“The only thing constant in this world is change.” It seems that every powerful and articulate phrase can hold some personal meaning to your life. Whether this phrase helps strengthen you, discourage or encourage you to influence others, it is the underlying moral which helps you to realize what you were really meant to do with your life. Throughout my high school and college years, I was on the path towards the health field in pursuit of becoming a doctor. I volunteered at local hospitals, shadowed physicians and participated in several summer health enrichment programs. I managed to excel in school, involve myself in extracurricular activities, and still found time to volunteer at shelters, hospitals and food banks. I was set to graduate from college and move on to a stage in my life I had been waiting seemingly all my life for.
But something happened. Towards the median of my path, there seemed to be a fork in the road. Another direction I did not see. What one prerequisite class can do to change my whole world. What a little hands-on experience, a motivating teacher, a microscope and a little light can do.
Research required me to dig deeper. It helped me to realize that without research and researchers, medicine today would not have bee so advanced as it is. I decided to enter the Masters program in biology in hopes to broadened my view of the research field. I conducted my research on prostate cancer, in which gave me the opportunity to interact directly and indirectly with patients and physicians, I learned the importance of organization and learned effective communication skills. I learned to think objectively and subjectively, analytically and efficiently.
I completed my studies with the sense of knowing that research was what I wanted to do. My professional experience, after school, as Laboratory Technologist has given me the opportunity to gain experience in clinical and medical research. My experience as a technological clinician has given me the opportunity to witness an ongoing study with a 10 year-old child who is morbidly obese, has mild sleep apnea and sleep terrors. This child’s parents are also obese and both suffer from diabetes and hypertension.
This clinical case study has made me devote a special focus on infants, children and adolescents in regards to sleep architecture. It is with that, that I would like to continue my studies in the field of Epidemiology. I would like to maintain a focus on the problems of obesity in children and how to find probable solutions to the betterment, development and intervention of children. I would like to reach out to the more vulnerable populations with this problem by first educating the families who raise these children.
To induce the longevity of life in the world, change is needed.