- Joined
- Jun 5, 2013
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- 1,096
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Onomatopoeia! I throw aside my First Aid that I’ve been perusing and run to Dr. Ben Carson, who’s laying on the floor, unresponsive. You might be wondering how I got into this situation. It all started some decades ago. My father, a blood and guts military trauma surgeon, passed me a 10 blade as I took my first breaths on this earth and prompted me to cut my own umbilical cord. Well versed in aseptic technique and not properly scrubbed in, I declined. This was my first test, and I passed. The weeks turned into months and as my peripheral nerves progressively myelinated, my dexterity started to match my intellect. While the charlatans in my advanced daycare were playing with blocks, I was practicing mattress sutures with 12-0 nylon. I recall the flight into New York vividly. The pilot’s parabolic trajectory was inefficient, but I digress. A glimpse of the Statue of Liberty with her beautiful patina caught my eye through the oval window. Surgical green. I later learned of the inscription at the base of the robed figure, which has brought hospitable words to underrepresented in medicine immigrants such as myself. That lithe arm reaching out over New Jersey waters invoked the noble calling that all of those interested in a pursing a career in medicine feel, to go to medical school at John Hopkins University. After completing what many may call a rigorous education, and after diligently and selflessly pushing a food cart around a level 1 trauma center, gaining invaluable clinical experience, I was ready. Definitely not through nepotism I was able to secure a research position in Baltimore at a lab making breakthrough advances in the field of holistic medicine. After siring numerous first author publications, my faculty mentor, a Fellow of the American College of Diagnosticians, arranged a meeting with none other but the eminent Dr. Carson. As I waited in his antechamber, reading the hippocratic oath, it dwelled on me that what set me apart from the masses of medical school applicants is that I wanted to help people. The meeting was largely informal, and as we spoke of common interests my mind scoured the algorithms I had memorized to answer ethical conundrums. Not once had he asked me about the Krebs cycle. Was this some sort of test? Just to be sure I recited it anyway. Somewhere around Fumarate I was offered to shadow his neurosurgical service. Back to now. Its been months and my extracurricular section of AMCAS is growing, boxes are being checked. No amount of MCAT verbal passages could have prepared me for this. I jump into action, CPR. Is it 30 compressions, 2 breaths, or 30 breaths, 2 compressions? Code blue I yell, sweat dripping from my brow. I delegate responsibilities, I lead. Dammit nurse, he doesn't need an AED, he needs empathy. Eyes open…’thank you for saving my life’. Relief washes over me. Am I ready for medical school? I ask of you, would I be writing this with an electronic stethoscope around my neck if I wasn’t?
