I Am On A Mission Trip From The Summer Between My Sophomore And Junior Years. High School

As a young child, I was always drawn towards the field of health care. I remember reading about the many options that are held within it and wondering what path it would lead me on. Neonatal nursing was something that always came into my mind, but it was often pushed to the side by people and teachers who thought I should become a pediatrician instead. This became a real struggle for me, but as I grew up and began researching and exploring the health care field I came to a decision for myself. I came to the realization that everyone was wrong. I didn’t want to be a doctor at all. This sudden burst of independence from what everyone else wanted was the first step to reaching my end goal. Along with this, an accelerated education, volunteer

If you would have told me ten years ago that I would be writing this essay and planning yet for another years into the future, part of me would have been surprised. Years ago I would have never envisioned myself going into the health field. Growing up I always heard stories from my parents and grandparents of how lucky I am to be alive and how thankful they were to the doctors and nurses. After hearing these stories for so many years it then made me realize that all I wanted to do was help people.

The invaluable skills that I have gained and learned through my after school clubs, Future Business Leaders of America, (FBLA) and National Honor Society( NHS), has stirred up a desire in me to help my community and to make a difference in the lives of people, by majoring in the Public Health field. Through Public Health, I will help those in my community at large to live healthy lives; mentally, socially, physically and culturally. Healthcare is an essential need in life and is a great field that would allow me to make a difference.

As the coming years approach, I want my future to hold both the passion to explore new opportunities and the strength to overcome new challenges. With the experiences of my high school career, I aspire to take all the things I learned to transition into a college environment where my ideas can be challenged and shared. Where I can learn from others; where I can seek the opportunity to make a direct impact towards saving lives. I believe I can do great things. Through tenacity I will not only be gratified in becoming a doctor, but also be able to share my compassion for others through

After my observations, I have learned a lot about how the the medical aspect of the health care system worked. I always had the mindset that the doctors were the ones who ran everything in a hospital or a clinic. Upon observing, I realized that this was false and that it took teamwork, cooperation, and communication to help create an environment to best serve its patients. When I came into the University of Michigan as well as the Health Sciences Scholar Program, I had set my target to go into family medicine in order to pursue a career as a family physician. I also saw that there were many health disparities and inequities among patients in hospitals as well. I thought maybe I could help fix this if I became a physician. After my observations, I had an ambivalent feeling if I should still continue with what my heart was set on. I never really thought about exploring the vast array of other health-related professions. There were many fields of health professions I had really never thought about and this class as well as my observations had really helped open my eyes to the complexity of the health system to make it work.

I first realized my passion for health promotion and disease prevention the summer following my first year of college. I had the privilege of attending the Summer Health Professions Education Program (SHPEP), which introduced me to numerous healthcare professionals. During the program, many of the professionals shared their stories about why they choose the profession, and with each story, I began to reflect deeply on my own background and what drew me to medicine. It was not until an emergency medicine physician spoke about his experiences, that allowed me to fully understand connecting my background to my future. The physician mentioned growing up in D.C., which brought to mind my family in D.C. It had been almost a year since my grandmother

During the week in Chicago, I grew closer to God, learned how to be a better leader, and learned to put others before myself, which is what helped me become a better person. Serving others that had situations worse than I could imagine was life changing. The idea I could make such a tremendous change in someone’s life while doing activities I enjoyed, opened my eyes to the potentials of serving. After the week ended and I returned home, I wanted to do more for the people around me who were less fortunate. Going into freshman year, I made the decision to volunteer at Urban Vision. I help kids who have newly immigrated to Akron and the United States find items at a holiday shop for their families and themselves. Many of these kids went directly to the necessity aisle, (i.e. toilet paper, laundry detergent, and soaps) to get these items for their families, even though there were plenty of toys for the kids themselves. These kids helped me realize I should be grateful for everything in life, from shelter over my head to the clothes on my

The following week, we spent most of our time in the poorest parts of the city. There we went door-to-door sharing the love of God and had Vacation Bible Schools for the kids. This is when I realized how blessed I truly was. For the first time, I got to see the privations and penury environment that the citizens of Third World countries had to endure. The unpaved streets were covered in trash. Many houses, made of tin sheets, had collapsed on themselves. The people had to share wells, where they drew their parasitic water. Men, women, and children sat on the sides of the roads begging for money, because they were sick, hungry, and needed money for food and proper medication. The site of these atrocious states of living broke my heart, and showed me how blessed I really was for not having to face these problems.

Seeing a kid who will hold a gun before they hold their first book. Seeing a teenager my age injecting himself with heroin instead of injecting himself with knowledge. Seeing an elderly person who, when looking back at their life, will remember nothing but memories of misery. These things can't be read in a book or seen on a television. The truth is, you will never understand what people are truly going through until the day you look at them in the eyes. With members of my team, I worked tirelessly to build a home for a man named Serafin who no longer had a roof to live under in the slum. It was both the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, and the most rewarding. Serafin now had a home where he and his family could live in, and I had a new set of eyes to look at the world through. Later that day, I experienced what life was on the other side of the spectrum. Ironically enough, hours after being in Ciudad Bolivar, I found myself at a family wedding in one of Colombia's most luxurious country clubs. Most people were wearing articles of clothing and accessories that individually were worth more than everything a person in Ciudad Bolivar would own in their

On one sunny day, I was helping my mom doing chores when she pulled me over to talk to me about something important. I was confused why my mom would want to me about something important, but I listened to what she said and followed her. What she told me was what her life was like back in Vietnam. She did not have much of an education. Instead, she stayed home with her mom to sell Vietnamese yogurt every day for a living. Since I was born in America, I never thought of life was like for others in developing countries like Vietnam. Hearing from my mom's experience, it stuck with me. I learned the importance of being grateful for what I have since they are a lot of people who do not have what we have in America and it made me want to help those who are in need. I was also inspired to do whatever I

After landing in Mexico and meeting up with the people I would be working with during a three-day mission trip, we were crammed into a bus and spent the next two hours getting to know each other. We were there to build homes for a multitude of families in the town of Xochimilco, Mexico. When we arrived late in the afternoon, we were led to an empty school where we would spend our nights. Sleeping on the floor next to school lockers with bugs buzzing in my ears in a country I did not know well was an interesting experience to say the least—but that was just the beginning. At dawn, the real work began and so did a change in my thinking that had a dramatic effect on my perspectives about life.

As I was finishing my last shift as a Health Leads advocate at Boston Medical Center I couldn’t help but think back to my first shift three years earlier. I was nineteen years old walking into the Pediatric Unit eager to make a difference. Being located in a poverty-stricken part of Boston many uninsured and low-income families would bring their children to Boston Medical Center. As an advocate, it was our responsibility to make sure they had everything they needed from food to shelter while working hand in hand with their physician. I expected to reaffirm my desire to become a physician by witnessing all the positive work that can be accomplished. What actually happened was something quite different, something that made me wonder, “Do I really want to go into medicine?”

Realising this experience, through self-funding, took hard work and organisation as I worked doing odd jobs, sold cakes in a wide variety of venues, appealed to businesses for support and ran community quizzes. Achieving this goal took determination, but I have always been profoundly interested in how foreign cultures and societies operate, so I persevered. Being the youngest person in the team, I had to be independent and this helped me to work on my communication skills. Whilst there, I experienced many aspects of life from talking to the children and staff at the orphanage to helping at the hospital, it has also been interesting to me to find out about the political and economic situation of the country and the impact at a local level. This trip drastically changed my view of the world and inspired me to want to find out more about how life can be improved for people living in developing

The principal aim of my career has always been to serve the society and my inclination towards public health stems from the very same desire. I grew up in India which has a lot of socio-economic deficits affecting health of our population. My family has always focused on prioritizing education and instilled the sense of responsibility to give back to the society we live in. Studying Physiotherapy in the early years of my career helped me pursue the dream to be able to serve people. I went to Institute of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation in India for my graduation followed by eight months of internship in Army Hospital, India. This had given me the foundation of principles of therapeutic assessment and intervention. As I practiced further, I realized that a gap existed between the practice in my country and the ones with better developed healthcare systems and this motivated me to pursue MSc Physiotherapy in UK and gain some clinical experience.

It took a total of four states to reach our destination. The week spent with my mission group was one of the most emotionally challenging weeks I have encountered. Seeing others have nothing compared to what you do, is one of the most shocking things that you can experience. Being face to face with those who live in tents and eat one meal a day shows you how good some of us have it. Our mission group attended a program called “Tent City.” This is an area where those who don’t have the money to keep their homes, live. These people set up an area just for tents that are shared with three to five people. We got to serve these people by feeding them a whole dinner. While we were there we listened to the stories that they had to share. We learned about their previous lives and how they ended up here. This was the day that reality had hit me. I lived by taking advantage and never thought about how others lived. This was also that day that changed the way I lived. I started to think of others and in some way, put them before me. I love to see people smile and laugh, so I do what can to see that, even if I am not always happy.