Med School Essay

Former President Theodore Roosevelt said “Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” Finding that “work worth doing” has been quite the challenge for me, but I believe I have found it now. Medicine was not the first passion I sought. It was actually to become a pilot because my father used to be one. But possibly pursuing a career in the healthcare industry did come about when I was 9, after I saw pictures of my dad’s arthroscopic knee surgery and the x-ray which completely amazed me. Seeing my dad’s recovery process from such a major operation, along with multiple family members and friends become physicians themselves gave me much insight to the profession. I was able to see a knee operation similar to my dad’s while shadowing Dr. Robert Foster at Texas Orthopedics, where I was also allowed to stand right next to Dr. Foster and assist in handing him the surgical tools and listen to him telling me exactly what he is doing throughout the procedure. And then, following a morning of operating was the afternoon clinic hours at which I got to see the patient-doctor interaction happen, where I got to see assurance of recovery in the patients and trust in the doctor develop and grow. The experience only kept encouraging me to strive for a rewarding career. I had worked hard in school because of this desire to become a physician. But at a time I also became discouraged and worried about my future outlook. During my second semester of freshman year and going into sophomore year in college, I was still trying to figure out how to study properly and the troubles in physics and organic chemistry became a nightmare. On top of courses being difficult, I was also involved in a dance team, an active runner, and employed as an undergraduate peer advisor and TA, which became hard to balance. Sacrifices were made, which I came to realize is what a physician's job entails. I had never faced more of a