Follow Your Passion by Phoo

Follow Your Passion by Phoo - March 2014 Scholarship Essay

My influences and interests for pursuing a career in medicine started when I was in 8th grade. I started to develop a habit of learning new science concepts because they gave me a sense of discovery and exploration on topics like the universe, evolution and living organisms. Gathering facts and putting them into a clear and complete understanding of the natural world allows me to expose myself to new discoveries and theories. This has been my belief which motivates me to keep moving toward my dream of becoming a physician one day. Science to me is interesting, exciting and essential to the understanding of the relationship between our society and the natural environment.

I think the reason why I find the field of biology so fascinating is because of my passion and dream to help, love and care for patients like Mother Teresa. The role she played to help people who had HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis was a huge inspiration to me. Not only that, she would donate her own food and money to people who desperately need help. She was a champion at her work and benefactor for the greater good. You can’t find success the way she does if you don’t have compassion and perseverance like her. For me, money is not important. What is important in my life is the ability to help out many people who are struggling with diseases. I really wish to provide medical care to patients in a wide variety of ways.

However, even in this modern technological society, only the developed countries are able to take advantage of full medical care. My family and I are from Myanmar where getting reliable information for medicine and medical care is a nearly impossible situation. That is the reason why my father received news very late about him having Hepatitis B. When I was 15 years old, my father was told he needed to start taking Viread, a medicine that can stop the spreading of Hepatitis B virus. We soon found out that wouldn't be enough. The news had devastated and affected our entire family and it was decided that we would all come to the United States for my father’s treatment. We met a good friend of my father, Dr. Jonathan Chang, who is a liver specialist. He prescribed daily medication to help my father to fight this disease. It eventually started to cure him. At that time, I thought to myself what it would be like if I become a physician who can cure faster and in a more effective way to this kind of disease.

There are so many interesting and different aspects in medical field. My short term goal is to go to Research University that has top science program that will benefit and helpful for me in my life. My long term goal is to become an anesthesiologist because I am curious about human body and how it works and functions inside. The roles of anesthesiologist are very important and I would like to experience it. I enjoy doing investigation, searching and problem solving that are relating to the medical issues.

By attending Lead America in John Hopkins University last summer, it gave me a great feeling of satisfaction to have an opportunity to participate in such program. The thing that fascinated me was an Epidemiology Case Study. Our team member has to investigate the prevalence of Methemoglobinemia (MetHb) on the basis of Cyanosis. We traveled to John Hopkins Hospital and investigate on the children and adults how they might got infected by the disease. While I was there, I was also able to watch a surgeon in the operating room explaining us the procedure on mouth to mouth resuscitation and CPR. The experience that I got during this conference will never be forgotten. I always wanted to be a doctor and through interviewing a patient, watching the surgeon, and figuring out the case study have influenced my decision to purse a medical career. I considered this program as one of my greatest academic achievements of all time.