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Why Medicine? Essay
My earliest
impression of medicine occurred when my
mother repeatedly required the assistance of
physicians in dealing with her chronic
migraine headaches. Her doctors were always
there for her, day or night. The respect
that my parents bestowed on doctors, and the
doctors' ability to ease suffering, sparked
a desire to one day become a physician
myself. This was an ambitious goal for
someone coming from a family in which no one
had obtained a professional degree. However,
my traditional family-oriented culture,
emphasizing doing good for others,
contributed to this decision to pursue a
career in the medical field. Furthermore,
the American individualistic spirit gave me
the confidence and opportunity to undertake
a challenging medical career.
I also had
the chance to gain some firsthand experience
in the medical profession when I volunteered
for over a year in the emergency room of a
regional hospital. From my volunteer
experience, I learned the importance of
organization and effective communication
skills, and I was exposed to the diversity
that exists in my community. It has also
demonstrated to me why the American
health-care system is the best in the world;
I saw some knowledgeable minds using some
very sophisticated equipment. But I also saw
many ways it can be improved. For example,
uninsured homeless and immigrant people
would often come in, complaining of problems
they had been having for a long time.
Although we would treat these people as best
we could, a health-care system that
intervenes in such sicknesses earlier would
have minimized costs associated with
treating diseases in their later stages.
As a doctor,
I hope to participate in these changes in
order to benefit more people than are
currently being served. Doctors should be
able to serve people of all different races,
ages, backgrounds, and cultures. I intend to
use my skills and unique experiences to
achieve this vision of what I think a doctor
should be.
Uniqueness Essay
Martial arts
and medicine. They seem worlds apart, but
they both have played significant roles in
my life and for reasons that are
surprisingly similar. They both offer
challenge, require great discipline, and
necessitate a goal-oriented approach.
I first
became involved with the martial arts when I
was only 13 years old. At that time I began
studying karate in my hometown in northern
California. Even then I was a goal-oriented
individual who was attracted to the
step-by-step progression involved in
studying karate. Within a year I had earned
a brown belt (the next-to-highest ranking)
and was actually serving as an instructor at
the karate academy where I had learned the
sport. Dedication, discipline, and physical
and mental prowess were behind my success,
which included being the youngest person in
the area to attain the brown belt.
In college I
became involved in Tae Kwon Do, the Korean
counterpart of karate. This sport, too,
requires patience, determination, and a
clear mind in addition to physical strength,
endurance, and agility. Within a year I had
become president of my university's
80-member Tae Kwon Do club, which ranks
among the top sports clubs on campus. In
assuming this position I began to have the
opportunity to test myself as a leader as
well as an athlete.
One of the
reasons I became interested in medicine is
that it, too, requires a meticulous,
goal-oriented approach that is very
demanding. Of course, it also happens that
the substance of the profession holds strong
appeal for me, both in terms of the science
and the potential for serving others who are
in need.
Most of my
exposure to the profession has occurred
within the areas of surgery and emergency
medicine. After first serving as an
emergency medicine volunteer technician at a
northern California hospital (where I had a
moving experience with a young girl's
death), I acquired the EMT-1A/CPR
certifications and then worked as an
Emergency Medical Technician-1A during a
subsequent summer. This job was a
fascinating, educational, and high-pressure
experience that exposed me to the realities
of medicine as practiced in crisis
situations.
My extensive
involvement with cardio thoracic surgery
research over the last three years, first as
a volunteer technician and currently as a
staff research technician, has further
fueled my desire to become a physician. I
have had to rely upon my own ingenuity and
problem solving skills as well as what I
have learned in the classroom, and this has
been exciting. One of the more unusual
aspects of my work has involved me directly
in the procedure of heterotopic heart
transplantation in rats. This precise and
technically demanding procedure encompasses
microsurgery and usually is conducted only
by residents. In fact, I am the only
undergraduate student doing this procedure,
which has shown me the extent of both my
manual dexterity and capacity for learning
sophisticated techniques.
I have been
fortunate enough to have had the opportunity
to participate and contribute in almost
every way during experiments, from
administering anesthesia and performing
extensive surgical preparations to analyzing
the data obtained and operating monitoring
and recording equipment, ventilators, and
the heart-lung machine.
I am a
somewhat shy individual, but I have found
that within the medical environment my
shyness evaporates. The opportunity to help
others one-on-one is so rewarding and
comfortable for me that I feel very much at
ease, regardless of with whom I am working.
I think one of the particularly attractive
aspects of medicine for me, especially
within such specialties as internal medicine
and obstetrics/gynecology, is the potential
for forming close, lasting, meaningful
relationships with a wide array of patients.
For me,
medicine emerges as the perfect avenue for
indulging my impulses to contribute, to be
involved with science, and to establish
important links with others at both critical
and noncritical moments in their lives.
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