My Mind is a tabula rassa, fill it.
Medicine is, to tell the truth, only a recent dream for me. After 17 years of wandering the globe, as I was born in Egypt to diplomat parents and proceeded to live in Argentina (my father’s homeland), Syria, Argentina again and finally Spain (my mother’s homeland), I finally opted for this course. I cannot state precisely how it happened.
My sciences always have been strong, but the arts always did seem to interest me more. I’ve always been an apt artist, and though lately I don’t have the time to draw or paint I do still show an interest for film photography. I’ve also always been an avid reader of classics and try to write on occasion. My mother has always feared that I would pursue something within those parameters, possibly film.
Yet I also have always been a top student in Biology, Chemistry and Physics, though I might say that the last interests me the least. In Biology, however, I did attend the National Olympics in Rio Cuarto, Cordoba, and my team ended up eighth place. The following year I was requested for a second participation, but could not go due to scholastic and family issues. This time the team arrived at first place. The experience of travelling there one year and preparing to do so the next, however, were wonderful and helped me grow as a person.
I consider Argentina the point in my life where I transitioned from a spoiled child who had lived among the wealthiest Syrian children to a better-rounded individual, a time where I developed my cultural and emotional knowledge. It was at this time when I took an interest in old movies, and when my scientific base was established. It was a time of excess hormones, a time of extreme poles that had to be resolved in order to get to what I now am. However, it was also a time in which I thought it was pretty clear I would not be choosing any career related to the sciences.
Then I moved to Barcelona. It always had been a childhood dream to live in Spain, my mother’s homeland, in which we spent all our summers (though, I must say, in the south). I did not want to move. Leaving Argentina was the final step in becoming who I know am, the future Med-student.
I guess the change is too recent to analyse just yet. Maybe someday I shall realise what the precise instant was, but for sure one of the factors had to do with me realising the humanitarian aspect of science is, and I do think it is found in the art of medicine. I would like to thank my best friend Maria, as I believe it was through her that I found this. She has dreamt of being a pediatrician all her life, and seeing the passion in her and her determination to reach her dreams definitely were an inspiration to me, to say the least, and also did help me see the human side of medicine I once did not.
Certainly one of my strengths is dealing with and understanding people, and though I do this in a unique way and do sometimes need some space to understand myself, through medicine and in University in the UK I will be able to establish bonds with various people and help them out through their rough times, as they will help me learn also, be it friends, professors, or future patients and co-workers.
It is strange that through the writing of this essay (and though this sounds cliché, I promise I intend nothing of the sort) I have actually found the reason why I want to go through the long process of studying and practise to one day become a doctor. After all these years (and paragraphs) of arts, sciences, family, friends, and finding oneself, I have realised that life is my passion, and that through medicine I know I can find the perfect way to channel my energy into helping others and becoming a better professional myself. Though I will not give up my other passions, or live with one hand tied behind my back, I shall take this path to find happiness, somewhere.
Note: The first page was intended as a stupid joke I wasn’t even gonna print out, but I think I’ll send it in too... Just to show that learning can come anytime, anyplace.
