Why I Want To Be A Physician Essay Sample

When I look back on my childhood, a warm aroma of protection surrounds it. I had parents and people who were there for me to meet me needs. There were people to comfort me when I was scared. I never felt alone. If I was sick I was taken to a doctor. Sometimes, lost in narrow corners of our own lives, we can forget that this is not the situation for everyone growing up in the world today. There are children in the world who do not have someone to look out for them. One in 45 children will experience homelessness each year in America. That means there are 1.6 million homeless children on any given year. One overriding drive in my intentions to become a physician is to be able to assist such children, using my training in one of the ancient arts—medicine.
While medical school is where I see the end of the road for my journey, I have been taking steps for many years to get myself at the point where I currently see myself. In my home time I spent time volunteering in a hospital’s physical therapy ward. What was inspiring about this experience was seeing people regain a part of their lives that they had loved but lost. The difficult part of it was seeing people frustrated by the failings of their own bodies. Being in a position to help them, is as motivating a drive as I can imagine, and this solidified my decision to pursue a career as a physician.
I also spent time volunteering in a nursing home. In some sense this was polar opposite my time volunteering in the physical therapy ward. Although everything was done to provide comfort and enable independence for the residence, many were in decline without the hope of ever experiencing an upswing. This prepared me for the difficult components of my chosen career path. A doctor’s job is to alleviate pain, and they are the shield between a person and his or her pain.
In life a role of have always sought to fill is the role of comforter. I want to help people in distress and my intention is to do it through medicine. My eventual goal is to find a career in the field of internal medicine—specifically pediatrics and/r neotatal medicine. I want to rise as high as I can in my ability to provide medical services for homeless children in need of quality health care. I think communities are best served when the most defenseless populations—homeless children—are provided for by competent professionals who not by accident are in a place to protect them.
I realize the amount of time and concerted effort that is necessary to reach a level where I will be able to do this. One of my favorite quotations is by Henry David Thoreau. To paraphrase, he said, “First we must build castles in the sky, then we must build the ladders to reach them.” Very early in my life I built the castle of becoming a doctor. From that point on I constructed for myself an academic and extracurricular life that were steps in place to reach that goal. This is what I have done to prepare myself for a career as a physician. My next step is to acquire the education that will allow me to reach that castle.