Personal Essay: My Experience As A Medical Assistant

“Adelante, senora” I called out to the short and slender women who stood next to the clinic entrance. Clad in a bright, multi-colored, traditional Mayan dress she entered the free, one-day only VIDA clinic hoping to receive medical attention for a headache in a rural part of Guatemala where medical care was more of a luxury than a norm. "Digame de su dolor de cabeza" I said to the patient, asking her to elaborate on her headache. As a medical volunteer, I had been tasked the duty of conducting patient interviews and coming up with differential diagnoses for Dr. Reyes', the lead physician, final review; an exciting, albeit nerve-racking, responsibility. The patient reported having diffuse, moderately intense, intermittent headache for several
I, like most pre-medicine students,thought I knew what a career in medicine was all about. After all, like most, I spent hundreds of hours shadowing a number of physicians and volunteering in hospitals. It was only through my two year experience as a medical scribe, both in the ER and in an oncology clinic, that I truly understood all the faces of medicine. Medicine, contrary to what I thought prior to my scribing experience, isn't always glorious. As a scribe I have witnessed many of my patients, both in the ER and in the oncology clinic, die and I have dealt with the emotional toll that it brings. I have sacrificed my social life, family life and often times given up my free time to my work. I have even slept on hospital grounds in an effort to make back-to-back shifts. Yet, despite seeing and living through the less glorious sides of medicine, I continue to wake up hungry every day to accomplish my dream of becoming an oncologist. Medical school will, undoubtedly, be a challenging and gruesome experience. It will test my will, mental power and commitment to my goals and thanks to my experience as a scribe, I can truly say, with confidence, that I am ready for any obstacles that come my