India, Nigeria and Internal Medicine :: Medicine College Admissions Essays

India, Nigeria and Internal Medicine    My desire to become a physician dates way back into my childhood. My parents migrated to Nigeria in the late 1960's when my father, an academician, decided to help educate children there. This was a country, which then had just gained independence. A person's goals are set by the role models he or she seeks to emulate. My childhood role model is Dr. Raj a physician. I learned from Dr. Raj, that real success and satisfaction is achieved by putting one's beliefs and thoughts into action. Dr. Raj provided quality care to the poor, especially children, alongside his richer clients. This left a lasting impression on me. Later on, when I realized that lots of people actually lacked basic medical care, I always wanted to reach out and help make a difference in the lives of others. Medicine, with its emphasis on service would therefore be the most satisfying career for me.    My interest in internal medicine developed during my training at medical school in Nigeria. Internal medicine offers a wide variety of cases, which makes it as diverse as it is exciting, requiring a problem solving attitude and constant vigilance. Having graduated from a reputed medical school in a developing country, I had the opportunity to get hands-on experience in patient care, right from start. In fact, my medical school had a unique final year program where the focus was essentially on preventive medicine and health education. During this community based health program, we were required to monitor and provide complete health care to people in neighboring villages. While working on our year book during the same year, we were able to raise money from the proceeds of the sale and various other activities (conducting symposium, charity fair, etc.) so as to provide free dug supplies to the underprivileged. All this made me realize the tangible difference one could make in the lives of others.    Upon graduation, I spent two and a half years, working in private hospital settings in India and Nigeria. This has made me a more experienced and mature physician but has left me yearning for more knowledge. For the past three years I have been in the United States and during this time, I have successfully qualified the ECFMG certification examination, USMLE steps I, II & III. I have also worked as a research associate at Stanford University on role of HIF-1( in retinopathy of maturity.