Grad's guide to graduate admissions essays - Colleen Reding 2015
The Ohio state university college of medicine
Medicine/nursing/health
I did not enter college with the goal of becoming a physician; I entered college with the goal of becoming a lawyer, or a writer, or a businesswoman, etc. I had been surrounded by the medical profession all of my life, as both of my parents are physicians, but I continually shrugged off the curiosity I felt toward medicine. However, as a college freshman, I soon found myself eavesdropping on students who were studying human biology and was unenthused by my international relations class. Realizing I missed science classes, I decided to start taking the premedicine course work and have since developed a passionate desire to become a physician.
In the summer between my sophomore and junior years in college, I worked in an outpatient Internal Medicine Center performing research, shadowing doctors, and interacting with patients. The Center is an ambulatory care clinic that serves an impoverished community. For the first time, I was presented with the challenges that come with caring for patients who lack a permanent address and cannot afford food, let alone medical care. My interactions with these patients taught me more about the practice of medicine than any textbook ever could. For instance, when I was talking with an overweight, depressed patient with diabetes who could not afford her insulin, she declared she was not taking insulin anymore because she “Just didn’t feel like it.” Even though the physician and I explained the importance of taking insulin and tried to help her lose weight, this patient’s condition had worsened by the end of summer. I questioned why she was not following her doctor’s orders and did not initially realize that there were many complicated, underlying reasons why she refused to take her medication; it was not simply because she did not feel like it or was lazy. To this patient, providing food for her family and avoiding homelessness were higher priorities than her medical care. On top of that, her doctor told me that her depression makes her feel hopeless toward improving her health, so she does not see the point in taking insulin.
Through my interactions with this patient and others, I began to appreciate the complexity involved in caring for all patients. It is not as simple as diagnosing the problem, prescribing medication, and curing the patient. There are many factors at play when prescribing a treatment plan, and the physician has to take into account the patient’s willingness to adhere to the plan when prescribing treatment. This experience taught me that each individual patient requires a personalized care plan. Along with providing effective medical care, a physician must also provide compassion and understanding to the patient so he or she can treat each patient in the most appropriate manner.
The same summer, while shadowing a doctor in the hospital, he was paged to respond to a Code Blue. Racing to the patient’s room, scenes from Grey’s Anatomy and ER flashed through my mind, but as we entered the room, we discovered that the woman was “do not resuscitate.” The situation quickly calmed and the doctor made everyone leave the room except me and a nurse. He called the woman’s daughter into the room, and administered appropriate care to the patient. He calmly and kindly told the daughter that her mother only had a few minutes to live and sat her in a chair by the patient’s bed. He then made me leave the room while he and the nurse stayed until the patient died.
Having physicians as parents, I knew that medicine was not the glorified version on TV, however this situation confirmed my understanding that a physician must find a balance between being scientific, compassionate, and understanding. I truly admire how the doctor handled this situation with respect, by first making the other doctors leave, then allowing the daughter to be with her mother while he stood by, quietly making sure he fulfilled his duty to the patient and gave her the appropriate care. He did what he needed to do for his patient by making her comfortable and letting her die with the dignity she had requested.
Through my summer at the outpatient Internal Medicine Center, volunteering at a hospital, and the many other opportunities I have had to shadow physicians in the NICU and ER, I have had the opportunity to interact with a variety of physicians and patients. I appreciate that the practice of medicine is challenging and understand the complexities and responsibilities that come with being a physician.
However, I am confident that I am up for the challenge.