Belonging to a country with the 2nd highest Population across the globe, it has been an easy realization that a nation’s concern for a healthy future generation begins with child care.
Coming from a working class family, I had loving but strict upbringing. Being the only child in a joint family, I grew up in a comfortable environment. However, having witnessed children living in socio-economic disparities during my own growing years, I always wanted my career to have something to do with children's welfare.
My inspiration to get into medical school right after 12th grade, in spite of non-medico background of my family, simply originated from passion to learn more of the human body, illnesses that plague it and the modalities which treat them. That is how I as a 17-year old made a career choice based on a personal interest which motivated me to prepare for the competitive exam for entry in medical school. Within a year of being in medical school, it was becoming amply clear that I was at right place, as nowhere else would I have been equally happy. I found the rigorous daily routine of a physician interesting and challenging, rather than a compulsion of my career choice. And that feeling continues to stay on each day. I had found my purpose there, an expansion of my happiness.
Throughout my graduate program, I liked my posts in Medicine, Pediatrics and Surgery the most. More so, the way each successive case and its presentation offered opportunities for incremental learning and chance for improvisation.
Pediatrics gave me a chance to go back to my childhood dream of doing what I had set out to do so unknowingly. Having had the opportunity to serve in a rural setup with a majority of patients coming from economically backward sections, it offered countless opportunities to make the difference that I always wished for. My rotations in pediatrics through all my years in Medical school as well as during internship gave me the deepest sense of fulfillment.
Each day in Medical school was an opportunity to learn something new. Just a few moments spent in educating a mother for managing her child’s health, more particularly in terms of compliance and follow-up, gives priceless satisfaction. After many a shift in the NlCU, I have noticed how something as mundane as monitoring the oxygen saturation in a neonate can spell the difference between a healthy child and one ridden with permanent mental handicap.
A few practical learnings that I gathered during my rotations in pediatrics will persist with me throughout my practice as a Pediatrician :
1. No two cases are the same, however similar they may appear,
2. Every child is reflection of the family it belongs to ,
3. The mother is always right, if she isn’t, then probably I as physician didn’t ask the right questions.
The traits I cultivated through all these years in Medical school have been more an acceptance of challenge rather than compulsion to cope with, be it going that extra mile for learning effective ways to function as physician, picking up important lessons from willing professors, obliging seniors and sincere friends who shared my zeal for learning and inputs from all-knowing nursing staff.
Aspiration to pursue higher education in the US originates from realization that an appropriate training during early stage of my career and at a right place will work miracles to the way I function as a professional. Experiences during rotations at New York Presbyterian hospital, NY and Cook County hospital, Chicago have transformed the said aspiration into faith and re-affirmed my determination for getting trained as pediatrician. During the rotations in US, I trained under some of the best teachers I have ever come across, under sub-specialties of pediatrics such as cardiology, pulmonology, neurology, allergy / immunology and infectious diseases. It has indelibly changed the way I function as a physician .
Ever since my first day in Medical school, I wished to be the best physician that I could be. That and only that wish has carried me through various obstacles involved in studying abroad, giving me the strength to make life changing decisions for myself, and to tide over disappointments and difficulties. In retrospect, I know that as a medical student I had never imagined myself writing this Statement of Purpose. The fact that in spite of being focused, this girl who was seemingly rendered clueless in face of countless uncertainties, has come this far, demonstrates that the mere ‘audacity of hope’, as Barrack Obama puts it, only can pave way for opportunities and make apparently impossible dreams possible.
I strive to fulfil my responsibilities as a physician with full conviction that in its fulfillment I derive joy and contentment. I confidently visualize myself pursuing Pediatrics and following it throughout my life , with just as much zest as I had when I started out.
I am confident that an opportunity to pursue postgraduate education in US will transform me into a physician striving to maintain high standards, anywhere in the world, notwithstanding the adequacies or otherwise of infrastructure and magnitude of the patient population in resource-deficit developing nations.
"To laugh often and much,
to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children,
to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends,
to appreciate beauty,
to find the best in others,
to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch....
to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded!"
(Emerson)
There isn't another month that I look forward to more than this one. For obvious reasons. Each year in October I realise that I am wiser than before and that there is hardly anything left for me to learn to be certified 'World Wise'. Every year! Since the past four-five years at least. Alas! Each day has new things to teach me, and before I know it., I get through 365 days telling myself that I am not going to make the same mistake twice because I am wiser. I don't. I make Brand New Ones. I am happy for those mistakes (Proud even :) ) but I do wish that there comes a day when I can tell myself I did perfectly well. 100%.