Oh, Grandpa. It would mean the world to me if you bought me my first stethoscope. It would be all the more ironic since you nearly died twice of heart attacks. It is strange to think that soon I will know how to actually use the darned device. When did I decide to become a doctor, anyway?
As far back as I can remember, I thought I would become some sort of writer. I always loved language. I used to sit on the family computer (and then my own computer when I had one) writing stories. Rarely did I ever finish them because another idea would always come up that was more important, or I would lose interest in my half-cooked, second rate plot. They were always self-reflected tales, and since I was changing so quickly, the tales never needed to be finished.
Briefly I thought that I would be a therapist. My friends and I always wrote each other novel-length emails about our feelings. We fed off of each other's insanities. I suppose this is where my deep-rooted interest in psychology became grounded, though I never truly believed I would act upon it. I loved Spanish, Latin, and the other languages I learned in high school. I secretly wanted to study these in college. The belief that I would never find a satisfiable career kept me from acting upon this.
It was a shock to me when I became interested in medicine so late in my high school career. I cannot quite pinpoint what it was that I saw in medicine. I liked AP Chemistry, so I started toying with the idea. Ironically, it was a language class that confirmed my premature decision to enter college pre-med. Romance Philology taught us how the romance languages developed from Latin. Part of the course involved a brief segue into the brain. We studied how human brains had the biological capacity to learn and produce language, and what sorts of ailments could interrupt this mystical capability. Suddenly, I wanted to become a neurologist. Aphasia, hemiplegia, the corpus callosum -- it all fascinated me.
Had I not been applying to college at the time, I wonder if I would have ended up following the same path. I applied to every school under a different major, mostly Linguistics and Neuroscience. I only applied to Cornell at the last minute because my Mom fought with me about it. I chose Human Development without much thought, thinking that it would allow me to study language acquisition in children, a concept that fascinated me.
And here I am, four years later. I know next to nothing about language acquisition in children, and a whole lot about the social determinants of health, social and personality development, and human sexuality. I had clinical experiences in doctors offices and hospitals, and I fell in love with the idea of a hands on approach to healthcare. I am excited about this path, and yet at the same time, I am still mourning the other options that I did not choose. I still wish I could have studied literature, perfected my Spanish, studied abroad, or gone in to teaching. I know that the decision I ultimately made was the right one, but just because one passion prevailed, does not mean that the others disappeared.
So yes, Grandpa, I would love it if you bought me my first stethoscope. It's crazy to think that I need one, though.
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