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My name is Andrea Noel, I am a third year med student at the University of Minnesota.
Performance art and medicine both came when I was really young, I was in my first performance
on stage when I was four years old and when I was five years old my grandfather
who was a doctor took me on a tour of the hospital and I remember looking
through the microscopes in the blood labs and was pretty smitten with that whole process.
So both loves started pretty early.
With some free time I decided to move to New Zealand and while I was in New Zealand I applied
for Circus School and Medical School.
And I got into Circus School in Christchurch the Christchurch Polytechnical Institute
with their Circoarts program and about two weeks into the program at Christchurch I found
out I was accepted to the University of Minnesota's Medical School and I was kind
of torn there for a little while, because both of my dreams, the doors there were open.
I was extremely enthusiastic that they are letting me use the Flex MD to continue
to pursue things that I am passionate about, especially because I think that going off
and being able to do a more in depth study of comedy will help me be a better doctor,
we all know that it's difficult to really feel pain, feel as sick, when you're laughing,
and I've read a fair number of articles on humor as a healing agent, and laughter as a form
of medicine, and the things I've read are so encouraging, and the people that I've talked
to say "yes ,yes, a sense of humor it's helping me heal, it's getting me through this."
So a study of comedy, and joy and laughter, and connecting with people that I'm doing
through my, using my Flex MD to go and study clowning,
is something that I feel will take my physician skills to another level,
so the Flex MD is just a fabulous program that's really letting me combine my passions
to be the doctor that I want to.
When I moved to the Twin Cities a few years ago I started a small business,
it's called "Highly Entertaining" and it's kind of the umbrella
over all of my circus inspired interests.
And so I've been doing juggling, and balloon art, and face painting, and stilt walking,
fire dancing and some comic performance all under that umbrella.
And so all those things are a pretty regular part of my life.
I guess a lot of people find it fairly entertaining that I dropped
out of Circus School to be a doctor.