Personal Statement 2007
From early on – about age 12 – I wanted be a doctor. I wanted to help
people in the expert way that only a physician can, but I needed a
concrete, personal reason to make the commitment that being a physician
requires. It wasn’t until my adult life that a reason became apparent
to me. This personal statement describes my evolution as a humanistic
individual, and how I have found my driving force. My journey has
crossed this planet, and has made me feel as much at home in Alabama as
in sub-Saharan Africa. It is with complete certainty that I state this:
my purpose for being a physician lies in helping the people that need it
most. I see that purpose realized in serving those affected by HIV.
I grew up as an adopted child in southern
California, in a household of six. Despite the intact nuclear family, I
didn’t quite feel like I fit in, a fact that I attributed to being
adopted. I proceeded through life as most with privilege do, obtaining a
university education, but there was a subconscious, listless quality to
my planning for the future. This was a period when I was wondering where
I came from, rather than thinking about where I would go.
Within this framework, I worked for three years as
a hospital-based Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) where I learned
clinical and organizational skills. In retrospect, perhaps the most
important lesson was how to integrate into a team of caregivers,
particularly within life-threatening situations. I also learned that the
practice of medicine was limited by policy, and this sparked my
interest. This interest led me to the University of Alabama at
Birmingham (UAB) to study health care policy and business
administration, but an important personal event happened first.
Towards the end of my years as an EMT, an
extraordinary circumstance befell me. I became reunited with my
biological parents. This reunion answered many personal questions for me
– questions that I didn’t realize I had – about who I was and where I
came from. Finding them freed me from a burden that I didn’t realize I
was carrying. Suddenly I no longer wondered who I was. Instead, I
planned who I would become.
I moved to Birmingham and completed Master’s
degrees in Public Health and Business Administration. I undertook this
graduate education to better understand the systems that guide our
health care practice. However, it was after graduation that I found my
life’s calling. Through a post-graduate internship in Africa, I
discovered AIDS.
From 1997 to 1999 I was the administrator for an
HIV research clinic in Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia. When I began
this work, I couldn’t have cared less about HIV. This problem had not
been on my radar. I was occupied by accounting for a million dollar
annual budget, managing one hundred staff, overseeing four properties,
interacting with governmental agencies, and complying with U.S. and
Zambian regulations. I hoped to gain on-the-job management experience,
but I learned a much more important lesson, and it is this lesson that
drives me now to become the best physician I can be.
I could write many examples of events that occurred
in Lusaka that opened my eyes to the devastation of the AIDS epidemic.
Each story would be the same in two ways. First, it would be tragic,
with loss of a young life compounded by sick family members, the burden
of orphans, and underscored by the deep despair of poverty. Second, and
more importantly, I learned this: that if enough will, belief, and
determination are applied, these tragic stories of AIDS would not have
to unfold. I see individualized, caring medicine as the way to solving
the problems of AIDS. I also see population-based, policy-savvy medicine
as the way toward solving AIDS. I returned from Zambia with a will to do
what I could to change things, the belief that these changes were the
right thing to do, and the determination to translate these beliefs into
action.
At UAB I worked as the administrator in the Center
for AIDS Research. I augmented this employment with local and national
community involvement in HIV-related activist groups as well as night
classes to reacquaint myself with the sciences that I had a newfound
craving to understand. Over this period I maintained ties to Zambia,
traveling there once every year or two.
I began medical school in 2004 inspired to help
those affected by HIV. Medical school has reinforced my resolve. Each
clerkship has provided new opportunities to learn and to serve. Whether
caring for a Spanish-speaking child on the oncology service, or an older
man with cryptococcal meningitis, or a crack-addicted, pregnant mother
of three in the emergency department, my passion has been to ease their
burden. Of all the clerkships, Internal Medicine best fits my vision of
myself as a physician. I am interested in my patients, in their
histories, in the way that their medical problems affect their lives,
and I am motivated to do whatever I can to resolve those problems. I
look forward to every patient encounter for two reasons: it is an
opportunity for me to help, and it is an opportunity for me to learn. In
my view, these are the greatest privileges of medicine.
I have continued to maintain close ties to Zambia,
spending the summer after first year working on a perinatal HIV
transmission reduction project at the Centre for Infectious Disease
Research in Lusaka. I will complete medical school with three months of
elective rotations in Zambia, at the University Teaching Hospital and
satellite clinics in Lusaka, and at the Chilonga Mission Hospital in the
rural Northern Province. I came away from these experiences with a
newfound understanding of the unique difficulties faced by women with
HIV. I also began to understand the morbidity associated with TB and
malaria in the context of high HIV prevalence. These experiences renew
my sense of purpose in a way that no other experiences could.
Here I am now, nearly a physician, with a
passionate purpose. I am no longer the adoptee that didn’t fit in; I am
a man who has found his niche in the practice of medicine. I believe
that my personal and professional experiences enhance my ability to take
care of those who entrust me with their care. And I wish to apply these
gifts where I believe they will do the most good.
