To those who haven't heard

Here ya go :)

I slammed on my brakes as a woman shuffled onto the busy street right in front of me without paying attention to the oncoming traffic. As she passed my car, the sound of metal on bone will remain with me forever. An unsuspecting driver talking on his cell phone crashed into her, launching her twenty feet in one direction as her shoe traveled in another. Already dialing the police, I quickly parked near the curb where she lay motionless. I asked the driver if he was all right as I continued walking towards the victim. The first thing I noticed was her humerus jutting out of her shirtsleeve. The dispatcher listened intently as I explained what I saw. “A woman just got hit by a car while she was crossing the street. She is responding to me, but she has suffered multiple fractures and I cannot tell if there’s any internal bleeding”.
“Are you a doctor?” she asked with surprise. I hesitated.


The passion to help others is not something that one can learn—it is an inherent quality. In a singularly critical moment, many people will simply take the easy route and avoid the situation; few choose to take the more challenging path. I have always known that I wanted to help people, but this realization was only the first step; manifesting that desire and combining it with my career choice was another challenge altogether. My education, research experience, and extracurricular activities have allowed me to refine my traits to develop into a more mature individual prepared to face the challenges of entering medical school and the medical profession. This process began during a period in high school as I sat bedside by my cancer-stricken friend. The painful frustration of not being able to do anything led me to begin making hospital visits of another kind. I started actively volunteering at my local hospital, shadowing physicians, and working side by side with my father who is also a physician. The ability to actually take part in the comforting and healing process was liberating and rewarding beyond measure. In my undergraduate career at Whitman College, I pursued my passion for medicine and focused on biology and chemistry establishing a strong foundation in the sciences. Beyond my undergraduate experience, I further challenged myself by obtaining a Masters degree in Pharmacology at Tulane University School of Medicine. At Tulane, I was allowed the opportunity to take a Medical Pharmacology course with the 2nd year medical students while working at the Tulane Gene Therapy Center where I performed research for my graduate thesis. This provided me with a stronger understanding of current medical practice and its future direction with pharmacological therapeutics. In addition, this academic experience allowed me to refine my study habits and develop a stronger work ethic. When Hurricane Katrina hit, I felt my calling stronger than ever before. I volunteered twice in the Gulf Coast with a church group in Mississippi. Although I worked primarily on gutting and rebuilding houses, I was also a makeshift counselor and nurse for many of the families. As I saw their smiles returning to their grief-stricken faces, I knew inside that I had benefited as much from them as they had from me.
After college, I visited China with my father to see where he had grown up. I had an opportunity to be a part of a medical team comprised of medical students and physicians from the local medical school in the Jiang Xi province. We traveled to remote villages each day and provided inhabitants with medical supplies and tended to their basic medical needs. As a former Barefoot doctor from many of the villages we visited, my father still recognized many of the people that he helped 20 years ago. These strong ties and friendships were instantly rekindled as he reacquainted with the local farmers and villagers. The villagers paid with all that they had: warm smiles, meals with tea, and friendship.
During the course of all my clinical experiences I saw sickness and misery on a daily basis. In setting out on this journey to enter into medicine, I never had any romanticized notions of instantly changing the world to make it a better place as a physician. I simply want to combine my love for science with the desire to help individuals. Becoming a physician is my way of manifesting that passion. After having witnessed the car crash, and the moment in time when a person’s health is changed forever, an instinct that I only assumed to possess was strengthened and reinforced.


Kneeling over her bloody figure my hands were poised and ready to treat her. I checked to make sure that she was still breathing. Now it was time for me to do something. It was in that instant that it hit me; I did not have the medical training to help this person. All I could do was wait. The ambulance arrived minutes later and she was quickly stabilized and taken to the hospital. I stood on the street corner for a while longer reflecting on what had happened. I wished I had the clinical training to match my drive and intuition to help that injured woman. I still think about my response to the dispatcher’s question— “Not yet,” I had replied.

/r/premed Thread Parent