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Why I do what I do

The practice of medicine is an art,
not a trade; a calling, not a business;
a calling in which your heart will be
exercised equally with your head.

-Sir William Osler

Why medicine? For as long as remember, I thought helping other people and volunteer was really, really cool, and when I was about 10 I realized that being a doctor would be one way to do that. I guess I just never really changed my mind ever since.

What can I say? I really do enjoy helping people out. Whether it's informal tutoring sessions or advising underclassmen, whether it's a 3am phone call from someone who dislocated their shoulder rolling out of bed or just listening to someone who needs to unload a bad day's worth of feelings or share a secret, I can't think of anything more rewarding than being able to help others, and I think that medicine would be a good way to do that.

No, my parent's didn't make me do this. Actually, my parents wanted me to be a lawyer. Medicine can be a pretty hard path to take. But so is being a teacher, or a soldier, or a policeman, or a parent. I'm not sure that anything worthwhile in life is easy, so you might as well do what you love.

It would be presumptuous for me to say I know I can succeed as a physican, but I know I can say I'm going to give the effort everything that I've got. As hard as it has been, and as many times harder than it's going to get, I know that there isn't anything else in the world I'd rather be doing than to help others as a physican.



Okay, so why engineering? Well, sort of the same reason. I like problem-solving, I enjoy trying to figure things out, tinkering with stuff, and building things, and I would like to put those skills to practical use to help other people. I was one of those kids who was addicted to those "how-the-hey-does-that-work" books when I was a kid. (In first grade, I remember wanting to cut open a globe because I wanted to know what was inside the earth. It was a good thing someone stopped me before I did some real damage!) One example of what this has led to is on my senior design project pages or on the Neverworld pages.) I also enjoy working together with other people to get jobs done and accomplishing tasks. For me, the science of medicine is the ultimate engineering problem. More important than that though, medicine is a way to help the people who need help the most, and I'm really looking foward to become the best physican that I can be!

My Geek Code

GE>MD$ d++() s-: a-- C U L>++ E- W++ N w M- Y+ t+ 5++ X? tv-- b+ DI+++ D+ G e++>>++++ h* !r !y-

Hey, what is this wangadoodle all about? Click here for a quickie explanation.

Not all scientist/engineers are geeks. Many are perfectly normal, sane people who do not randomly begin wondering how a particular piece of machinery works and have a passing clue what movies are playing in theaters currently. Me...well, normal is boring. :-)

I'm slipping, I'm afraid, especially in the more techincal aspects...medicine doesn't call much for geek skills and they get rusty after a while...this is either a good or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. :-)

A little about what I like

As I mentioned earlier, I like getting invovled and helping people out. In college, I was health aide for Lindgren and volunteered around the house alot, helped with advising with the school of engineering, and really enjoyed helping people who knock on my door with one thing or another. During the summers, I had memorable opportunities teaching students math and HTML, volunteering at local hospitals, and romping with a dozen rambunctious Japanese elementary schoolers at the ASIJ Summer Day Camp. From talking about the Chicago Bulls with my campers to sharing stories of life overseas with curious patients, volunteering has been the source of many of the most memorable experiences I have ever had the honor of being a part of.



I also love debating, whether it's with teams (like my high school's debate team, or Model United Nations, both in High school or here at NU) or just pickup debates at the table as to why love is not merely a function of particle physics. A friend told me once that the best way to test how sound your personal beliefs are, and whether they are hypocritical or contracitory, is to test them against others in fair arguments. If someone else has the superior argument, then it just might be the superior idea, and hey, life is about learning new ideas.

I do a fair bit of webwork. For me, it's the same kind of creative kick I get out of painting, or sculpting; it's another form of art, and it's good fun!

I love classical music. I have played the violin since I was five and loved it. (Ironically, I've played more concerts with school orchestras and quartets than I have actually watched! I hope to correct that over the next few years.) The baroque composers are my favorites, but virtually anything written by Strauss is pretty cool as well (I like his waltzes!). In addition, there's allots of other selected pieces (Wagner's Ride of the Valkeries, Holst's Planets, and the not-strictly classical but cool as all daylights anyway works of John Willams)that rock also. It's was nice living in a town (Chicago) that has not one but two classical music stations. I also really enjoy the new-age works of Eithne NĚ Bhraon·in (also known as Enya), the Christian ballads of Michael Card and soundtracks (, Phantom of the Opera,Les Miserables and Disney animated features for example).





At the same time, good books haven't disappeared, either. My tastes in fiction are definately fantasy / sci-fi. I don't get to read or watch virtually anyting during the school year, but I try to keep up with the storylines of many different series. Some of my favorites from the screen (Star Trek (all variants), Babylon 5, and Star Wars) and literary fiction [Anne McCaffery (The Dragons of Pern), C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia), Robert Jordan (The wheel of time) and first and best, JRR Tokien (and if you need me to tell you what he wrote, you really have missed out on some great reading! :) ] are ones I try to keep up on. I like to read literature for the escape; they say that little kids love to imagine and daydream about other universes and realities. I guess I've always been young at heart in that respect.

Speaking of being young at heart, I love Disney animated features, for the incredible animation, the great story lines, and the incredible music. I'm a big fan of the recent movies ( Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King).It may not be the most "adult" of pastimes, but it's still great fun! : )