- Joined
- Dec 24, 2004
- Messages
- 729
- Reaction score
- 0
Any feedback would be great. I like it, actually. I get to talk about how I came to want medicine, my volunteer/shadowing experiences, college (had one low grade - not failing or anything), and finally my conclusion. It is pretty much error free but I do have to shorten it around 50 characters - not a prob, lol, that is like a sentence! 
Thanks!!!
--------------------------------------------
With my parents separated and my mother working days as an ER nurse, my sister and I took our daily walk after school to the hospital to meet her near the end of her shift. We waited in the supply room, where we hung out with the other nurses and physicians on the floor while we ate ice cream from the patients refrigerator. Being so young, I was always curious as to what my mother was up to while we waited. Peeking around the corner of the room, I watched my mother work on a patient in trauma one. She handled herself with such control and professionalism I just could not stop watching, wondering what might happen next.
Ever since then, I knew I was wanted to work in medicine, but it wasnt until afterward that I understood exactly why I wanted to become a physician. Years later, I found myself peeking around the same corner into trauma one once again, this time watching my grandmother. Dying of Multiple Myloma, I saw the same nurses and physicians that I had known back as a child, working on her. It was then that I understood the complexity of such a highly respected field: The dedication not only towards the education, but to the patients the ability to be a compassionate intermediate between medicine, patients, and their families, and also to be able to touch the lives of people in their most critical hour.
With each volunteer and shadowing position I took, my passion to become a physician grew exponentially. My extensive volunteering among various hospitals and organizations allowed me to test my dedication to learning this profession. While being a counselor on the volunteer staff of an international Fanconi Anemia camp for two years, I helped take care of these children stricken with leukemia. The supervisor warned us of the difficulty of being able to treat these children as regular kids and also of saying goodbye to them, not knowing which of them would return the following year. Being quite nervous at first, I quickly fell in love with each child and their selflessness, the child I was in charge of in particular; however my child did in fact pass on after the first year. This struck me deep and had a profound impact on how I viewed the preciousness and fragility of life.
I spent years volunteering in the trauma and orthopedics floor as well as emergency rooms of various hospitals. Here, the physicians and nurses took me under their wing and let me observe the direst cases such as MVAs as well as procedures such as CPR and lumbar punctures. While these experiences we indeed exciting and eye-opening, I also came to appreciate the importance of a physicians compassion, understanding and communication skills to ensure maximum trust and a strong fiduciary relationship between the physician and the patient.
I also had the opportunity to shadow physicians in a variety of specialties: surgery, internal medicine, OB/GYN, and emergency medicine. During this time, I was able to observe procedures such as an open abdominal surgery, infant circumcisions, and newborn testing. By being exposed to this environment, along with that of volunteering, I have been given some fantastic experiences to carry with me in my hopeful passage into medicine. When speaking with numerous physicians and their residents, I gained more confidence and assurance that I could successfully manage the lengthy and arduous road of becoming a respected and well-rounded physician.
My university has been an important part of this confidence as well. While the sciences have been a major part of my education, my curriculum has been comprised of a broad variety of courses. Organic chemistry, the dreaded class of undergraduates, ironically proved to be my most rewarding class. While challenging me intellectually, achieving a high mark in this course gave me a great sense of accomplishment. In the non-sciences, I truly took pleasure my medical ethics class. I feel that I benefited from this class through discussing some of the familiar and extraordinary issues surrounding the distribution and practice of health care. This course required me to look outside of my own perspective and evaluate my own principles. Learning foreign languages has been so enjoyable for me, I consider this a hobby. I have put years into learning Spanish and American Sign Language, to hopefully help take an additional step to alleviate the anxiety of communication to those of the Hispanic community who are not fluent in English as well as those hard-of-hearing. I am still hoping to master others such as Arabic and Japanese as well. I have had my fair share of struggles throughout my education. While the intensity of the material increased with every semester, I was and still am determined to master the material, earn my degree, and advance my knowledge and abilities into the medical arena.
By integrating my passion, past experiences, and intellectual ability, I hope to illuminate the complete package of an aspiring physician. I know I am ready for the rigor of a physicians way of life. I have faith that I can invoke a greater trust between physicians and their patients. I also hope to be an advocate in this profession and inspire others to consider this noble vocation. Most of all, I hope to fulfill my own life-long aspiration and live each day of my life to help serve my community and beyond.
------------------------------------------
WHEW
.... well what do you think? YAY or NAY
Thanks!!!
--------------------------------------------
With my parents separated and my mother working days as an ER nurse, my sister and I took our daily walk after school to the hospital to meet her near the end of her shift. We waited in the supply room, where we hung out with the other nurses and physicians on the floor while we ate ice cream from the patients refrigerator. Being so young, I was always curious as to what my mother was up to while we waited. Peeking around the corner of the room, I watched my mother work on a patient in trauma one. She handled herself with such control and professionalism I just could not stop watching, wondering what might happen next.
Ever since then, I knew I was wanted to work in medicine, but it wasnt until afterward that I understood exactly why I wanted to become a physician. Years later, I found myself peeking around the same corner into trauma one once again, this time watching my grandmother. Dying of Multiple Myloma, I saw the same nurses and physicians that I had known back as a child, working on her. It was then that I understood the complexity of such a highly respected field: The dedication not only towards the education, but to the patients the ability to be a compassionate intermediate between medicine, patients, and their families, and also to be able to touch the lives of people in their most critical hour.
With each volunteer and shadowing position I took, my passion to become a physician grew exponentially. My extensive volunteering among various hospitals and organizations allowed me to test my dedication to learning this profession. While being a counselor on the volunteer staff of an international Fanconi Anemia camp for two years, I helped take care of these children stricken with leukemia. The supervisor warned us of the difficulty of being able to treat these children as regular kids and also of saying goodbye to them, not knowing which of them would return the following year. Being quite nervous at first, I quickly fell in love with each child and their selflessness, the child I was in charge of in particular; however my child did in fact pass on after the first year. This struck me deep and had a profound impact on how I viewed the preciousness and fragility of life.
I spent years volunteering in the trauma and orthopedics floor as well as emergency rooms of various hospitals. Here, the physicians and nurses took me under their wing and let me observe the direst cases such as MVAs as well as procedures such as CPR and lumbar punctures. While these experiences we indeed exciting and eye-opening, I also came to appreciate the importance of a physicians compassion, understanding and communication skills to ensure maximum trust and a strong fiduciary relationship between the physician and the patient.
I also had the opportunity to shadow physicians in a variety of specialties: surgery, internal medicine, OB/GYN, and emergency medicine. During this time, I was able to observe procedures such as an open abdominal surgery, infant circumcisions, and newborn testing. By being exposed to this environment, along with that of volunteering, I have been given some fantastic experiences to carry with me in my hopeful passage into medicine. When speaking with numerous physicians and their residents, I gained more confidence and assurance that I could successfully manage the lengthy and arduous road of becoming a respected and well-rounded physician.
My university has been an important part of this confidence as well. While the sciences have been a major part of my education, my curriculum has been comprised of a broad variety of courses. Organic chemistry, the dreaded class of undergraduates, ironically proved to be my most rewarding class. While challenging me intellectually, achieving a high mark in this course gave me a great sense of accomplishment. In the non-sciences, I truly took pleasure my medical ethics class. I feel that I benefited from this class through discussing some of the familiar and extraordinary issues surrounding the distribution and practice of health care. This course required me to look outside of my own perspective and evaluate my own principles. Learning foreign languages has been so enjoyable for me, I consider this a hobby. I have put years into learning Spanish and American Sign Language, to hopefully help take an additional step to alleviate the anxiety of communication to those of the Hispanic community who are not fluent in English as well as those hard-of-hearing. I am still hoping to master others such as Arabic and Japanese as well. I have had my fair share of struggles throughout my education. While the intensity of the material increased with every semester, I was and still am determined to master the material, earn my degree, and advance my knowledge and abilities into the medical arena.
By integrating my passion, past experiences, and intellectual ability, I hope to illuminate the complete package of an aspiring physician. I know I am ready for the rigor of a physicians way of life. I have faith that I can invoke a greater trust between physicians and their patients. I also hope to be an advocate in this profession and inspire others to consider this noble vocation. Most of all, I hope to fulfill my own life-long aspiration and live each day of my life to help serve my community and beyond.
------------------------------------------
WHEW
.... well what do you think? YAY or NAY 
