Prologue

Mercy was my crucible and Argentina the spurs in my side. The path to medicine, for me, was not a pre-determined fate, but a prolonged process of self exploration that took almost the entirety of my undergraduate degree.

I came to the University of Georgia an obvious Biology major – a choice I’ve never questioned. But what to do with that major, ah, what a conundrum. That question was so vexing that by the time I reached my fourth year I called it my screen-saver – if there wasn’t anything else going on upstairs that was what I thought about.

In the space of just my freshman year I spent a six month stint in a research lab, quickly jumped to the student newspaper to try my hand at science writing and then just as rapidly moved on to an internship with the American Red Cross Blood Donor Services. Research was too solitary, science writing too political, and the Red Cross to easy and repetitive. I settled for a time on the idea of being a Physician’s Assistant. And though I added the Anatomy, Abnormal Psychology and such classes required for the degree, I never could bring myself to drop the pre-medical classes that I wouldn’t need, like Physics, Biochemistry, and Cellular Biology.

But it was the Mercy Healthcare Clinic in Athens that finally gave my subconscious room to speak. I had initially rebelled from medicine; the only female doctor I knew in my hometown was decidedly unpleasant, and the overbearing mother of a former boyfriend to boot. Having been raised in a decidedly anthropological family with a German mother and a linguist-by-hobby father, I had developed a taste for languages and their ability to allow one to think in a completely different frame of mind. At the end of my junior year I began translating for Hispanic patients before a whirlwind summer that would bring me almost a year of indecisive nervousness. With a few of the leaders from Mercy, I spent a few days in Tennessee at a conference for medical professionals serving the poor, uninsured, and marginalized – Mercy’s mission. Meeting so many women that shared my delight and wonder for the complexity of the human body, understood my personal values and were excited by their lives and professions cracked my confidence that being a physician’s assistant would be enough for me.

Shortly thereafter I had the opportunity to study in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I really must laud our in country contact, Marcela, for her amazing treatment of all of the students during our stint there – especially her political maneuvering that allowed three of us to obtain internships at Hospital Garrahan – what is considered the premier children’s hospital in the country. Moreover, the system is socialist, so not only did we have the opportunity to shadow doctors treating such diverse diseases as elephantiasis but we also encountered patients from virtually every country that Argentina boarders – to say that free healthcare encourages travel is to put it mildly.

I came back to finish my final year feeling uneasy about my road to Physicians Assistant school. I started the first semester a ball of nerves; should I drop organic chemistry II or anatomy? In other words, how strong was my commitment? Again and again, I would convince myself that being a Physician’s Assistant was the most rational thing for a woman and then a week later wonder about medical school again. After a week of trying to do both, I realized that I could not manage both classes and finally dropped the organic class. But I was never satisfied in my anatomy class. Though we went into greater depth than I’d ever experienced before, it obvious that were being told but half the story and that the other students did not share my love for the material. Having the opportunity to work with cadavers seemed a weighty and important responsibility to me. I was finally living the dry run for actual practice! Everything about them was so different from the models sitting just to the side of the bench. And yet, at the end of each lab discussion when we were allowed two precious hours to study with the cadavers, I found myself alone with the Teaching Assistant. Quickly it became a joke, and an shortly thereafter a tutoring session. I loved my work; I thirsted for more, and I wondered.

Going into what should have been my last semester, my internal debates escalated. Even if being a PA was rational for a woman, was it rational for me? Could it satisfy me, when my anatomy class, a class I wouldn’t repeat in PA school but would already be expected to know, did not?

I met with my advisor and he smiled as he looked at my schedule. I had a semester left with my HOPE grant and Charter scholarships footing the bill while all I needed to graduate was PE. Given free rein to study whatever I wanted I promptly filled my schedule. Medical Spanish, anthropology of health care, epidemiology in the school of public health, and anatomy II were to fill out my last days at the University. My schedule both excited and worried me. My teachers were all well recommended, the topics were the most interesting that I had ever been given the opportunity to study, and yet, I was uneasy. What did my selections say about my career path?

Though I did not have any single revelation, many moments stick out as road signs leading to my final choice. Translating at Mercy gave me ample opportunities to shadow both doctors and PAs side by side in the same night. Moreover, I was enchanted by the process. I had long ago fallen for my time at Mercy, and now one of my main points to the thirty some-odd volunteers I manage each week is “know when to make yourself go home!” The longer I spent at Mercy, the more the idea of knowing only half of what I would need to run a practice grated at me. Of course there are many pathologies that are not understood by science, but if I could know, wouldn’t I want to? As my studies in anatomy deepened I was able to identify reasons behind the procedures: he’s checking for Trouseau’s sign, he’s ruling out aplastic anemia, she’s concerned about a calcium deficiency; my yes grew in intensity until it was a mental scream.

The nail in the coffin for PA school came about over Christmas break. Being a self starter has lead me down what may appear to be tangential side-roads that have actually been a large part in forming my character. If I want something, I figure out how to get it. That tendency has lead me to learn ballroom dance, become a ropes course facilitator, ride an elephant, walk over hot coals, and hike 18 miles of the Grand Canyon in one night. I take advantage of every opportunity offered to me. I’ve met Dr. Bruce Aimes and been invited to hang out backstage with Cirque du Soleil performers. So when I had a month off for Christmas and didn’t bother to follow up on any of three leads I had with PA’s in the area who were amiable to students shadowing but instead went looking for books on the MCAT, I realized that I had already made my decision.

Remembering with irony that Cortez also burned his ships, I dropped the last class I would have needed for PA school and set about the anxiety-ridden task of rearranging my schedule during drop-add. Then I walked over to my closet and once again put on the long white lab coat I had been so fond of in Buenos Aires. I walked to the mirror and looked at myself with a goofy grin – the kind of grin its hard to get out of me.

I looked short.

At five foot eight, what is today’s standard run-way height for models, and living in a society where heels are easier to find than flats, I have seldom felt short. But medicine continues to give me that impression. It is something much larger than me; it’s a marathon, a Mount Everest, an impossibility without an iron will and an almost desperate vision.

Though I don’t yet know if I’ll be able to claim Everest, I have accepted a place in the Medical College of Georgia Class of 2014. Finally the goal has crossed the horizon, and there is no ship to flee in.

But then, what else would I use a ship for but firewood?