Pursuing Medicine: A Short Story

CRACK! I automatically knew something horrible happened. I looked to my left arm and saw a bone popped up in the middle of my arm. In that split second -my body full of adrenaline and fear- I pushed it back down and snapped it back into place. I ran to my father dangling my arm yelling “DAD I BROKE MY ARM!” He didn’t believe me at first, but once he saw my arm he knew it was true. Luckily, a family friend –who was a cardiologist- was there and helped us to the emergency room 15 minutes away.

I was nine years old when this occurred and it significantly influenced my decision of pursuing medicine. But I didn’t have time to dwell on the minutia, because the majority of my adolescence was spent working at my parents’ restaurant after school. I would bus tables, take to-go orders, roll silverware in napkins, and drop off catering orders near and far. After mastering these lost art forms I decided my talents were needed elsewhere, so I began volunteering at my local ER. Not as glamourous as my day job, but it had its moments. Every hour was different with patients coming in with ailments ranging from headaches to heartaches to the dreaded common cold. As it turns out, working at my parents’ restaurant and volunteering at the ER were not all that different. I had to treat patients the same way I would a paying customer; service with a smile.

I know it seems I’m not moving upward in my jobs, but rest assured I am. These huge mounds of rubbish contained animal bones, arrowheads, bivalve shells, charcoal, gastropod shells, pottery, and heaps of dirt. This work is not as easy as it sounds. In the beginning, it was extremely difficult to differentiate burned animal bone from charcoal or deciding whether or not an otolith should be placed in the bivalve pile or bone pile. However, after learning from my many mistakes, I finally got the hang of