Personal Narrative: My Life In The Medical Field

During my last clinical rotation of my adult-gerontology acute care nurse practitioner graduate program, I worked closely with an orthopedic surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital. He frequently became exasperated when residents would present new consults and focus solely on imaging. He wanted to know what the history and physical revealed. One morning on rounds, he grabbed my hands and exclaimed, “Always look at your patient! Touch them!”

My career plan has taken quite a few turns through the field of health care but I have found my niche where I really enjoy my job and the individuals I take care of. My short term career goal is to get my bachelor degree in health care administration and apply for a job as Q of the houses I work in now. This means I would take care of the mentally handicapped individuals that I take care now just in a different capacity. My long term career goal is to eventually be an administrator for the company I work for now. This means I would have to take the state and federal exams. Then I would be able to take care of multiple homes and have the Q’s under me as employees. Another long term career goal is to continue working on my education and to go for my master’s degree.

She looked up at one of the biggest waves and just sighed at the look of it. "Yeah, Dad, we practiced all right... At lower tides.". She picked up her board (Which seemed heavier from all the anxiety) and lunged into the stampeding ocean. She spat out some salty water that had entered her mouth and began to paddle deeper into the vast sea. Her eyes launched side-to-side as she'd learned to use great caution while doing this. She searched for a couple of minutes before seeing the perfect wave. She turned her board around and began to push her surfboard rapidly forward. The wave picked her board up and before she knew it, she was above it. Amber carefully got up and stood on the board as the tide slowly decreased in height. Her confidence was boosted, As though she felt like she was on top of the world! Amber felt the warm breeze of air brush through her face as she smiled with delight. However, this feeling will not last long. Soon after this happened, Amber placed her foot on the wrong spot and slipped into the iciness bellow her. Amber began to panic and she now bloodshot eyes was trying to look for a way back up.

Once I complete my training as a Physician Assistant, I want to use my clinical skills to improve healthcare delivery to underserved populations. My passion and commitment to this endeavor stems from my own experience as an African American male growing up in a underserved population. I knew from an early age that the environment that I was growing up in was not a healthy one and I fully understood when my father moved our family to a more suburban environment. Although we were moving to a better environment, I felt a deep sense of sadness that I was losing my friends and abandoning my home. My core motivation toward helping underserved populations stems from my belief that there is hope for those communities and the people who live in them.

Ms. A frowned as she pointed at my name tag. My face was familiar to her, but she could not quite remember who I was or why I was sitting next to her.

Well the doctor office I normally go, they are nice and polite. I never have problems when I go there. The last time I went which was a couple months ago, the lady at front desk was very unprofessional. She had her pants unbuttoned, playing her music loud, and she was popping her gum. I never seen her before because I usually go earlier in the day. I was very disgusted. The whole time I was talking to her I was thinking is she serious. I could not believe she really like that at her job. I wanted to tell somebody who could do something about it but I did not want to go through some whole extra stuff. I was very amazed that she was hired on though. As a medical assistant, I would make sure I had my hair pulled back and my scrubs were clean and

The decision to apply to medical school was not taken lightly. I knew that medical school would require a huge commitment of my time and energy. Therefore, before applying to medical school, I knew that I needed to prove both to myself and to the committees that would be reviewing my application that I had what it takes no not only survive, but to excel in medical school. Therefore, while continuing to work around 50 hours per week, I returned to school with a full-time load, and prepared myself for the MCAT – all in a period of about 6 months. This was one of the most mentally and physically exhausting periods of my life, but the tools I developed to spend my time both wisely and efficiently helped me stay organized. My passion for the coursework

My biggest challenges to applying to medical school came from finding a balance between working to afford school and having enough time to study as well as coping with the fact that my parents moved to Germany and I wouldn't be able to afford to see them. These two problems on top of the normal stress of starting college took a toll on my first year and a half and is something that I'm reminded of every time I look at my grades from those semesters. During this time what helped me the most was my determination and my willingness to seek help when I needed it. I have never been one to take defeat and I refused to let these set backs keep me from trying to achieve my dreams. While overcoming these challenges have not been easy I'm grateful for

Hi doctor. I'm wondering if I need to be concerned. I keep getting what seems gas. The mild/dull pain is always in a different area. It bothers the most the most when lying down. Therefore, sleeping at night has been a challenge, leaving me unrested. It also bothers when pain is around the groin, it sort of feels like if I had an urine infection, but I'm urinating okay. I've been taking the Omeprazole, thinking it might help. But it has not. What do you think?

Henry Ford once said, “Before everything else, getting ready is the secret to success”. Throughout my pre-med journey, I have sought out opportunities that will continue to develop the skills I need to become the compassionate physician that I strive to be. I was immediately attracted to the Summer Medical and Dental Education Program (SMDEP) and the opportunity to spend six weeks immersed in the medical community. I was given invaluable experiences in medicine from a perspective that I only could have dreamed of. My heart raced as I took my first eager steps into an operating room and watched fervently as the surgeon broke and re-aligned a young boy’s deviated septum. I was in awe of the precision and composure of the physician. I saw the

I am pleased to write to you on behalf of Melanie Grossman, who is applying to enter a fine Physician Assistant program through CASPA. As Bucknell University’s viola instructor, I had a four-year association with Melanie, meeting with her weekly for one-hour viola lessons. Additionally, throughout her Bucknell tenure, she performed with the Bucknell Orchestra, an ensemble that rehearsed under my direction for three hours each week. In both situations Melanie distinguished herself by her outstanding musical gifts, and by her unwavering commitment to excellence, rating in the top 10% of students that I have taught in my twenty-nine years of collegiate teaching.

In all of my previous experiences in the healthcare field, I have not had a single moment or challenge that I disliked about the profession. Even working as a scribe, I absolutely loved the change of pace in working a late night shift at one hospital and then getting up several hours later to work another shift at a different hospital’s ED. With this in mind, the question of naming one single aspect of being a physician I think I would like best is a difficult one to answer. As so many other premedical students, medical students, and current physicians, I love the satisfaction of solving a problem to help someone. This is truly what I expect to like most as a physician, particularly when working with a patient who suffers from several chronic

Six years ago I had never considered going into medicine. At seventeen, life revolved around my first passion -- basketball. The start of my senior season was just around the corner and a childhood dream of playing college ball felt within reach. When I could no longer play I planned to go into coaching, but it wasn’t meant to be. On the first night of the annual family campout I blindly ran into a concrete bench. The collision left me with a compound tibial fracture, and a clean break of my fibula. After surgery the doctor found a blood clot in my calf, and other scary complications like “drop foot” and “compartment syndrome” were thrown around. I was scared. The fear of not being able to run, or walk without a limp quickly displaced any anger

My initial interest in medicine all started when a blood vessel in my nose burst, which caused continuous nose bleeding. I watched my mother struggled financially to bring me to the doctor. The feeling of utter helplessness caused my mom to believe that she would lose me to the heavy bleeding. Eventually, I went to a specialist who provided treatment that sealed the broken blood vessel. I still remember the iodoform smell of the hospital. The atmosphere was completely different. The seats were plush and every surface was dustless. The nurses were friendly and they moved with a serene purposefulness from room to room on their rounds. There were vases of flowers and beautiful framed pieces of art on the walls. The doctor in his white long coat

As an undergraduate, I became an emergency medical technician to gain some firsthand exposure to the field as a healthcare provider. Communication as it related to patient care and transparency in healthcare would be a recurring theme at many of the institutions I was able to gain experience in. Chief among these experiences would be an illegal ordeal that took place while shadowing a nephrologist during the summer of my senior year. As I would come to learn during this time, commercial transplants were not uncommon among patients with end-stage renal disease. I still found myself stunned when, during an ED consult, we were confronted with a patient who refused to have the rejected renal graft removed after having had it transplanted at an