So I'm trying really hard to come up with a good personal essay for medical school. I have decided to share with you, the world, all of my work. None of these, unfortunately, made the cut. Some I wrote seriously, others I wrote to try to relieve my stress. I will start with several starts to this year's essay that I won't use, at least not verbatim, and then I will put, at the end, the personal essay from last year that I am no longer using.
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| So it begins |
Millions lay on the ground...dead. If only a physician had found the cure to the zombie apocalypse before it was...too late. I will be that physician. Let me in. It is your only hope. All of your medical knowledge will amount to naught without my degree. You caused this. You started it, but I will finish it. I am...Zarathustra...
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| My mustache will cure cancer. |
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One of my youngest memories was my grandma dying of kidney failure. She received the best treatment possible, but she was over eighty years old and a poor candidate for a donor. Her health deteriorated until treatment became too tiring and painful. She decided to stop treatment and enter hospice care. She died just a few weeks later. I remember getting the call while I was playing at a friend's house. That was the first major tragedy I remember in my life...
Why do I want to go to medical school? I have had this dream. I want to gain a medical degree. I want to be able to become really good at what I do. I want to really be able to help people. And then I really just want to walk into any room anywhere and be able to say, "Hello, I'm the doctor."
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| Just "the doctor"... |
*
To be read in that deep radio announcer's voice* In a world of fear, a world of disease, a world where millions upon billions of organisms main goal is to kill every human life, a world without hope, without healing, there is one man. The Physician. He stands between the living and the dead. He alone can prevent the oncoming storm...
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| This is the oncoming storm! |
And finally, below is last year's full essay:
I believe in hope, and it is the primary reason that I want to practice
medicine. Hope defies what is impossible. Things happen or they do not,
but hope believes firmly in something that is not yet. I want to bring
hope to those who are without it. I do not know yet whether that hope
will be in a cancer patient, hoping for remission; a parent, hoping for
an effective vaccine; a mother, hoping for a healthy child; someone who
has fallen, hoping to walk again; or simply someone sick, hoping to feel
well. I do know, however, that in practicing medicine I can bring hope.
I have known that it is the field that I have wanted to enter into for
many years. I know that my capabilities are only human, but there is
great hope in that statement, as well. It was only a human that
discovered the vaccine to small pox, saving millions upon millions of
lives. It was only a human that developed the arterial bypass surgery
that continues to save lives to this day. I have hope in what only
humans can do. To give hope, to preserve hope, and to seek hope is at
the heart of medicine. All who go to a physician do so in hope. More
hope is found in a doctor's office or a hospital than anywhere on earth.
Physicians are the guardians of hope. One must not give false hope, but
one must always consider hope in the impossible.
I spent two
years in Mexico City, spending a great deal of my time providing support
to members of my peer group who needed medical care. I tried to support
them as best I could as they got knee surgeries, back surgeries, and
underwent many tests that determined what was causing them pain. I saw
them able to return to what they loved to do because of the hope and
care provided to them. I remember specifically spending time with one of
my friends who had severe leg pain as he received different tests to
determine the cause of his problems. I watched as he received treatments
to try to manage and correct his symptoms. I saw the hope that grew in
him as his pain faded away in response to the treatments. Although I
felt like medicine was the field for me before this, my love of it began
to solidify at that time. When I returned, I used the medical Spanish
that I had learned to help others receive proper care by interpreting at
the University of Utah Hospital and the Maliheh Free Clinic. I became a
part of the team that provided hope in a small way as I served there. I
recognized the hope that both the physicians here in the United States
and I provided as being the same as the hope that I saw in Mexico.
Furthermore, the many hours talking with patients about the care they
were receiving and with the physicians about the care they were
providing made me certain that medicine was the field for me.
I
believe that the impossible has produced some of the most beautiful,
wonderful things. The earth is impossible. It is a planet hung perfectly
with others, pulled and pushed in just the right orbit that prevents us
from frying or freezing. Life thrives on this impossible planet. Life
is impossible. A collection of amino acids, minerals, and chemicals,
produce thought, love, and life. It is precisely that which is
impossible that is worth protecting. In 1600 if someone were to propose
that almost all illness was caused by microscopic life forms and
sub-microscopic bits of code, we would have thought them crazy. Such an
idea was impossible. That we would one day be able to fight these tiny
invaders would be completely mad. That which is impossible, however, is
now a reality. Fifty years ago if someone were to say that mechanical
robots would be used in surgery, that machines would aid
anesthesiologists, that controlled chemical structures could deliver
drugs to specific cells, we all would have thought it impossible. But
the impossible has happened and is now becoming commonplace. We must
always nurture a hope in the impossible. I want to be a part of that
nurturing. I am committed to providing the hope that only a physician
can. I know it will be a very hard path, but it is the impossible that
is always worth the fight.
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| Nope... |
