College Essay On Becoming A Doctor

Becoming a doctor has been a passion of mine from a very early age. I cannot point to a specific moment and say this was when I knew for certain I wanted to become a physician. However, I feel that the culmination of my life experience has made it abundantly clear that there is no other career path that I would rather pursue.

Having a parent in the medical field largely shaped my childhood. I saw my mother work her way through nursing school, and I spent many days positioned behind the nurse's desk of my local hospital's emergency room, absorbing the excitement of healthcare around me. This heavily influenced my perception of medicine as a field that requires compassion and a good work ethic. I eagerly began to try to find out as much as I could about the unfamiliar technical terms I heard her

As I grew older, I was faced with problem after problem with my health. Finally, at 12 years old I was diagnosed with Turner syndrome, a rare genetic disorder found in a very small number of females. Living with Turner Syndrome has taught me how to be calm in the face of very difficult circumstances, exercise perseverance, and maintain a positive attitude. I had to come to terms with the fact that this would be a lifelong struggle. A times my family and I felt helpless because there was either nothing we could do about a particular problem or a particular doctor wasn’t listening to our concerns. My plucky optimism and can do attitude were further put to the test my very first year of college when I suffered from a spontaneous pneumothorax. I was hospitalized for about two weeks during the spring semester. The day my lung collapsed started out just like any other until I began to feel the tightness and pain grip my chest. I began to panic. My mind immediately started racing with all of the awful possibilities the doctors had warned me could happen with Turner Syndrome. I was hours away from home and didn’t know