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- Sep 21, 2003
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So for those who read my original PS, after rewriting it with all your suggestions in mind, I'm not sure I still need to include my sexuality. However, I've kept it in this one to see what you think. Also, I need to cut this thing down a bit so comments on that are cool too. Any constructive criticism both good and bad from anyone are greatly welcomed and appreciated! Thanks again!
TD
I was always at the brink of discovering something new, especially when it came to the squishy insides of various invertebrates during class or bulbous plants I encountered. Nothing was safe from this self-ascribed would-be-neurosurgeon. My first definition of a brain surgeon came from my grand father who claimed to have once practiced the profession, not in a hospital, but in a slaughterhouse. From this time on, my destiny was clear, yet the underlying reasons compelling me towards it were not. As I grew older, every subsequent experience with medicine thereafter simply focused this desire and helped to further my understanding of it.
My parents valued travel as a learning tool as highly as books at school. This philosophy greatly benefited me as I became a very well-traveled and worldly young man, permanently scarred by the bite of the travel bug. Consequently, international medicine became my passion and going to Africa to work in a medical setting had always been my dream. When I finally had the chance, I went to live and work in Dakar, Senegal. It was difficult at first due to the oppressive heat and pollution, the myriad of insects, and the noisy traffic. I had to make an extra effort each day to avoid the pestering beggar children, the tenacious street venders and the pickpockets. The culture shock, including my having to bargain for even the smallest item such as toilet paper and the difficult African accent in their French added to the difficult adjustment period. However, the longer I lived there, the more I could put everything into context and perspective. I found that the beggar children were being forced to beg to pay for their religious education, the bugs could be kept at bay with a net, the heat eventually dissipated, and the street vendors each had a story. In fact, I learned to love these things as well as the overt generosity of the people, the beauty of their culture and land, and the way impossible never seemed to prevent them from persevering. Working in a hospital where the patients would have no pillows, blankets, food, medicines, or comfort without their family providing it was hard to watch. This was especially true after my own experience in a hospital in Burkina Faso where I endured my own bout with malaria. Because it was ubiquitous, the disease desensitized me so that it seemed as benign as a simple case of the flu. However, after experiencing its intense fever and shakes, profuse sweating, wasting, and incredible fatigue on a first-hand basis, it quickly reminded me that it had the power to create great suffering with devastating results. I retained this lesson while shadowing a few Senegalese doctors and witnessed their tremendous dedication to the ailing people. Unfortunately, their number is too few, which makes wading through the morass of problems facing their health care system even more arduous. However, my hope is still to join them as I would be proud to call them my colleagues.
My most significant experience in medicine domestically has been running the Swedish Family Medicine clinic laboratory in the inner city of Seattle. It has greatly confirmed my call to medicine because of the amazing examples the physicians have set for me and of the very diverse patient population. Many of the patients are subscribers to Medicaid or Medicare, are immigrants, or have no insurance at all, while many others have middle to upper middle class backgrounds. Such diversity in socio-economic status provides a wide range of social and medical issues from which to learn. In one day, I have drawn a young woman who lost her modeling contract to her heroine addiction, an upper-class woman needing her wax-impacted ears washed out, and a fourteen year old pregnant Iraqi war refugee. During each of these encounters, I made sure to employ the techniques I learned through my own interactions with patients and from some of the physicians here while shadowing them in the clinic and in the hospital. In acting with professionalism, warmth, compassion, listening skills, a sense of humor, and in following through on promises, I discovered that I could acquire the patients' trust and deliver exceptional health care. I found that I could easily establish a strong rapport with the immigrant population, speaking French with a pregnant Congolese woman, Arabic with the many Sudanese refugees, and Spanish with a crime victim from Honduras. I also discovered that by discussing my travels to a patient's home country, I could connect with them instantly. Never before have I worked in a setting that allows me to use these skills and experiences in such a positive and influential way.
Both of these experiences pale in comparison to the level of understanding and compassion I have gained through finally accepting myself as a gay man. Over the past year, I won the fight against my own sexuality and in the process gained a clearer sense of what being tolerant truly means. In acting as part of the majority population my whole life, I was always sympathetic to the plight of the minority populations. However, I never truly understood or empathized with what they have been enduring until I, myself, faced the injustices of discrimination for simply being who I am. I have also developed a stronger appreciation and respect for integrity and the truth.
As a result of these events in my life, I have inevitably been lead down the same path on which I began twenty years ago, though my intentions have shifted. Rather than cutting things open for the pure joy of liberating their contents, I now aim to be a voice for the invisible in the medical field by serving the underserved both domestically and internationally. I feel a call to service to every person regardless of their race, economic situation, social history, sexual orientation, or national origin. In being a provider who speaks the patient's language, has an understanding of their culture, and is open to discussing any issues involving their alternative lifestyle, I will be able to continue to establish a strong bond of trust and thus deliver exceptional care. I only hope that by being an outspoken and upstanding physician that I too may be an example to others so that integrity, tolerance, compassion, and open-mindedness become staple principles
TD
I was always at the brink of discovering something new, especially when it came to the squishy insides of various invertebrates during class or bulbous plants I encountered. Nothing was safe from this self-ascribed would-be-neurosurgeon. My first definition of a brain surgeon came from my grand father who claimed to have once practiced the profession, not in a hospital, but in a slaughterhouse. From this time on, my destiny was clear, yet the underlying reasons compelling me towards it were not. As I grew older, every subsequent experience with medicine thereafter simply focused this desire and helped to further my understanding of it.
My parents valued travel as a learning tool as highly as books at school. This philosophy greatly benefited me as I became a very well-traveled and worldly young man, permanently scarred by the bite of the travel bug. Consequently, international medicine became my passion and going to Africa to work in a medical setting had always been my dream. When I finally had the chance, I went to live and work in Dakar, Senegal. It was difficult at first due to the oppressive heat and pollution, the myriad of insects, and the noisy traffic. I had to make an extra effort each day to avoid the pestering beggar children, the tenacious street venders and the pickpockets. The culture shock, including my having to bargain for even the smallest item such as toilet paper and the difficult African accent in their French added to the difficult adjustment period. However, the longer I lived there, the more I could put everything into context and perspective. I found that the beggar children were being forced to beg to pay for their religious education, the bugs could be kept at bay with a net, the heat eventually dissipated, and the street vendors each had a story. In fact, I learned to love these things as well as the overt generosity of the people, the beauty of their culture and land, and the way impossible never seemed to prevent them from persevering. Working in a hospital where the patients would have no pillows, blankets, food, medicines, or comfort without their family providing it was hard to watch. This was especially true after my own experience in a hospital in Burkina Faso where I endured my own bout with malaria. Because it was ubiquitous, the disease desensitized me so that it seemed as benign as a simple case of the flu. However, after experiencing its intense fever and shakes, profuse sweating, wasting, and incredible fatigue on a first-hand basis, it quickly reminded me that it had the power to create great suffering with devastating results. I retained this lesson while shadowing a few Senegalese doctors and witnessed their tremendous dedication to the ailing people. Unfortunately, their number is too few, which makes wading through the morass of problems facing their health care system even more arduous. However, my hope is still to join them as I would be proud to call them my colleagues.
My most significant experience in medicine domestically has been running the Swedish Family Medicine clinic laboratory in the inner city of Seattle. It has greatly confirmed my call to medicine because of the amazing examples the physicians have set for me and of the very diverse patient population. Many of the patients are subscribers to Medicaid or Medicare, are immigrants, or have no insurance at all, while many others have middle to upper middle class backgrounds. Such diversity in socio-economic status provides a wide range of social and medical issues from which to learn. In one day, I have drawn a young woman who lost her modeling contract to her heroine addiction, an upper-class woman needing her wax-impacted ears washed out, and a fourteen year old pregnant Iraqi war refugee. During each of these encounters, I made sure to employ the techniques I learned through my own interactions with patients and from some of the physicians here while shadowing them in the clinic and in the hospital. In acting with professionalism, warmth, compassion, listening skills, a sense of humor, and in following through on promises, I discovered that I could acquire the patients' trust and deliver exceptional health care. I found that I could easily establish a strong rapport with the immigrant population, speaking French with a pregnant Congolese woman, Arabic with the many Sudanese refugees, and Spanish with a crime victim from Honduras. I also discovered that by discussing my travels to a patient's home country, I could connect with them instantly. Never before have I worked in a setting that allows me to use these skills and experiences in such a positive and influential way.
Both of these experiences pale in comparison to the level of understanding and compassion I have gained through finally accepting myself as a gay man. Over the past year, I won the fight against my own sexuality and in the process gained a clearer sense of what being tolerant truly means. In acting as part of the majority population my whole life, I was always sympathetic to the plight of the minority populations. However, I never truly understood or empathized with what they have been enduring until I, myself, faced the injustices of discrimination for simply being who I am. I have also developed a stronger appreciation and respect for integrity and the truth.
As a result of these events in my life, I have inevitably been lead down the same path on which I began twenty years ago, though my intentions have shifted. Rather than cutting things open for the pure joy of liberating their contents, I now aim to be a voice for the invisible in the medical field by serving the underserved both domestically and internationally. I feel a call to service to every person regardless of their race, economic situation, social history, sexual orientation, or national origin. In being a provider who speaks the patient's language, has an understanding of their culture, and is open to discussing any issues involving their alternative lifestyle, I will be able to continue to establish a strong bond of trust and thus deliver exceptional care. I only hope that by being an outspoken and upstanding physician that I too may be an example to others so that integrity, tolerance, compassion, and open-mindedness become staple principles
