Personal Narrative: A Career In Medicine

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Pages: 3

It all started with what I thought was nothing more than a pesky callous. Over the course of fifth grade, however, that odd protuberance became what my mom and I would come to know as “the mother-wart.” Liquid nitrogen, salicylic acid, and duct tape had little to no effect. After yeast injections and Blue Light Photodynamic Therapy, my last doctor started gouging out and cauterizing the warts, an aggressive approach that temporarily cost me three fingernails. Every three weeks, I spent my afternoon drenched in a cold sweat, smelling my own burnt flesh and hoping for the best. While my dad couldn’t stomach the aftermath, my mom, always with a shimmer of tears in her eyes, never complained about the marks my free hand left in her arm after every treatment. …show more content…
I enjoyed talking about medicine, asking obscure questions, and playing doctor with my dermatologist. Doctor Kline and I talked for hours about what kind of doctor I would become; he said neurologist. I said orthopaedist because I was sporty and I loved playing with the chicken wing’s tendons during our sixth-grade dissections. I decided that if I could handle the smell of my own burnt flesh, I could handle becoming a doctor, which remains my unwavering goal.
But I don’t want to be glib—having my warts removed was one of the most difficult, trying, painful, and, at times, embarrassing experiences of my life. I had to get out of the pool during swim meets because chlorine caused a burning sensation in my fingertips, sit out of volleyball practice, and skip important classes just to make it to my appointments on time. At times, it seemed as if I were a lab