm so glad to hear that. I think the other
Dr. Sarah Franklin:thing too is I interact with a lot of medical students or aspiring medical students. And one of the things that we always talk through them is what are all the positives or the pros about being a medical doctor and what are all the cons or the negative things? Because any job's gonna have positives and negatives.
Nodoka:Yeah. Definitely.
Dr. Sarah Franklin:But when you can kind of understand what is the full picture, it's gonna help you make a better decision. Mhmm.
Matthew:We ask every person we interview to share a joke with us. So before we finish our interview, will you share your favorite joke with us?
Dr. Sarah Franklin:Yes. I'd love to. Why should you never trust Adams?
Matthew:Why?
Dr. Sarah Franklin:Because they make up everything. What? Thank
Nodoka:you so much, Doctor. Franklin, for taking the time to talk with us today.
Matthew:Yeah. Thank you.
Nodoka:Thank you. Thank you so much. We hope you enjoyed listening to our podcast.
Speaker 2:Special thanks to our guest today.
Nodoka:Our music was generously provided by the Lyceum Orchestra.
Speaker 2:That's it for American Heritage School Patriot Podcast.
Nodoka:See you next time.