sammy Posted May 22, 2011 Share Posted May 22, 2011 Like every other day my family and I sat down for dinner. As usual I turned on the TV and scrolled through the channels, finally stopping at a health channel. That night’s feature was an open-heart bypass surgery on a middle aged man. This surgery was performed at The Apollo Hospital, a very prestigious hospital in India. This healthcare center has many locations in South Asia and is very well known for its good services. My attention was instantly captured as the narrator described the hospital and the surgery soon to be performed which was an open heart surgery. As the patient was brought in, the tools and supplies were all set up. Since it is a bypass surgery, they were operating in two different region of the body, one in the heart and the other on the right leg. As the patient slowly drifted in to sleep, the doctors’, their assistants, and nursed started the operation. They cut open the left side of the chest, to operate the heart. As soon as they separated the tissues and muscles, we saw the live pounding heart. “O my God”, went my family (it wasn’t a very good scene to be watching while eating), but I went, “Wow”. Now the came the interesting as well as dangerous and risky part of the surgery, cutting open the heart, blood started to flow out. At the same time another group was performing operation on the right leg, by taking a vein from the leg to replace the damaged aorta in the heart. The doctors, without a blink of an eye carefully removed the blocked aorta from the heart. During this time my mind was totally lost in the operation; it was just me and the operation room nothing existed around us. As soon as they removed the aorta, they quickly replaced it with the vein from the leg and replaced the vein in the leg with a surgical plastic tube. They carefully stitched back the heart and the chest as quickly with out any major problems. After this program was over that night my mind was still immersed in the miracle operation that saved a person’s life. The picture of me watching that surgery being performed still lingers in my head. I was in fifth grade at the time. From a young age I had my mind set on the medical field, but was not sure if I could really achieve such a lofty goal. After seeing the bypass surgery, I wanted to become a doctor, perform surgeries, and save the lives of people. My goal was set. From that time onwards, I started working hard towards accomplishing my goal. I did my very best to be in the top in the class in my studies and I did. I came to America during the spring of 2005 and I entered tenth grade. During the summer vacations I volunteered at a nearby hospital in various departments. Since it was my first time with hands-on experience in a hospital I was excited. I worked in the ER, the floor Units, transportation department, and the medical records department. I got the chance to work closely with the patients when I assisted the doctors and the PAs’. I was so proud of myself and so were my supervisors. By volunteering I got a good idea about how the hospital runs and role of each staff members. During the summer of 2007, I took a health course at CUNY Lehman College, Bronx, NY. There were four day of classes and after the lecture we had to intern at a hospital. This internship was the best, it was an unforgettable experience in my life. I got the opportunity to observe as well as work along with the patients. The most interesting part was that we worked in different department everyday. We worked in the OR, SICU, ER, neonatal unit, and the oncology department. It was the oncology department that I was most interested in, probably because I could relate to the people there. While working in this department I took vital signs, talked with patients, and generally helped them. While I worked with these people I came to the realization that medical field was not just about saving lives, it is more than that. It is about giving patients love, make them feel they are right at home and not a place where they come to be cured, being there for them, give them what they are missing and more. After this experience, I was dogmatic that I wanted to work in the medical field and become a doctor. But the costs and time of becoming one was a hindrance. Mainly the cost, because my family just immigrated to this country and my projected years of study were more than they could afford. Then I did research about other medical fields that I would be interested in and I came to know about the Physician Assistant program. I came to that as a PA you do almost the same stuff that a doctor does, and it’s only a four year program. Then on I focused my goal on becoming a PA. Being a PA allows you to get close with the patients and create a good relationship with them. When I become a PA, I prefer to work in hospital rather than in clinics, Why? Because I see myself running around with patients records, assisting doctors in surgery, diagnosing patients, prescribing medications, and most of all being with the patients and giving them encouragement. I don’t want to just heal and cure them, but more. I want my patients to feel that they are not alone in this world. Especially the people in the oncology department who are on the verge of life and death, I know how they feel. I can relate to them. Two of my uncles passed away of cancer and I know how much pain they and their families went through. They are my inspirations of becoming a PA. So I want to fight the battle along with the people who are affected by cancer. I want to assuage their pains and fear of death by giving them love, hope and more the same way I would do for my family. By being a PA I hope to influence at least one person in life. With these goals in mind I see myself graduating as a certified Physician Assistant. I am determined to become a PA. I am ready to face any challenges during the course of become a successful PA and I will maintain this in the future. I would like to end my essay with a quote by Collin Powell, “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from your mistakes”. I have read some of the essays on this forum and comparing mine with others, mine is weak. But these are my thoughts. I need reviews. I know CASPA has some limit, and I think mine is kind of too long. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyMadisonPA Posted May 23, 2011 Share Posted May 23, 2011 Start with "From a young age I had my mind set on the medical field..." and cut everything before that out. The first paragraph is completely irrelevant to you as a person. You have a lot of grammar errors so make sure you fix those. Take your essay to a writing lab at your college, or pass a bunch of copies out to people you work with and have them make recommendations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UllrPrincess Posted June 7, 2011 Share Posted June 7, 2011 This is a complete rewrite. How do you know how people with cancer feel because your uncle had cancer? And you are going to give your patients love? And PA's do the same "stuff" doctors do? Start over and make sure you have trusted people proof read it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corpsman2PA Posted June 10, 2011 Share Posted June 10, 2011 Spell Check "Collin Powell"... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
latonj Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 Hello Sammy, I don't think you need to completely discard the first paragraph, but I do think it's too long. It's not a bad opening story because it expresses your fascination with healthcare. However, it does need to be drastically shortened, maybe to one-third of its current length. And taking the essay to a writing lab, or to other experienced writers isn't a bad idea. Hope this helps Sammy, Joel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sonik555 Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 I'm sorry this might be a little of topic, but I was wondering what is the word limit for personal essay? As far as I know CASPA limits us to 550 words, however all of the essays I read on this forum are well over 1000 words. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
topherak Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 Just to clarify, "CASPA has a character (NOT word) limit of 5,000." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sonik555 Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 thanks for a correction and a quick reply. Do you know if its with spaces or without? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taotaox1 Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 So for my narrative it came out to about 880 words with almost exactly 5k characters. Using wordpad (or Word in mac) gives character counts, but it will be slightly different when you paste it in to CASPA. Give yourself a bit of breathing room and you should be fine. and yes... spaces and paragraph breaks all count. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mktalon Posted June 21, 2011 Share Posted June 21, 2011 and FYI, the 5000 characters include spaces Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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