Internal Growth And Professional Ambition

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.

Melvin Kooner, an anthropologist who entered medical school in his mid-thirties, characterizes physicians as “tough, brilliant, knowledgeable, hardworking, and hard on themselves.” (Kooner, 1998, pg. 374) Many personal conversations with medical students, residents, and attending physicians from a variety of specialties confirm Kooner’s assessment. Doctors work hard, work long hours, deal regularly with life-and-death situations, and make substantial personal sacrifices to practice in their field. These attributes of medical practice can provide a great deal of satisfaction to the aspiring or practicing physician, but can also be a source of professional and personal distress. Burnout or the experience of long-term emotional and physical

One connecting between Louie’s difficulties and my own stems from the fact that we both suffer from respiratory issues. For both of us, these issues have detrimental effects on our lives, especially in more physical aspects of our lives. Additionally, and on a more reflective approach, Louie and I have both had to complete, at first, extremely difficult tasks and overcome adversity, and we have both been better prepared for future life events because of it. While Louie overcomes running track, which prepares him for the war, I have overcame chronic headaches and other medical conditions in my own life. Currently, I manage life while experiencing daily continuous headaches, which can become very painful and aggravating at times. Overcoming and living with this condition has made me a stronger person mentally, physically, and emotionally and has effectively prepared me for future adversity I may face. Specifically, the headaches I experience prepare me for the job I wish to eventually pursue: pediatric neurosurgery. This career will require managing my job under an immense amount of stress. Moreover, it will require me to make important, potentially life-or-death decisions on the fly. By persevering through times of difficulty in my own life and by working through the stress of completing school work even when I may not feel the best, I have been better prepared for the career I wish to pursue.

As a teenager, I had overestimated myself, thinking my capacity is unlimited. Yet when encountered by an overwhelming state, I crumbled to carelessness. I am glad to recognize my faulty character early on rather than ten years from now when there will be greater tasks at hand. Even though the temptation to take on challenges never cease within me, I have learned to evaluate the current responsibilities and my capacity to take on new roles. Having less obligations but being successful in all of them is what I now thrive to do. With a new academic year, I turn my focus towards my course works for improvement, but also place my core value of family in volunteering at a hospital devoted to cancer patients, while continue taking care of my own

In hindsight, although becoming a physician was always my plan, I was not quite ready to commit. However, my time away from school has allotted me clarity in many areas. Much of this clarity came from becoming independent, not only financially, but more importantly in own my beliefs. I no longer constantly look to others to validate the decisions I make. Working side by side with physicians has given me a better understanding of the interdependence of business, clinical work, and the politics that come with working in a large hospital. Not only has my desire to enter the healthcare field become personal, but more importantly I now understand what it means to be a caretaker. The most essential realizations have been recognizing the amount of sacrifice and humility that coincide with being a caregiver, and appreciating that someone entrusts you to care for them. Maintaining this trust while remembering to be empathetic are two great responsibilities, and I cannot think of a more noble reward than having your community’s trust bestowed upon you. It is an honor to be granted the ability to improve peoples’ lives 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.

Thwarted love. Ambition. Guilt. Sexuality. Fifth Business is rife with these life lessons. However, the most dominant themes in the novel are ambition and motivation. It is well known that excessive ambition and motivation can destroy someone, but, used correctly, can skyrocket someone to happiness, as in the case of Dunstan Ramsey, Percy Staunton, and Paul Dempster. These two qualities not only give these characters the will to keep on living, but also enable them to rise above the masses during the Great Depression. Right in the beginning of the novel, Dunstan displays his superior motivation and ambition through his learning of juvenile magic.

I hope to one day alter the lives of people around the world by pursuing an MD/MPH. However, that path was not always clear. My first exposure started in high school where I was a part of the Littleton Health Science Program which would equip me with

Adversity has only improved my tenacity, focus, endurance, and problem solving abilities. Various circumstances have affected my academic performance negatively, but I use that as motivation to continually improve myself. I want to be a part of the solution to the family physician shortage and serve the community in the most effective way. My drive to improve the lives of others will help propel me through the difficulties of medical school and beyond. The personal experience I have with my immersion in the field of primary care gives me unique characteristics that will translate into creating a successful physician that focuses on building meaningful relationships with patients. I continually witness how my grandfather is positively impacting the community through medicine and it is my goal to be granted an opportunity to do the same. My belief in lifelong learning and continual self-improvement consistently drives me towards the study of medicine. Because of my life experiences, I now have the balance, endurance, clarity, and tenacity needed to be a successful medical

“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing”- Pelé. When I think about my future, quite frankly, I’m not sure where I’ll end up. I truly believe my future will depend on my personal happiness no matter what career I end up in. However, that’s not how life goes. In a career, it’s not all flowers and daisies; you sacrifice, you endure, you persevere, and sometimes, you suffer but in the end you are rewarded with a life only dreamed by some. I’m not looking at the medical field for money, I’m looking at it for how it fits to my characteristics. The medical field is a group of people willing to suffer, sacrifice, and endure for the well-being

Although, I’ve been in healthcare for over 20 years, working as a medical assistant, I believe my journey truly began with nursing school. It is one thing to do a job that you have been shown to do, but it becomes different as I now understand why these processes are done as well as the physiological implications. The journey to get to this point had felt like a lifelong one with many disappointments and struggles along the way. However because of the knowledge I now have, I wouldn’t change a thing as I consider it extremely valuable.

If asked after my junior year of college, I would have said I wanted to become a physician so I could provide comprehensive reproductive healthcare for marginalized groups of people. I would have discussed my fulfilling experiences volunteering in an abortion clinic, and spoken of the nursing student who, whilst grateful for my professional support, embraced me because she needed to hear that her decision to have an abortion was not wrong. I would have also talked of the American Medical Student Association Sexual Health Scholars course, and how profoundly moving

I am a born leader. Even when I am not looking for leadership opportunities they always seem to fall into my lap. My life has been one that is based on service to others, so I regularly volunteer for committees and extend myself to help others. It is important to me to be the best teacher I can, I regularly attend professional development sessions and implement my new learning in the classroom. However, upon starting the Teacher Leadership Master’s program at Lamar University, I was just beginning my career as a teacher leader. I had not had many opportunities to show leadership outside of my grade-level team. During team planning meetings, I normally directed the discussions. My coworkers looked to me for guidance and interpretation of the curriculum. I regularly made suggestions about teaching strategies. Additionally, I was a member of various campus committees including the Campus Performance Objective Committee (CPOC) where worked together with campus administrators and community partners to develop the Campus Improvement Plan. However, I did not view these tasks as leadership opportunities.

I have given a great deal of thought to the next leg of my academic and career journey. As I reflect on the road I've taken to get this far, I realize that I have not only learned a lot there were many late night papers, team projects and plenty of reading I have also grown a great deal on a personal level. I think that the best part of reaching this juncture is the realization that I set a goal and achieved it. It is a good feeling of personal triumph. I know that once my degree is officially completed and conferred it will be an accomplishment that can never be taken away.

This lesson mainly addressed aspects related to career development. This lesson encourages students to discover their academic and personal strengths, their skillsets, and their interests. Students then take those concepts and apply them to career exploration. They are able to link their strengths, preferences, and abilities to potential future career paths. Some of the specific aspects of career development that I addressed include applying planning and career exploration in setting and obtaining lifelong career goals, applying necessary skills for career readiness and success, and teaching students where and how to obtain information about post-secondary options. In this lesson students are encouraged to apply decision making skills to place different careers into the appropriate career fields. In doing so, they are also encouraged to begin thinking about careers that are of interest to them and what career goals they have for themselves. They will be given resources in order to continue career exploration outside of the classroom. While I do not expect sixth graders to fully decide their career path, it is my firm belief that it is never too early to get students thinking about careers and having them set goals in order to obtain the career and future that they desire. I also believe that this unit touches on social and emotional development as well as academic development. This lesson allows the student to collaborate with one another and work in groups as well as in pairs. This promotes relationship building and teamwork. It also allows students to take an inventory of their personal strengths and skillsets. This could boost self-esteem and promotes a sense of self-awareness. Lastly, this unit also encompasses academic development. Students will understand that good grades and academic success are key elements to obtaining the career that they wish to have. By being academically successful, this will allow them greater options and opportunity post high school graduation.