My Clinical Experience Essay

In freshman year, I joined Dr. Braunschweig’s research group to explore chemistry and contribute to something important. The lab worked on the synthetic dye aggregation for energy capture, and needed to quantify binding constants. I started with a published titration method using absorbance spectroscopy, and set out to collect data. Temperature settings seemed to change by the hour, data saved to odd locations, and each scan showed something different. Yet, the graduate students showed me how many times an experiment could go wrong before one went right, leaving many broken Erlenmeyer flasks in its wake. They told me that sometimes it helped to look at problems from a practical, instead of a theoretical stance. In a few months, their guidance

Before, I had only observed a dermatology clinic for a day and sutured two bananas. I started by observing Dr. Wei, an anesthesiologist, who showed me the diverse surgeries he attended. I accidentally touched a towel and was told to leave on the first day. It felt like starting in the Braunschweig lab. I thought of catastrophe, but the staff welcomed me back the next day. The few patients I saw awake, especially the younger ones, feared their first surgeries. They put their lives in the steady hands of a couple of doctors, and held faith that the scientists who designed the drugs had not made mistakes. Strangely, the surgeries felt routine. The surgeons chatted throughout many surgeries and I could almost feel at ease with someone’s life at stake. A patient’s blood pressure dropped dangerously low during a particular fistula closure, however, and broke the calm mirage. As if a switch was flipped, Dr. Wei and several other doctors rushed into the room. They pored through all the readouts and recalled research to save his life. In the corner of the room overlooking chaos, I saw why a patient could trust doctors, and why doctors needed scientists. If I wanted to be both, I needed to develop the medical view as

At the Floridean Nursing Home where I regularly volunteer, the science seemed far away. Instead, I played dominos with patients and struggled with language barriers, since most of them spoke Spanish. A patient often needed something when the nurses were not around. Often, I wondered if I could help at all and whether the few phrases I learned could make any difference. On Christmas Eve, I led a caroling group at the around the Nursing Home. One of the patients was bedridden, and was a long term resident there. We gave her a handmade card and sang “Silent Night”. Though she could barely move, eat, or talk, she blessed us. She started crying. I knew of physical pains where nociceptors fired and of emotional pains where the brain misbalanced serotonin levels. Whatever pains she felt, I could not link them to these terms. As we went into the next room to make room for the doctor’s checkup, she seemed happier. He spoke to her calmly, and handed a note to the nurse as if he was