I feel weak, dizzy, and my body aches. I have a high fever. I can stop vomiting. I sometimes even have syncope. After a thick blood smear test, it is confirmed, I have Malaria; there begins the series of painful quinine injections. This is what I experienced during almost every raining season in Niger (my home country) until I was 17. As a consequence, since primary school, I have raised my interest in the ways Malaria develops in the human body, the reason behind all those symptoms, and how to prevent the disease. There is no single biology class, in Niger’s educational system from middle school to high school that did not include a chapter on Malaria, and other infectious disease such as tuberculosis, meningitis. It is the starting point for my love for science. But most importantly, I found my life goal and dream; Help kicking Malaria outside of Niger (and Sub-Saharan Africa in general), and reducing the toll of preventable, and communicable diseases.
I had everything figured out concerning my education, and career goal. I wanted to be a physician, and I majored in Neuroscience/ premed. My whole life I have planned to become a doctor to help improve the health care system by reducing the doctor/patient ratio in my country. I thought it was the most effective way to accomplish my dream. However, the reality is that, sometimes, lifelong plans change. I have started to be skeptical on my plans to go to medical school. So, I have decided to take a gap year and get a Master
Malaria has been in existence for thousands of years. Many historical records show that it has affected human civilization greatly by plaguing and causing mass death. The earliest record can be traced back to 2700 BC in China (Cox, 2002). It has been long associated with swamps and insects for hundreds of years but often believed to be the air from swamps causing the plague. The term malaria rooted from two Italian words ‘mala’ and ‘aria’ which literally means bad air. Humanity did not know the true nature of the long thought disease until 1894 when a Scottish physician, Sir Ronald Ross, discovered that it was actually the parasite in mosquito that is causing the malaria.
I decided to pursue a career in medicine when I was an adolescent. I scheduled a science-heavy course load in high school. Pursued a degree in Honours Biological Sciences. Shadowed a physician for two months. Graduated with distinction. Applied to medical schools and received my acceptance. My academic and professional career was already planned at the ripe age of fourteen. As the years progressed, my passion and interest in medicine waned. I was left feeling deeply unfulfilled. The career I was pursuing had ceased to be reflective of my interests. I struggled to procure the enthusiasm to apply to medical school, putting it off until I was in my final year of university. Every time I broached
Malaria has been a major life-threatening disease for thousands of years, and continues to threaten millions of lives around the world. It infects approximately 219 million people each year, mostly poor women and children. What is striking about malaria is the fact that it has the worse effect on those with the least ability to fight the disease. The Republic of Cuba believes that malaria prevention, treatment, and research efforts must be accelerated to eliminate the burden of this disease across Africa, Asia, the Americas, and any country or territory at risk of malaria transmissions.
There is a constant push and pull within my mind: “Should I, or should I not?” I’m never sure of whether I should do something, which has caused me a great deal of inner turmoil. One of the main questions I’ve been asking myself as of late is whether I should pursue medical school. So far, I haven’t made a decision, but I learned something of importance when I was trying to come to a conclusion of this problem. Recently, I’ve started asking myself “If I do this, will I be satisfied?” and I think this will be key to answering my dilemma.
My life is a bit of a rollercoaster. I knew what I wanted to do since a young age; however, different paths and decisions brought me to my goal in a roundabout way. After high school I decided to take time off before going to college because I was fortunate enough to have a successful career in retail management. Around the nine year mark I decided that I wanted to return to my goal of entering the medical field, which I was already in the process of doing by attending Northeastern and working towards my BS in Biological Sciences. My ultimate goal being to achieve an MS as a physician assistant. When moving into health care I started in the Urgent Care Department which was closely related to one of the fields I am interested in when practicing
Brian, G, Y., Greenwood, D, A., Fidock, Dennis, E, K., Stefan, H, I. Kappe, P., Alonso, L., Frank, H and Collins, P (2008) “Malaria progress and prospects for eradication.” Journal Clinical Investiment. 118: 1266-1276.
When I first came to Mercer I really wanted to become a pediatric oncologist or a general practitioner. I changed my mind a couple times during my pre-college and freshman year on whether or not I wanted to be a different kind of doctor. However, I never really thought I would end up undeclared in my sophomore year. My whole high school life was spent navigating the medical pathway and joining clubs like HOSA (Healthcare Occupation Students of America). I even did well in these classes and clubs, winning honors at the state and national level for EMT and Kaiser Permanente testing. During my sophomore year, things changed because I dropped chemistry after having an uninspiring teacher and after
Malaria (also called biduoterian fever, blackwater fever, falciparum malaria, plasmodium, Quartan malaria, and tertian malaria) is one of the most infectious and most common diseases in the world. This serious, sometimes-fatal disease is caused by a parasite that is carried by a certain species of mosquito called the Anopheles. It claims more lives every year than any other transmissible disease except tuberculosis. Every year, five hundred million adults and children (around nine percent of the world’s population) contract the disease and of these, one hundred million people die. Children are more susceptible to the disease than adults, and in Africa, where ninety percent of the world’s cases occur and where eighty percent of the cases
I did not realize I wanted to be a physician until three years ago. Once this realization occurred, I worked very hard to overcome the shortcomings in my undergraduate studies. I have maintained a job in order to pay for undergraduate and graduate coursework. This has forced me to enhance my time management and multi-tasking skills, which in turn have allowed me to be exposed to countless experiences and activities.
Growing up as a child, one of my dreams was to become a doctor. I played doctor games, had a medical kit, and took care of my patients (also known as my parents). As I got older, I worked hard in school to stay on track with idea of being a doctor in the back of my mind. I faced many hardships over the years, such as taking several challenging classes or not having the free time like my friends did. When I got older I decided that maybe I didn’t want to be an actual doctor but rather a Dr. of Pharmacy. This career would allow me to continue to help others, but still achieve my childhood dream of becoming a doctor. My perseverance paid
Background - Malaria is a water borne disease. It is spread by a parasite-carrying mosquito. It kills many people and reduces a country 's capacity to develop. There are different strategies to combat malaria. Around half the population is at risk of malaria and this disease is active in 106 counties across Africa, Asian and the Americas (see source 3). the global annual mortality from malaria is between 1.5 - 3 million deaths, or between 4000 and 8000 each day. Developing countries are most vulnerable to Malaria and as shown on source 2 Malaria has been spread across many various other countries including in Europe, but these countries have eradicated Malaria.
One day in 2011, I had an epiphany that I wanted to become the CEO of a hospital one day. The CEO of Rose Medical Center became aware of this and informed me that I could certainly have his job one day, but I must first go back to school and get my Master's degree. He is not the only person that has hounded me about going back to school. Many other managers, administrators and even family members have said the same. Clearly they see something in me that I had not quite yet see in myself. I think I am finally coming to the realization that if they think I can obtain a Master's degree, then I certainly possess the skills, knowledge and motivation to go back to school. It is time for me to shake up my content, routine life and take the step to bettering myself and fulfilling the commitment I made to myself on December 31,
In the beginning of my junior year of high school, my english teacher told us to write a topic about our career goal, which I knew what to write. I wrote about becoming a Medical Assistance like my older sister, who was my role model. She have show me what motivation and hard work looks like coming from a person whose was the first generation to come America during the Khmer Rouge. She really work hard throughout her school and finally able to become a Medical Assistance and working at Kaiser Permanente. Therefore, I knew that after high school I would go into the medical field. When I started attending Maric College also known as Kaplan College, which I had taken the Medical Assistance Program for 11 months. On the last month of the program, is when we started to attended to our externship clinic, where I was sended to Gentry Vu, M.D., Inc. of obstetrics and gynecology. When I extern there as a student, I excelled my experience, which lead them to hire me on the spot after I was finishing my extern. I took on the job and worked there until almost four years and five months that I decided to quit due to I needed to care for my dad's health and continue school. I become my dad care provider until this day and love what I'm
Malaria has been a huge problem among many developing nations over the past century. The amount of people in the entire world that die from malaria each year is between 700,000 and 2.7 million. 75% of these deaths are African children (Med. Letter on CDC & FDA, 2001). 90% of the malaria cases in the world are located in Sub-Saharan Africa. Once again, the majority of these deaths are of children (Randerson, 2002). The numbers speak for themselves. Malaria is a huge problem and needs to be dealt with immediately.
About 3.3 billion people, that is about half of the world’s population are at risk of contracting malaria (figure 1). Every year there are 250 million cases of malaria, and nearly 1 million deaths. That amounts to 2,732 deaths per day. Out of those million people that die every year, 800,000 of them are African children under the age of 5. To control malaria three actions need to be taken: insecticides need to be used to decrease the vector population, people have to be educated as to how to prevent the vector from reproducing, and anti-malarial drugs need to be distributed. To understand the vector and what the vector is, scientists had to first discover what the parasite was and how it worked. It was not until the year 1880 that French Physician Charles Laveran discovered that Malaria was caused by a protozoan in the genus Plasmodium (Malaria, 2013)