So I Want to Be a Doctor?
My Pre-Med Story
I want to go to medical school. But if you asked me why, I don’t think I could give you a clear answer. I could say I really like helping people, but people (especially medical schools) find that excruciatingly cliché. It should be enough though. I’ll be honest: I’m holding a grudge. If I wanted to become a businesswoman or a software engineer, my employers would be thrilled to see that they’re hiring someone who wants to help people. I’m not saying those professions can’t help people or that I don’t respect those fields, but there’s a certain level of commitment to aid that pairs with membership of the healthcare field.
Therefore, I’m holding a grudge.
After examining the hard work I’ve done to get where I am, I wonder about the origins of my motivation to give. In high school, I started inquiring about the profession through volunteering at hospitals and attending medical workshops. However, I can’t tell if I was doing those things because I was truly inspired, or if I felt an obligation because everyone around me seemed to be doing them too.
I’d like to think that I was a good person in high school, but I’m not sure that my intentions were so pure.
During my childhood,, I liked being the “know-it-all” girl who would always raise her hand because she thought she knew every answer. Even now, as I’m writing this, I know that I sound like a “pick-me” girl. I color-coordinated my binders, and, without it being asked, kept a tab for each section of my class: Notes, Homework, Quizzes, Study Guides, and Extra. I craved organization and structure. I thrived off of them. I think I liked my STEM classes more. They offered structure, and rules to follow. However, this did not bode well for me in my literature class. There was no equation that I could plug in to write essays. The assignments forced me to think more analytically and to think from perspective, and I simply hated it. Math and science didn’t need “perspective”.
Having never gotten below an A before ninth grade, I faced my A- in my literature class. In our high school, receiving an A- no longer meant having a 4.0 GPA. Ruining my 4.0 GPA meant hell to me. In fact, I cried in front of my literature teacher to convince her that I deserved an A. It’s embarrassing; I know. The point that I’m trying to make here is that I liked structure. And maybe that attachment presented itself to me when picking a profession.
“Though we had free will, we were also biological organisms”
- ‘When Breath Becomes Air’ by Paul Kalanithi
My attraction to a stable journey through medical school was undeniable. However, I didn't know what it takes.
Four years of undergraduate school in a major of my choosing.
Four years of medical school.
Four years of residency, if not more.
Despite that, being the shining star in my STEM classes made me want it more. I wanted to be the best; to get into the best programs; to get into the best undergraduate college; and to get into the best medical school. It's a short-sighted and immature way of seeing things; I know. Somehow, I manifested that immaturity in an application that I filled out for Northwestern University’s IN FOCUS Introduction to Medicine Summer Camp:
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“Being in tenth grade, I have finally started to face the college applications. [...] Going to this program will help me open my door to my future in medicine. I live in Michigan, so going to this program will really help me expose myself to medical school and specifically the University of Michigan Medical School.”
Essentially, I had successfully admitted to this program’s admissions staff that I wanted this program as a trophy to show colleges and potentially even medical schools that I was competitive and interested in medicine. Again, my intentions were far from pure. Moreover, they were far from reality. For some outrageous reason, I assumed I would want to include a summer camp on my medical school application, at least six years from when I attended the camp.
What I got from the program, however, was a small foundation of what perspective felt like in medicine. One of the camp's classes (yes, I got into the camp somehow) focused on the influence that zip codes have on lifetime expectancy. We examined lifetime expectancies in different areas of Chicago and found drastic differences. I didn’t know this then, but I started to cultivate an idea of medicine’s relationship with society. Resources like grocery stores are found in some areas but not others. Air quality is better in some areas. Water quality. Financial status. Gun prevalence. Etc.
In the months following the camp, I never internalized and reflected on this new knowledge. I tucked it away and maintained the idea that I was never really going to need this information as a doctor. Why would I need to know about what’s going on in the world when all I need is a medical education to treat my patient in a hospital? The truth in this question lies in the fact that patients never stop being patients when they leave the doctor’s office. Their hardships are plentiful, whether its insurance hardships, chronic conditions, mental and physical disabilities, etc.
"Somehow, I had to believe, I would gain not only knowledge but wisdom, too."
- ‘When Breath Becomes Air’ by Paul Kalanithi
When I was four, I was diagnosed with Stage 2B Neuroblastoma. My mother noticed signs of trouble when I kept on complaining about headaches, wouldn’t stop crying, and maintained a consistent fever. She took me to my primary care physician who then suggested an MRI which eventually revealed my tumor to the world. My cancer was in the early stages, and the doctors said they could remove it with surgery. Of course, I was only four years old when all this happened. What I’m telling you now are accounts given to me by my parents. At that time, I didn’t know it was cancer. At that time, I thought it was something growing behind my neck. My mom told me if it grew a lot, I would die. I didn’t even understand the concept of death yet alone the concept of tumors or even the name
for tumors.
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It wasn’t until fourth grade that I found out what it's
name was.
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A couple years before then, my family and I attended
a 5K walk that celebrated cancer survivors. They handed
survivors like me medals with the Children’s Hospital symbol on it. I still didn't comprehended what it meant.
In fourth grade, I took this medal to the front of my class and talked about this “something” that was growing behind my neck. Afterwards, when I my mom nonchalantly revealed that it was cancer. And because of the nature of the conversation, I didn’t even believe her at first.
I was astonished. Having never really remembered any hardships, I thought medical conditions like cancer didn’t happen to normal people like me. I was living in a fairytale in which my biggest concern was asking my parents if I could watch Hannah Montana after school.
After processing my past a little more, I almost felt proud. Or even prestigious. I didn’t feel like a normal person anymore. A new-found god-complex. In my application to my Northwestern Summer Camp I admitted, “I couldn’t wait to tell everyone I survived, that I defeated cancer.” How dramatic; I know. In my eyes, I tried to milk an experience I don’t properly remember as a reason for pursuing medicine.
“When researching for this presentation [for a high school presentation on my cancer], I was fascinated by the information that I saw. [...] This is where I was really drawn to the world of medicine and what it can do to save people's lives.”
In reality, I’m fascinated by and drawn to a lot of different things. I love music and find every opportunity to show people a song I think they would like after I “diagnose” their preferred genre of music. It doesn’t mean I want to become a DJ. I love watching MasterChef and think I can critique any restaurant food to standards of the Masterchef judges. It doesn’t mean I want to become a food critic. So, where did it come from? Was it even real?
Now as I reflect on my experience with cancer, it's two-fold. I’m thankful to be alive on this earth and to have people in my life who are willing to take care of me and save my life. However, even though I was a child, I felt a little betrayed not having known about my condition until a lot later.
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The code of ethics for interacting with patients in India is a lot different than in the United States. In India, doctors reveal medical conditions to the patient’s family rather than the patient themself. The family decides to reveal their condition to the patient or not to reveal their condition in hopes of alleviating the patient's stress.
When my dad went to India a couple of years ago, he was visiting his mom, who was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer, of which she didn’t know herself. He knew this fact because the doctor had told him over the phone. My dad chose not to tell his mother about her condition. He took care of her after her surgery and revealed her condition a couple weeks after the surgery had been successful and the bulk of her healing took place. When I heard this, I was outraged. How could a person not want to know their condition? How could you live in that ignorance? How do you know the person wouldn’t want to know? Who are you to make the decision for them?
My case is nuanced, however. I was a child. My parents didn’t have to reveal to me my condition because they made my medical decisions for me. I probably couldn’t have even understood it all. I understand now that my age was a barrier. But, I found the practice chilling. Since I know my parents did the same thing for my grandmother, I think there was an ulterior motive for my parents. From what I understand, they had an affection for the keeping of knowledge and the power it holds.
Now, as I’m writing this piece, I still couldn’t tell you the reasons why I want to go into medicine. I feel there’s a deeper secret my subconscious is keeping from me, just like the one my parents kept about my cancer. I want my conscience to know about that knowledge. Instead, my conscience turns its interest to healing.
When applying to volunteer at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan (the same hospital where I received my Neuroblastoma surgery), I finished my essay question with: “After all, we all have the same goal: to heal.” We’re both cringing; I know.
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I needed direction. To want to go into medicine is so broad. I could’ve wanted to become a nurse. I could’ve wanted to become a therapist. I could’ve wanted to become a social worker. I could’ve wanted to become a Healthcare administrator. I could’ve wanted to become a physical therapist. Why did I want to become a doctor? Despite not even having close to an answer, I applied for the Perry Initiative Program. I thought I needed more experiences like Northwestern Camp to show medical schools that I’m their best applicant.
My application to the Perry Initiative Program was a little nuanced, however. I found myself not just expressing those premature pre-med thoughts (don’t worry, they were still there). I showed a little bit of an evolution of thought. I didn’t know it then, but Northwestern’s summer camp had an effect on me. I was starting to understand the importance of role models and mentors within the medical field. During the camp, we had a chance to meet doctors and learn from their field or what they would call it, their passion. At that time, I still didn’t understand the gravity of the word. But at least, I was willing to learn. So in my application, I called out what it had to offer: role models and mentors.
“Learning about orthopedic surgery and learning from amazing women who do the things that I want to do when I grow up would be a dream.”
There was a better way to phrase it, but it was something. Nevertheless, it still contained those premature thoughts: “[the program] would look very good in my college application”. Yes, I can still be embarrassing. And yet again, somehow, I got in.
But little did I know, this one program propelled my inspiration in medicine drastically. In fact, it’s still something I reference to this day.
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The Perry Initiative Program is organized by the Ruth Jackson Orthopedic Society. Its overall goal is to minimize the gender gap in orthopedic surgery by educating high
school girls about the field of orthopedic surgery through a one-day program. When I did this program, we heard from female orthopedic surgeons, practiced surgeries on fake bones by using their surgical tools, and learned about the path to becoming an orthopedic surgeon.
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6 years later, I can only remember snippets of this day. I remember wearing my first pair of scrubs. I remember being the first person in my group to use a surgical drill. I remember the surgical resident using a cast saw on a cast I was wearing. But, most of all, I remember one simple statistic which has almost single-handedly shaped the pre-medical student I am today:
Only five percent of all orthopedic surgeons are women.
As a child, I was told it’s important for girls to pursue STEM careers. I imagined it was because, in the olden days, there weren’t as many girls in those careers. My concept of olden days, however, was dramatically incorrect. I was naive. I thought the bulk of society’s inclusivity efforts had already impacted society. It was the reason I didn’t mind being the outstanding student: the one who raised her hand for every question the teacher asked because she knew every answer. This confidence followed me through middle school but changed in high school.
I’d like to note: high school was when I found out that Watson and Crick stole Rosalind Franklin’s idea only twenty years before my parents were born.
During elementary and middle school, I actually believed boys were dumb. Not the lack of emotional intelligence that I, as a college student now, see in boys my age, but I genuinely thought they were incapable of caring enough about school to be the outstanding student, a role I had held for so long. Up until high school, they didn’t even challenge me to take it.
However, my high school was exclusively an International Baccalaureate school. Every graduating student received an IB diploma, a hard feat. You even had to take an entrance exam to get into the school. And for the first time, there weren't just seven kids in my advanced math class. There were twenty. Granted, my class size of three-hundred students in middle school changed to ninety students in high school. But overall, the percentage of smart people that I was surrounded by increased drastically.
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My classes were finally challenging. And more importantly, I saw boys in my classes excelling in classes I wasn’t excelling in. I think I’m over exaggerating it a little bit. But it was big to me. I wanted to be the best. And I thought boys were stupid.
By the end of high school, I had clearly chosen a STEM oriented path. And with some hard work, I found my stride. Instead of just taking one IB science class for Junior and Senior year, I decided to take two: Biology and Chemistry. And instead of taking a medium advanced Math class, I took the highest advanced math course possible.
At the time, because I loved STEM and attended the Perry Initiative program, I knew I wanted to pursue medicine. I say that like the only job in medicine is to become a doctor. But, in my reality, it was. Other than becoming a nurse, I really wasn’t exposed to other fields of medicine. And I thought the main qualifications to wanting to pursue becoming a physician were to be good at STEM classes. I didn’t dig deep into what other qualities involve becoming a physician. And in the same way, I didn’t dig deep into what other qualities I had.
I didn’t know it at the time, but my perspective of a “good doctor” grew with me.
At the very beginning of my freshman year of college, I tried to join, or rush, a pre-health fraternity called Delta Epsilon Mu (DEM). I thought joining DEM was what I wanted. I came to rush events confident in my ability to stick out. I took over conversations because I wanted to show the current members I was interesting and memorable. Little did I know I was making myself out to be interesting and memorable in the wrong way. I didn’t realize it then, but I was coming off rude, inconsiderate, and not fun to be around.
When the second semester came around, I felt discouraged, and I especially didn’t want to rush DEM again. My ego wouldn’t allow me. Nevertheless, I thought I'd give another fraternity a shot. When I arrived at Phi Delta Epsilon (PhiDE) coffee chats, I didn’t know what to expect. So rather than try to stand out like I did before, I just took a seat and listened.
At one of the emptier tables, I could have more insightful conversations with PhiDE's members. I asked them about how PhiDE has helped them. One of them talked about how she was able to find opportunities and guidance she otherwise wouldn’t have if she hadn’t joined PhiDE. Her name was Zoe. We ended up getting into a twenty-minute conversation about her current Biology TA position because I too was interested in teaching at the University. She told me all about which Biology classes are good for the MCAT and why she teaches the one she does.
After that day, “I thought to myself, if I could get that much
information on how to become a pre-med in that mere 20
minute conversation, imagine how much I don’t know and
how much I could know by joining this fraternity.”
So, I rushed.
In my application for PhiDE, I wrote about why I wanted to join PhiDE and why I wanted to go into medicine. Thankfully, I had improved from my premature thinking. Of course, it was still there (“volunteering in hospitals developed my passion for medicine”), but it improved. Very clearly, college opened up my world to one of diversity. By merely being exposed to people of different backgrounds, passions, and fields, I started to grow from my bubble of a perfect world. And in the same way, my knowledge of the medical world started to grow too. It manifested itself onto my PhiDE application, of which I can remember where I was when I was writing it but not remember exactly what I was writing.
“Not only do I want to help people with their medical needs, but I also want to be able to turn an intimidating environment into a comfortable one for people from all backgrounds. [...] As an aspiring orthopedic surgeon, I hope to travel around the world, [...] gaining an appreciation for different cultures and understanding how different parts of the world function.”
Proud of me? I’m not. Looking back on this application now, I apparently don’t have enough faith in myself to write such things, or even realize such things. I’m surprised. I’m surprised at how much of an emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion I put into my application. And again, I find myself thinking, did I write this because I actually felt this way? Or did I write what I think they wanted me to write? This sentence from my application is so broad, I think, right now, I’m convincing myself of the latter.
Regardless of what I was thinking then, I’m proud to say, Zoe became my big in PhiDE. And I had so much to learn from her.
Zoe comes from a small town on the West Coast, right near the border of Nevada and California. She described her high school to me as a normal high school, but living twenty years in the past. Because of the large population of Native Americans, there were predominantly three races which segregated themselves in the school: White, Black, and Native American. Students didn’t really use computers for their classes, and many of them got married right out after graduating. Of all the graduating seniors from her school, only three people had gone to college her year. They were her, her best friend, and her boyfriend. She came to University of Michigan on a scholarship and learned how to situate herself in her new college life. She had never used google drive before. Having used google drive since middle school, I couldn’t imagine what other hurdles she overcame which she or I wasn't aware of.
And no, I’m not pitying her. I look up to her. Zoe told me that in her town, there is only one rural medicine doctor. Currently, rural areas have a shortage of doctors. She wants to go to medical school to become the new rural medicine physician in her hometown.
I think this was the first time in my life where I saw someone who genuinely wanted to help their community. And not only that, I realized that it was her passion for doing what she loves that made her successful. Because all along, my success came from wanting to be the best. Yes, I know it’s vague, but I wanted to be the best at everything. What I was longing for, was a real passion of my own.
Only a few weeks after getting into PhiDE, we were sent home from our dorms because of something called the Covid-19 virus, now known as the Covid-19 pandemic. That summer, I was taking online classes, but I really found myself having nothing to do and felt like there was no real direction I was moving towards. Yes, I was pre-med, but I couldn’t do any of the pre-med things. Hospitals weren’t allowing volunteers. They weren’t hiring any Medical Assistants. They weren’t training any EMTs. And most of the research labs were not hiring assistants. I felt like I was stuck. All the things I had hoped to do that summer had been taken away from me. On top of that, I still hadn’t found a passion.
So, although I found myself biking and kayaking everyday during quarantine, I was searching for an outlet to make a difference outside of the world I lived in at the time: to find a passion of my own. To that end, I took inspiration from the Perry Initiative Program.
I knew many other girls may not like orthopedic surgery as much as me, but many were interested in STEM. In fact, almost all of my friends study STEM majors: from business to computer science to pre-health.
Until college, I didn’t understand where the gender discrepancy came from.
Freshman year of college, I was an engineering student pursuing biomedical engineering, hoping to propel me into my orthopedic surgery career. Although this major didn’t last long because of my GPA, what I learned about the demographics of the field became more important to me.
During my Engineering Orientation, I was one of less than ten girls, when the orientation group was about fifty people. I truly can’t remember if felt intimidated, being the boss-bitch I was. But, I remember being surprised. I don’t remember having this same observation five years ago in my middle school advanced math class or even two years ago in my IB Chemistry class.
Perhaps I just thought it was a result of coming to a larger university. Maybe I was making those same observations about diversity and socioeconomic status as I was with gender discrepancies in STEM fields.
After some research on the subject that summer, I found out I was wrong. While all genders perform about the same in the STEM subjects in middle school, there was simply a lack of female enrollment in advanced STEM classes in high school. It was as simple as lack of encouragement and exposure to the field.
If I hadn’t participated in the Perry Initiative program, I wouldn’t have known about orthopedic surgery like I do now. Rolling with the same logic, I created an organization that exposed middle school girls to fields that they would’ve otherwise never known about. I called it Miss STEM Careers, MSC for short.
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During quarantine summer, I reached out to a couple of my friends who were also in STEM and proposed my idea. Together, we planned out a program that would allow middle school girls to learn about many different STEM fields through powerpoints that we would create, female guest speakers in those fields, and hands-on activities.
“We plan to actively shrink the gender gap – one scientist, one doctor, one mathematician, and one engineer at a time.”
The key word in that sentence was “actively”. Rather than targeting girls who were currently enrolled in college and giving them a mediocre path to follow in STEM, leaving them unprepared and half hearted in their interest, we wanted to plant a seed in younger girls that would allow them to fall in love with those STEM fields through their own journey.
This word “actively” reminded me about a certain concept within the medical field: preventative medicine. Our healthcare system is criticized because it’s more of a sickness care system than healthcare. The system lacks resources and research in the field to help people maintain a healthy lifestyle.
In making this observation, I feel mature. I feel the growth. And it was because of this organization. Although I started MSC with the intent of helping other girls pursue an undiscovered passion, I didn’t realize that I was learning more about myself and more about the medical field.
"You try to figure out what matters to you, and then you keep figuring it out."
- ‘When Breath Becomes Air’ by Paul Kalanithi
When classes were in-person again at the beginning of Junior Year, I didn’t think I would face such difficulty with MSC. Up until then, all of our workshops for the program were held online. We had over seventy middle school girls from all Ann Arbor Public Schools attending right Tuesdays after school. However, in-person classes meant we weren’t going to be able to see this turnout in one sitting again. Collaborating with middle school teachers for classroom use and timing became a hassle. The worst part was I felt like I was doing it alone.
My friends who were also the current board members had other commitments they deemed more important. And they lacked initiative to grow the club on campus and in middle schools. I tried to delegate tasks but found myself feeling like a parent that was asking their kids when they’re going to finish their chores.
Starting MSC as a student organization has reinvented the way I go about being a leader. I didn’t fully understand the importance of codependency until MSC. I didn’t fully understand the balance between friend and coworker. Additionally, it made me rethink how I would be as a doctor. Although medical school teaches you most of the science part of being a doctor, learning how to work in a team is a socially-learned trait. And one which takes time and luck.
Although I have time, do I have the luck? How could I become a leading physician in a case if I couldn’t even run an organization that I started with people I already interact with?
Despite running a student organization myself at the start of sophomore year, I decided I would still take advantage of the opportunities that other college extracurriculars had to offer. And while I wasn’t able to participate in the classic pre-medical extracurriculars, I would still be able to partake in understanding the medical field on a greater level. So I applied to a student organization called Medlaunch.
Honestly, I’m getting bored of how many times I’ve said in applications that I’ve wanted to use problem-solving or that I wanted to gain more exposure to the field of medicine. Yet, these phrases always creep back in. “In MedLaunch specifically, problem-solving to make an impact on the local community greatly appealed to me”. How vague I was.
However, like the Perry Initiative program, I didn’t know the effect this program would have on me and my future aspirations. While I don’t think I necessarily deserved the opportunity based on my application, I did take advantage of it when I got in.
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Having only been an organization on campus for a couple of years before, Medlaunch seeks to help improve the quality of life for people with disabilities. Each team takes on a project that helps improve an aspect of a person’s or group of people’s life. Since I had played tennis in high school, I thought I would join the wheelchair tennis racket team project. Our task was to create a way for quadriplegic wheelchair tennis players to attach their hand to their racket without using athletic tape.
I was the second in command from our team manager. When our team was tasked with researching or prototyping, I took the initiative. As a result, I started attending more and more wheelchair tennis practice sessions. I needed to see our prototype in action and get real-time feedback from the athletes. Not only did I find myself gathering research for my team, I learned about the adaptive sports world. I was completely astounded by the drive of the athletes and, conversely, the lack of respect for the sport from our able-bodied society.
As an able-bodied person who was going to potentially treat patients like adaptive athletes, I felt embarrassed that I didn’t know anything about their way of life. So I wanted to educate myself on this world and explore the value it gave my life.
Through becoming more involved with the adaptive sports and fitness team at the University of Michigan, I learnt more about the struggles they face in their day to day and learned about their perspective on life. From mistreatment of equipment by airline companies to lack of accessible sidewalks, the list of accessibility discrepancies is endless. Additionally, I learned about how the adaptive sports world gives a community to those who are minorities, allowing them to lift each other up when facing struggles in our ableist society.
After learning about the adaptive sports world, I was hooked. I watched a movie called “Rising Phoenix” which details the events surrounding and including the 2016 Rio Paralympics. It included interviews of athletes who were training for the gold medal. In those interviews, I discovered something. The life of the adaptive athlete is two-fold. There’s the athlete side of them. But also, there’s the disability side of them. Therefore, competing on an international stage makes their presence and story much more significant.
Additionally, every adaptive athlete’s story is never the same: whether they acquired their disability after being born or they were born with it. From my perspective, this makes their relationship with medicine more important. Yet, you’d be surprised by the lack of research on adaptive athletes.
"I had met her in a space where she was a person, instead of a problem to be solved."
- ‘When Breath Becomes Air’ by Paul Kalanithi
After having been involved with the program for a few years, I fell more and more in love with the idea that my patients would be adaptive athletes. Paired with orthopedic surgery, it felt like finding a piece to my puzzle of life.
I want to be an orthopedic surgeon who primarily works with adaptive athletes.
I can see the contrast between my goals from before and now. Before, I just wanted to get into the best medical school. Why? I’m not sure now. Maybe it was the clout. But now, my goal has been stretched in its timeline. Rather than simply getting into medical school, I didn't want my drive to succeed stop there. My new career goal is to become the orthopedic surgeon on call for the Paralympics.
During the same time I started to become more involved with adaptive sports on campus, I was also taking an upper-level writing course called the “Art of the Essay”. It focused on narrative writing.
While I was starting to understand the power of adaptive athlete’s stories, I was missing a key mediator. The power of storytelling. Up until this upper-level writing course, I didn’t care much for it. That is, until I read one of our assigned readings: the introduction to the 9/11 commission report. What was supposed to be a government document turned into an account of the plane crashes which left out key information and accelerated the idea of islamophobia just based on how words were presented.
This was the power of storytelling: societal change.
Once I realized its value, I decided to pursue this new writing terrain. I knew I wasn’t good at it. My applications to all those programs before proves that. So I decided to do what any other person who wanted to get good at something would do: practice.
By pursuing the writing minor in undergrad, I didn’t know if I was setting myself up for success or not. I didn’t have faith in my writing abilities, and we all know how much GPA matters for students applying to medical school.
I took the leap of faith anyway.
Since starting the minor, I’ve learned more about balance and perspective than I ever have. For me, storytelling became a way of tactically educating the people around me. This was especially important to me. If I wanted to become the medical professional for adaptive athletes, I needed to know how to understand them. I needed to become an advocate for them. Writing formed that avenue for me.
The same semester I took “Art of the Essay”, I learned about a field called Narrative Medicine. Columbia University defines Narrative Medicine as “an international discipline at the intersection of humanities, the arts, clinical practice, and health care justice with conceptual foundations in narratology, phenomenology, and liberatory social theory”. In essence, Narrative Medicine connects patient and physician through story and critical thinking.
Rita Charon founded Narrative Medicine at Columbia University in 2001, the year I was born. Since then, Columbia started offering a Master’s in Narrative Medicine for students to take during their gap years between undergrad and medical school or after they’ve completed their medical training.
Once I found out about this program from a PhiDE alum, I made it my goal to complete the Master’s before medical school. I wanted the foundation of Narrative Medicine to guide me during medical school and the rest of my medical training. I didn’t want to lose sight of humanities during training that’s almost solely focused on science.
"When there’s no place for a scalpel, words are the surgeon’s only tool."
- ‘When Breath Becomes Air’ by Paul Kalanithi
In my application for the Master’s, I was able to put my writing skills to use. I chose to be vulnerable. I chose to show my previous flaws and intentions. To show my maturation. I’m going to give you the most important part of my Personal Statement for the program:
“All of the activities I’ve mentioned for you have definitely taught me tangible skills like leadership, problem-solving, and communication. But in truth, they taught me more about how to analyze and perceive complex situations panoramically, viewing the clinical and the emotional in tandem. I could write about how this program fits into my overall professional growth, but to me, the very core of narrative medicine is its intrinsic goal to make the professional, personal.”
I’m proud to say I was accepted into the program. Attending Columbia for the next two years is a vision which has turned into a reality. More importantly, it’s a stepping stone to the dream I’ve set out for myself.
I’m not sure how my medical school application is going to turn out. I’m not sure if I still have the answer to why I want to go to medical school. Maybe it’s because I can’t fit the answer into a short few sentences. You can see it for yourself. It took me 17 pages. But maybe, that’s the beauty of it. Going to medical school is a big feat. The decision to go through with it shouldn’t be as simple as what restaurant one wants to go to for dinner. It’s a series of nuances and growth throughout one's life. A group of decisions that have led to the ultimate decision that one would want to embark on this treacherous journey. And the answer will evolve even after the journey has started. It requires a sureness and commitment that almost no other job has. It requires a combination of luck and initiative, which creates a passion that drives one for the majority of their life.
Not every event in my life has contributed to this passion. But enough have. I feel determined. And something I’ve realized which I hadn’t before is I don’t want to just be a doctor. I don’t want to just treat my patients. I want to change the world: I want to show people the value of adaptive sports; To show them gender discrepancies in STEM; To show them the power of storytelling; To accelerate a movement that moves toward a more inclusive world. One where opportunity finds every person alike.
This may seem overwhelming to you. Not every person is like me. Not every person should be like me. The effect they have on the world as a physician and beyond should be based on a scale which is up to them.
If you’re a pre-medical student just starting out, realize that your application is not going to be perfect. It almost never is. What sets you apart from everyone else is you taking initiative to find something that you can look to for inspiration. Everything is connected to medicine. Song. Food. Lifestyle. Clothes. Sports. Everything. And there is one inevitable truth that everyone will face in their life: death.
To live life without acknowledging death is impossible. To live life ignoring death is cowardly. To live life understanding death is noble. But to live life perceiving death is to be a physician and patient.
No matter on what scale you want to make a change in the world, you should want to in the first place. And in the society we live in today, it’s both difficult and easy to find this inspiration. Take initiative to learn and expose yourself to new things. Travel. Understanding how other people live. They could be your patients one day. And when you write your application to medical school, use it as an opportunity to show your passion. It shouldn’t feel like an obligation. It won’t feel like an obligation. It’s a congratulations. You and I are setting up a life we want to live. That takes courage.
"... the question is not simply whether to live or die but what kind of life is worth living."
- ‘When Breath Becomes Air’ by Paul Kalanithi