Essay: The captivation of science

Growing up, I had the unique opportunity of shadowing two of the greatest doctors that I had the pleasure of knowing: my dad, who was a general surgeon, and my mom, who was a radiologist. Being born in a family full of doctors meant that the majority of my childhood was spent wandering around in one of the busiest hospitals in Shanghai, as my parents took care of the endless streams of incoming traumas in China’s largest city. The hospital was, in essence, my second home. Although the sceneries in the hospital never seemed to change, I was rarely bored during my time there: every day there was new medical equipment being installed, new syringes being shipped in, and new patient wings being added. The hospital, much like the human body that it was designed to treat, was continuously evolving, changing, and adapting.

 

One of the most memorable additions to the hospital, as I can still vividly picture in my mind, was the hospital’s first magnetic resonance imaging machine. At the time, it was nothing short of an engineering marvel. I can still remember this feeling of absolute amazement as I watched my mother take the very first MRI scan of her colleague. From the way that the patient table slid frictionlessly in and out of the spaceship-like scanner, the hypnotic pumping of the cooling system, to the absolutely deafening noise of the electromagnet, everything about the MRI machine seemed magical and mysterious. Even more intriguing was the single piece of negative film that was produced as an end result, which my mom was somehow able to effortlessly decipher into complex masses of internal organs and bones. That was the moment that my childish mind decided that my lifelong goal was to work in the medical field — I wanted to be able to operate this magical machine just like my mom, as well as to understand what the squiggles and lines meant on the scanned image.

What started out as an innocent notion quickly became a consuming passion when my grandfather received a terminal diagnosis: his cells had decided, in a rather selfish and cruel act, to abandon their host and begin their uncontrollable replications. It was metastatic cancer. When I was five, I got to experience first-hand the frightening reality of undergoing a surgical procedure, having been diagnosed with an arachnoid cyst by (coincidentally) the same MRI machine that I once marvelled over. Personal losses and traumatic experiences had made me realize the true fragility of our seemingly infallible biological mechanisms. The human body is nothing more than an intricately designed machine, and just like any other, it is imperfect and comes with its fair share of faults and imperfections.

Seeing my grandfather gradually lose his battle with cancer, I had developed an utmost respect for human lives, as well as a compassion to help others who are undergoing the same unfortunate sufferings. When I entered middle school, I decided to dedicate my time to volunteer at local healthcare facilities, nursing homes, and hospitals. There, I witnessed heartbreak and unspeakable losses; I had seen car accident patients who had to undergo leg amputations, children who suffered from cerebral thrombosis that cried in pain for hours upon hours while waiting in the ER, and nursing home residents who passed away from a sudden stroke in the middle of the night. But I had also seen the amazing progress of medicine, how patients with AIDS were able to live relatively healthy lives, how heart surgeries were able to be performed with pinhole incisions, and how immunotherapies were able to prolong the lives of cancer patients like my grandfather. It was truly inspiring to see so many lives being saved and enriched (…) I wanted to become a physician, to be a part of this gentle revolution in medicine. I want to make a difference in people’s lives, as well as learning how we can repair ourselves when our biological mechanisms fail us.

My passion for science was kickstarted by , as I wanted to understand what was happening to my body. The majority of my childhood was spent crawling over diagrams of brains, and eventually, a variety of other body parts. Although I was not able to fully understand the intricacies and complexities of my body, it was still fascinating for me to ponder over the various parts that made me tick.

When I arrived at high school, I brought with me the same desire to explore by founding a science club. I was able to work alongside a group of like-minded students to explore the scientific disciplines to our hearts’ content by performing simple experiments. When we were working with a local university to borrow lab spaces and equipment for our activities, I caught my first glimpse of graduate students working on their own research projects. For the very first time, I saw university students performing intricate experiments and meticulously recording their observations; it was there that I realized that the captivation of science was not only reading and learning but also the application of knowledge outside of classrooms, to use knowledge to answer life-changing questions. Ultimately, I discovered my concurrent interest in pursuing a career in medical research.

I am an aspiring physician who has an inquisitive mind and an eagerness to explore the realm of science; yet at the same time, I am also a curious scientist who possesses a devotion to moving forward to the forefront of medicine, as well as a desire to benefit and enrich the lives of others. The goal that I had set for myself all these years ago still remain as my lifelong aspiration, as ultimately I want to become a physician-scientist in order to contribute to humanity with my scientific knowledge and my passion to save lives. It is what I had worked so hard to achieve, and I have every intention of fulfilling that dream.