Looking for any feedback about the personal narrative.

[jperti31]

Hey everyone. I'm just looking for some feedback about my personal narrative. Application deadlines are quickly approaching! I'll take any and all criticism and I appreciate any and all help. Thanks!

 

Like many children, I was brought up believing that I had the choice of becoming anything I wanted to be, that the sky was the limit, and, like many, the more I grew, the more I had confidence in the truth of that statement. Unfortunately, the question finally arose as to what I should become. Medicine always interested in me and was my passion but becoming a physician just did not seem like the right fit for me. After four challenging years of college in which I explored as many opportunities as I possibly could, the answer to that question still remained as elusive as ever. Unfortunately, the endeavor to discover what I wanted to do came at the price of not being able to focus on any one particular subject and falling far from reaching my academic potential. It was not until after graduation that I had a long conversation with a physician assistant in which a deep light was shed on that particular path. It was after more research, and more conversations with physician assistants, that I decided to abandon my current path at Merrill Lynch as a soon-to-be financial advisor to fully pursue a career that, not six months earlier, I never would have realized was my dream profession. I packed my bags, left my old life behind, and devoted myself wholly physically, mentally, financially, and academically to this pursuit. Since that decision, I turned academics to my priority, even while working two full time jobs, excelling at all three.

 

I took a job working as a rehab tech. My time with those patients was the final assertion that being a physician assistant was my calling. A new patient was admitted to the facility my first month there that was deeply depressed at his loss of mobility (due to complications with diabetes resulting in an amputated leg). He had honestly lost his will to live and to recover. In talking with him daily and working with him down in physical therapy, his old vigor began to come back. Hope returned to his eyes. I clearly remember the first day I walked with him. He asked me if I planned on becoming a physical therapist. I told him I was pursuing physician assistant. He looked at me squarely in the eyes and told me that my compassion, patience, understanding, and persistence were the biggest factors in his early recovery; that, with all of the medical professionals he has seen I would make an incredible physician assistant and to pursue this with every thing I had. Three months later, after working with him nearly every day, I was able to see him walk out of the facility under his own power with the aid of his prosthesis. The feelings of accomplishment, pride, and joy solidified the fact that becoming a physician assistant is not only the right path for me, but the only path there has been. My desire to be that medical professional that people go to because they know I am knowledgeable, compassionate, and able to truly listen to them has become a driving factor for me. Physician assistant is the best way I can help people and the only perfect fit I have found for myself.