What Inspires Me To Become A Doctor

Every time doctors in Nigeria would visit households to provide vaccinations and health check-ups, they sparked a light in me.

Each time I saw a doctor, I saw a life saver! Having seen the less fortunate be deprived of basic health needs to now being a country that supports all its people regardless of background, it has made me understand the basic health needs less fortunate citizens are deprived of. This relentless passion shown by the individuals I observed at a young age, is what inspires me to be a doctor.

My A levels subjects have also taught me to understand how the body functions in many different ways, from the physiological reactions in the cell to the psychological processes including neurotransmitters, which affect our mental processes that make us human. Research is a high impact topic in medical education and I was fully able to demonstrate my love for research during my EPQ on immunotherapy as a potential treatment for Cancer. Immunotherapy uses the body’s own immune system to treat cancer which I found incredibly intriguing. I look forward to an opportunity to undertake a further in-depth review of this work.

To gain an insight into a health-care environment, I work with the royal voluntary service to volunteer at the Hospital. This also helped me develop better communication skills as I dealt with a large number of people every day. I observed this when I witnessed my colleague console a man who had just lost a child. This experience presented me with an example of values NHS staff must uphold. Work experience at the GP surgery pharmacy allowed me to observe the manner in which the pharmacist approached the patients. My colleague spoke very clearly and asked many questions to ensure the patient understood the important information being provided. I adopted this etiquette when it was my turn to assist the patients with questions related to their prescriptions. I developed an awareness of the principle of confidentiality. Before handing out prescriptions, I made sure to abide to protocol. This prevented important information from being mishandled and gave me an intuition into the doctor’s duty of professional secrecy.

The rewarding feeling from mentoring a pupil who later achieved their academic goal in both literacy and reading is one of the reasons I want to become a doctor! Offering practical advice helped to improve her proficiency, which in-turn opened me up to different insights into their peculiar situations which greatly impacted on the approach I adopted in attending to their needs. I am very active in my school community as I am a House leader, Charity leader and a senior sports prefect. Working with other students to raise money and awareness as well arranging charity and school events has resulted in better decision-making, problem-solving, organizing and planning skills. Communication through both verbal and nonverbal communication helped to build rapport with my teammates.

Outside school, Volunteering and being an ambassador for the Northampton Hope Centre; an organization which caters for the homeless, vulnerable, and disadvantaged helped me develop stronger leadership skills. This was evident in better communications and team work which presented me with a broader perspective of the challenge being addressed. I also learnt to be personable and empathetic to the concerns of people I attended to. These skills mentioned earlier will help me become a good doctor as a good doctor is a leader who advocates for their patients, taking ownership to see best value is delivered to the patient. I enjoy playing my guitar, and watching medical and psychology documentaries which expand my knowledge greatly as well as helping me cope with stress. I believe good mental health is incredibly important to maintain as a medical student given the avalanche of work the study of medicine presents. I believe I am an empathetic and caring individual so studying medicine provides me to delve into a the opportunity to employ distinctive application of science and emotional intelligence working as a team to solve problems, care for people and put last smiles on faces.