- Joined
- Jun 2, 2004
- Messages
- 251
- Reaction score
- 0
sorry guys...but maybe sombody out there will
The sun was down and she was pacing again. ?Time for bed, Miss Thelma.? I grabbed her elderly hand, worn from years of housework, gentle squeezes, and tickling little feet and began to coax her toward the room at the end of the hall. She stopped dead in her tracks and resisted me with every ounce of her eighty-year-old frame. ?But Kelly there?s a ghost in there!? A ghost?! Tears were forming at the corners of her eyes as she backed away cautiously. I looped my arm around hers, ?Oh Thelma, let?s go see about this ghost.? She looked at me, terrified and unsure, and squeezed my arm with unexpected strength. I etched forward a few steps with her in tow and proclaimed in my most confident voice that I was not afraid of ghosts and would scare any ghosts away that dared to come out. We searched the closet, under the bed, and in the cabinets and found no ghost. In a few minutes she was in her pajamas warm beneath the blankets, confident that I had ?scared away? the intruder. Walking down the hall of Gazebo Nursing Facility, I thought to myself how frightening it must be to suffer from Alzheimer?s disease. In all the depression and amidst the cloud of despair that hovers over Gazebo I felt a warm satisfaction and sensed a smile coming to my face. My dreams for medicine were coming back.
I took a second job at the nursing home completely under duress. After a horrible summer dealing with the repercussions of being a victim of identity fraud and the unexpected death of my grandfather, I found myself with an empty bank account and the first of the month rapidly approaching. Though my eager aspirations for medical school were lost in a sea of disillusionment I was grateful to get a job with my EMT-I training but still was hesitant to enter the seemingly depressing profession of geriatric care. My first day consisted of learning to change diapers and to ?swing em? and fling em?? into and out of the bed. The work was at sometimes grueling with sixteen-hour days and a sore back from the constant lifting but as my relationships with the residents grew I remembered what it was about being a physician that had caught my eye and sent my passions ablaze. Looking at their medical charts and discussing Alzheimer?s disease, Parkinson?s disease and Hospice care with the nurses I knew that the road to becoming a physician was one I wanted to take no matter what adversity came with me.
Before the trials of that summer derailed my plans I had followed my aspirations to become a physician with reckless abandonment. In my freshman year I took extra courses at the local junior college to obtain my EMT-B certificate. In my clinical rotations I was able to join an ER team in saving a cardiac arrest patient by administering CPR for the first time. It was awesome to witness the birth of a baby boy to a young couple and humbling to sit with a lonely teenaged overdose patient as she tearfully relayed her story. My experiences impacted me so much that I could not bear to see them end. I decided to continue and earn an EMT-I certification despite the difficulty of juggling full-time status at two different academic institutions. My first intubation was on an elderly mentally ******ed man from the Brenham State School who was getting a nerve stimulator to reduce his recurrent seizures. I was able to visit him later at the school where my mother is a nurse and relish in the success of his surgery knowing that I had somehow, however small a way, made his life a little better. Once I completed the requirements for the EMT-Intermediate I got a job at the Student Rec Center on campus as a medic. Everyday I have the opportunity to interact with my peers and develop leadership skills. All these experiences solidified in my mind the goal of becoming a physician.
I don't know what first gave me the idea to pursue medicine. Perhaps it was the late night house visits I tagged along with my mom, a Hospice nurse, watching her gently console a grieving relative or speak words of comfort while adjusting the pillow of a terminally ill patient. Maybe it was the grief in my heart when a young African girl tearfully revealed that she had contracted "the killing disease" from her uncle. Two months in South Africa before my freshman year have left images of A.I.D.S burned in my memory. Sometimes I think that maybe its the days at Health For All, a free clinic serving unprivileged citizens in my community, that I get to educate diabetics about healthy exercise and nutrition or listen attentively to the painful stories of members of my community who battle against poverty and unemployment. No particular moment in time, no precise second can I honestly say was the "golden moment" in which I decided that I wanted to be a physician. I know that it is a part of who I am and what kind of person I long to be. I see myself as a physician living in the daily rut of life right beside my patients, seeing them through the dirt and the glory that life seems to bring everyday, and scaring away the ghosts of life as best I can.
The sun was down and she was pacing again. ?Time for bed, Miss Thelma.? I grabbed her elderly hand, worn from years of housework, gentle squeezes, and tickling little feet and began to coax her toward the room at the end of the hall. She stopped dead in her tracks and resisted me with every ounce of her eighty-year-old frame. ?But Kelly there?s a ghost in there!? A ghost?! Tears were forming at the corners of her eyes as she backed away cautiously. I looped my arm around hers, ?Oh Thelma, let?s go see about this ghost.? She looked at me, terrified and unsure, and squeezed my arm with unexpected strength. I etched forward a few steps with her in tow and proclaimed in my most confident voice that I was not afraid of ghosts and would scare any ghosts away that dared to come out. We searched the closet, under the bed, and in the cabinets and found no ghost. In a few minutes she was in her pajamas warm beneath the blankets, confident that I had ?scared away? the intruder. Walking down the hall of Gazebo Nursing Facility, I thought to myself how frightening it must be to suffer from Alzheimer?s disease. In all the depression and amidst the cloud of despair that hovers over Gazebo I felt a warm satisfaction and sensed a smile coming to my face. My dreams for medicine were coming back.
I took a second job at the nursing home completely under duress. After a horrible summer dealing with the repercussions of being a victim of identity fraud and the unexpected death of my grandfather, I found myself with an empty bank account and the first of the month rapidly approaching. Though my eager aspirations for medical school were lost in a sea of disillusionment I was grateful to get a job with my EMT-I training but still was hesitant to enter the seemingly depressing profession of geriatric care. My first day consisted of learning to change diapers and to ?swing em? and fling em?? into and out of the bed. The work was at sometimes grueling with sixteen-hour days and a sore back from the constant lifting but as my relationships with the residents grew I remembered what it was about being a physician that had caught my eye and sent my passions ablaze. Looking at their medical charts and discussing Alzheimer?s disease, Parkinson?s disease and Hospice care with the nurses I knew that the road to becoming a physician was one I wanted to take no matter what adversity came with me.
Before the trials of that summer derailed my plans I had followed my aspirations to become a physician with reckless abandonment. In my freshman year I took extra courses at the local junior college to obtain my EMT-B certificate. In my clinical rotations I was able to join an ER team in saving a cardiac arrest patient by administering CPR for the first time. It was awesome to witness the birth of a baby boy to a young couple and humbling to sit with a lonely teenaged overdose patient as she tearfully relayed her story. My experiences impacted me so much that I could not bear to see them end. I decided to continue and earn an EMT-I certification despite the difficulty of juggling full-time status at two different academic institutions. My first intubation was on an elderly mentally ******ed man from the Brenham State School who was getting a nerve stimulator to reduce his recurrent seizures. I was able to visit him later at the school where my mother is a nurse and relish in the success of his surgery knowing that I had somehow, however small a way, made his life a little better. Once I completed the requirements for the EMT-Intermediate I got a job at the Student Rec Center on campus as a medic. Everyday I have the opportunity to interact with my peers and develop leadership skills. All these experiences solidified in my mind the goal of becoming a physician.
I don't know what first gave me the idea to pursue medicine. Perhaps it was the late night house visits I tagged along with my mom, a Hospice nurse, watching her gently console a grieving relative or speak words of comfort while adjusting the pillow of a terminally ill patient. Maybe it was the grief in my heart when a young African girl tearfully revealed that she had contracted "the killing disease" from her uncle. Two months in South Africa before my freshman year have left images of A.I.D.S burned in my memory. Sometimes I think that maybe its the days at Health For All, a free clinic serving unprivileged citizens in my community, that I get to educate diabetics about healthy exercise and nutrition or listen attentively to the painful stories of members of my community who battle against poverty and unemployment. No particular moment in time, no precise second can I honestly say was the "golden moment" in which I decided that I wanted to be a physician. I know that it is a part of who I am and what kind of person I long to be. I see myself as a physician living in the daily rut of life right beside my patients, seeing them through the dirt and the glory that life seems to bring everyday, and scaring away the ghosts of life as best I can.
