Most people find the hospital a cold, strange, and miserable building that smells of sanitizing materials and latex gloves. I see it as an educational gateway into medicine. When doing our internship with the high school health science course, we worked in the hospital with people from several different departments. When with one of the physical therapists, I got to go into many patients’ rooms to help them do rehabilitation exercises. We walked in a room and instantly struck by the cold air coming from the air conditioning vent.  The physical therapist asked the elderly woman how her new hip was feeling, and helped her sit up from the bed. The woman was full of joy as she told the therapist “I have never felt better! For the past year, I never thought I would be able to walk again”. She then started to walk slowly around the dark room, and stated “I am so very blessed to have found an orthopedic surgeon who wanted to give me such a large part of my life back.”

Her thin legs seemed to be carrying the rest of her body around the room, and she was paying no attention to the obstacles laying on the floor in front of her. Standing by the physical therapist, I was shivering when I heard the woman give praise to her surgeon. In that moment, a light in my head came on and I made the biggest decision I have ever made. I want to be the surgeon patients find hope in; I want to give people small bits of their life back. The woman saw my strange facial expression and walked closer to me. I could feel the heat radiating from her and she looked at me directly in the eyes. Her small beady eyes seemed to be looking straight into my head. “Are you going to be a doctor some day?” she said, still staring into my eyes. I felt a sudden rush of adrenaline as I said out loud for the first time in my life “I will be an orthopedic surgeon one day, like the one who did your hip replacement.  The physical therapist looked at me, as if she had never expected that large of a goal from a sixteen-year-old girl. I felt a sense of respect, not only from the therapist, but also from the patient’s family as they mumbled “wow” under their breath.

Having the health science course that required an internship at the hospital has taught me much more than some learning material. I learned the role physicians play in a patient’s life and how improving the quality of someone’s life is the greatest thing a doctor can do. Before taking the health science course, I was required to take an “introduction to medical terminology” course that really caught my attention. While taking this class, I was learning the language of medicine. Being able to understand medical professionals when they spoke was an amazing feeling. I was more connected to medicine than ever before. After taking the medical terminology and health science classes, I chose to expand my knowledge of medicine by taking a pharmacy technician course. I am currently taking this rigorous class, and I look forward to learning more in there every single day. The challenges I face in these difficult courses give me motivation to overcome them with perseverance.

I believe that being involved in medically specified classes has greatly helped my passion for medicine grow into my largest life goal. These courses have opened my eyes to medicine, and showed me the amazing opportunities I have in the medical field. Now, at the age of only seventeen, I have dedicated my life to helping others through medicine. I am aware that many people change their mind about the career they want to go after, but I believe I will be in the medical field for the rest of my life. For this reason, I believe my academic achievements have helped mold me into the person I want to be and given me opportunities to further my education.