Taking Lessons From 'Survivor' To Her Job Treating Survivors
- Dr. Alison Raybould, 32, is a hematology and oncology fellow at the UNC Department of Medicine. She was also a contestant on season 37 of Survivor.
- Dr. Raybould felt her work experience would help her on the show because she was used to earn the trust of patients when she walks into a room.
- She also said her experience on the show has helped her “empathize more profoundly” with patients and considers it to be a “great privilege to care for people with cancer.”
Survivor, which first aired in 2000, brings castaways to a remote island to battle it out physically and mentally in a quest to win $1 million and the title of "Sole Survivor." The show is currently in its 42nd season.
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Dr. Raybould grew up in Kansas and went to Columbia University for undergraduate school. She then studied at Georgetown University School of Medicine before going to UNC Department of Medicine. She had taken a very structured path in life, but made the difficult decision to compete on the 37th season of Survivor.
“The stakes are higher for me than most as I am acutely aware of what I am giving up (in stepping away from my patients and my program for two months), so I will not be afraid to make big moves,” she said in her bio for the Survivor website before the start of the show. “I will fight until the very end, and then when sitting across from the jury at the final Tribal Council, they will all commend the brilliant, strategic game I played.”
Before she began Survivor: David vs. Goliath, Dr. Raybould knew her skills as a doctor would be useful during the game.
"When I walk into a patient's room, I immediately have to earn their trust, and I think that's going to be one of my strengths out here,” she said at the beginning of the season. “I'm going to use my empathy. I'm going to use my compassion so that I can earn people's trust. Then when I have to make a big move and blindside them I most definitely will."
You're a Person not a Patient: One Doctor's Priority When Meeting a New Patient
Sadly, Dr. Raybould did not make it to that final Tribal Council, but she did go far. She was voted out in fifth place, and given the chance she would return to the show “in a heartbeat.”
“The first go around, I was very aware of how my actions would impact my life outside of the island,” she said in a 2021 interview with Entertainment Weekly. “Now, I have lived through both playing and watching myself play and realized the positive impact Survivor has had personally and professionally. I feel like I am in a different place in my life and would play with less fear and without abandon.”
Further touching on how her Survivor experience has impacted her work, Dr. Raybould said competing on the show gave her a better understanding of human suffering.
"My experience of starvation, cold, pain and emotional isolation pale in comparison to what my patients experience," she said in another interview. "However, I can call to mind the emotions I felt on day 37 and empathize more profoundly with my patients."
The Doctor-Patient Relationship
Dr. Raybould should be close to finishing her fellowship and has plans to become an oncologist. When you ask her why she’s so determined to care for people with cancer, her response is exactly what you’d hope to hear as a patient.
“I feel I have this great privilege to care for people with cancer, or to give them more meaningful time by treating them with advanced therapies,” she told UNC. “I also want to give full weight to end of life discussions, because there's no scarier word out there [than cancer]. I feel such a duty to care for them. Even when the treatment stops, the caring doesn't. I think that's what appeals to me most about oncology."
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