Becoming a Pediatrician - StudentScholarships.org
The stick figure had a tall, dark and brown complexion. His face was thin, his hair a fuzzy black. A long white coat was crayoned over his torso and a strange black 'y'-shaped wire lay around his neck. Above his left breast pocket, scribbled in ironically messy handwriting were the words 'Dr. Shah.'
In kindergarten, my class was given the assignment to 'draw what we wanted to become.' Most of the kids drew policemen or pilots, some drew superheroes or astronauts, and a few just drew mom or dad. I drew a pediatrician.
Growing up with asthma, visits to the doctor were common and it was not unusual for me to spend a night at the hospital due to intense wheezing. For most children, the experiences would have been terrifying, but I was never afraid. I trusted my pediatrician to help me breathe clearly again and I always came home healthier and happier than before. It was then that I realized that I wanted to become like my doctor. After all, what job could be better than keeping children strong and cheerful?
Twelve years from that drawing, I am still fascinated by the world of medicine. And it is this fascination that led me to apply for a summer internship in the Pediatrics department of the world renowned University of California, San Francisco. For eight weeks last summer, I traveled to and from San Francisco to work on my project: Persistent Hyperparathyroidism in Pediatric Kidney Patients. Revolving around hyperparathyroidism, a common disease in children with kidney failure, my research involved a wide variety of tasks ' from collecting blood and urine samples to formulating data tables and performing statistical analysis. However, the best part of my day would always be meeting with patients. I remember one in particular ' a seven-year-old girl who had just received a kidney transplant. Though she faced adversity at such a young age, her maturity and relentless smile were truly inspiring.
It was this experience at UCSF that confirmed my desire to
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