College Admissions Essay: A Career In Medicine

“When I grow up, I want to be a doctor.” It’s interesting that a trite sentence of ten words encapsulates the entirety of my future goals. Yet despite the oversimplification, those words have seemingly transformed into a mantra every time I consider my lifetime goals.
Those wise men in lab coats, the mystical healers in blue scrubs, even the terrifying surgeon with scalpels have all invoked a certain sense of awe, perhaps even envy within me. I wanted to have what they had, the power to both constantly work in such an interesting and intellectually challenging lifestyle while directly improving the lives of others at the same time. This ambition to live the same type of life has led me to pursue a medical career. But of course, admittance

I have competed in numerous academic competitions, such as UIL and Science Fair. Playing tennis has allowed me to improve my concentration, while music and visual arts have taught me that creativity can sometimes be more important than logic. However, despite all this training, I do not consider any of these to be my most significant step to entering the medical society. What truly solidified, renewed, and amplified my ambition was a seemingly insignificant four week period in which I shadowed a pediatrician.
Here, I received the opportunity to examine the fabled healing power at a closer level. I learned how to prepare vaccines. I learned how to run urine, blood, throat culture, and various other tests. I learned how to distinguish an erratic or abnormal heart beat from a normal one, how to identify the source of congestion, how to quickly determine the presence of infection by feeling the lymph nodes. I even learned which types of coffee doctors favor after spending a whole night clearing the mounds of paper work ever present at their desk. But perhaps more importantly than all of those, I learned both how important the patient was to the doctor, and how important the

Despite the mountains of paper work, despite the many years of difficult schooling, despite the late hours running lab tests or thinking of solutions, the doctor I shadowed was able to live a life in which she had thousands of interesting situations to recount, yet was also able to help another person every fifteen minutes. Those weeks of following that doctor around did not only expose me to the behind-the-scenes clinical experience; they, without a doubt, convinced me to pursue that same lifestyle. My goals are varied and they always will be. I want to pursue a major in the biological sciences. I want to spend my insatiable curiosity looking up anatomical drawings rather than memorizing literary works.
I want to participate in activities in which you can help others, while also having fun. All of these plans point to the same path. Even later in life I want to do research, perhaps pursue a Ph.D. I want to continually challenge myself, and never have a day that isn’t worth recounting in a story. I also want to be of use to my community, with the ability to directly help others. All of these goals and more can be accomplished by the same, one path. My lifetime goal has and