Even before you get to college, people ask what you want to major in, a choice that could set out what you’re doing for the rest for your life. You did pretty well in all your math and science classes in high school: all APs, all fives, no big deal. So you say that you’ll go pre-med. Hey, after all, a doctor’s salary doesn’t sound too shabby.
But then you start your chemistry and biology classes, and after the first tests, your classmates start dropping like flies. With the requirement of eight years of school and up to seven years of residency looming large, many people decide that the profession’s not for them after all. The initial commitment is often made on a whim, but it takes much more—like a life-changing experience—to pledge the next 15 years of your life and hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans to achieve this one goal. My reason is Adam.
I was nine years old when my cousin Adam became sick. He was as healthy as any other four-year-old boy, until one day he came down with a 105-degree fever. The doctors said it was viral and would run its course. Two nights later, as Adam fell asleep in my aunt’s arms, he had his first seizure. He spent the next seven weeks in the intensive care unit under a drug-induced coma. During this time, Adam experienced kidney failure, liver problems, and heart complications that demanded he be placed on a heart transplant list.
I visited Adam with my family almost every weekend while he was in the hospital. The once smiling and laughing little boy lay speechless and motionless. I could not understand why this had to happen. Why didn’t the doctors have a cure? They diagnosed his condition as viral encephalitis. If they knew what was wrong, why couldn’t they fix it?
Adam was eventually released after nine months in the hospital, as the doctors again admitted that there was nothing that they could do. He has been at home since, under the constant care of my aunt; he is essentially unresponsive, experiences countless seizures each day, and recently had to be saved from an episode of cardiac arrest brought on by a severe case of pneumonia.
For the last ten years, I have been focused on a career in medicine not because of the money, but because of the diseases to be cured, the patients to be saved, and the families in the waiting room that deserve a doctor who can walk in and say, whatever the outcome, that he gave his best effort.
Now more than ever, entering the medical field is not just something that can be done on a whim. With the recent passage of the new healthcare bill, the future of the medical field is as uncertain as it’s ever been. Fifteen years of intensive study is a long time, but to me, it will all be worth it. When I checked the box labeled “Pre-medicine” on my college application, it wasn’t just another form to fill out, a possible plan for my four years at Georgetown, something to have on my diploma when I leave the Hilltop. It was a life decision, a commitment of my life to the many other lives that will eventually be placed in my hands.
