Why do you want to go into orthopedic surgery?
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The school bell rang. I quickly gathered my books and left the classroom to wait for my father. The Dodge truck pulled up, and we traveled a short distance to our client's home. My father is a landscaper, and I had accompanied him every day after school to learn the tools of his trade. What was initially a responsibility to help support our family of nine became a source of great joy for me. That afternoon, my father and I installed the sprinkler system and finished the deck we had started the day before. Through the years working alongside my father, I cultivated a deep passion in working with my hands, but little did I know it was this passion that influentially paved my career path in orthopedic surgery.
Most of my childhood was spent shadowing my father's footsteps. Since our family's annual income was less than $20,000, my father relied on his hands to build things from scratch or to restore used items bought from garage sales. He was a master handyman, for there was nothing broken in the house that he did not fix or attempt to fix. Growing up, his way of thinking had slowly but deeply ingrained in me. In ninth grade, I began accompanying my father to work to assist him. As I gained more experience and my father's trust, I took on full responsibility for my own landscaping projects from planning to execution. Even as a teenager, I eagerly embraced the challenge of assembling a final product that was both aesthetic and functional, and I was very hard on myself when the outcome failed to meet my expectation. In working closely with my father, I had acquired technical skills and fostered personal qualities including patience, hard work, and self-improvement that later proved invaluable to an aspiring orthopedic surgeon.
My first three years of medical school were dedicated to exploring different fields of medicine to find a career that would offer me both personal and professional fulfillment. I have found this unity in orthopedic surgery. Choosing a specialty in medicine is not unlike taking a kid to the amusement park and asking him to only ride on one rollercoaster. Every medical specialty has its uniqueness and beauties. In the end, I lived by the proverb of pursuing a specialty that makes me truly happy now as well as thirty years into my career. What makes me readily wake up at 3AM to consult and care for a sick patient in the ED? Which rollercoaster will I still get the same surge of enthusiasm to ride on as if it was my first time? What will continually involve and stimulate my intellectual curiosity, creativity, and problem-solving skills? Orthopedic surgery! The sounds of drills and hammers, the practice of taking things apart and putting them back together, and the philosophy of learning-by-doing reminded me of the years working with my father, rekindling my childhood joys and strengthening my resolve to be an orthopedic surgeon.
My sub-internships in orthopedic surgery during fourth year further exposed me to this rewarding field of medicine. I still remember clearly my first orthopedic operations. I watched in admiration as my attendings performed their surgical movements so effortlessly, as if their hands and instruments were one. Like my father, their knowledge and skills were cultivated through years of experience. During each case, the attending surgeon would instruct the residents hands-on, similar to how my father used to teach me, and in this way the science and art of orthopedic surgery were directly passed on from one generation to the next. The close mentoring relationship and immersive learning are what I was accustomed to working with my father, and they are what I long for in residency. In the OR, I have observed how an orthopedic team of individuals from diverse walks of life collectively came together for the wellbeing of our patients. In clinic, I have seen how the understanding of human anatomy and biomechanics was integral to treating both common and complex diseases of the musculoskeletal system. After three sub-internships, I have seen and experienced the breadth of emotions brought about in orthopedic surgery, including the joys of a successful operation and the humility of a failed one.
Orthopedic surgery appeals to me not only because it impacts the physical and emotional wellbeing of my patients but also because the clinical outcome is something I will have full control over. When the OR door shuts behind me, there will be just the patient and the surgery team, and everything from then will rest on a few pairs of collaborating hands. When the light dims and the room comes to a silence, I will be fully absorbed in the operation, drawing from my training and experience to heal the patient lying before me. Hours into the operation when my legs quiver and stomach growls, my hands will remain steady and mind focused. Equally important, I find orthopedic surgery to be profoundly meaningful, recalling from my sub-internships when our team helped the child with scoliosis return to running in the playground with his peers or gave the high school athlete a second opportunity to fulfill her dream of performing at the collegiate level. I know that in orthopedic surgery I will be able to directly impact the lives of many, one surgery at a time.
Finally, orthopedic surgery is an intellectually stimulating and constantly growing field of medicine, so what left unanswered in clinic or the OR is brought up to be answered in the laboratory through basic science and clinical research. In this specialty, there is an endless thirst for advancing the field of medicine in general and orthopedic surgery in particular, and I look forward with enthusiasm to take on this responsibility. In choosing to become an orthopedic surgeon, I pursue a career uniting head and hands, learning and doing, and theory and practice. I am very happy to have found a career that unites my passion in working with my hands with an equal passion in caring for patients suffering from diseases of the musculoskeletal system.
I think it is a great and very personal response, however I would suggest changing the first sentence or so as the first couple of sentences ('The school bell rang. I quickly gathered my books and left the classroom to wait for my father.' ) makes it seem like a narrative story and it is not immediately obvious what you are trying to say. Perhaps add a starting sentence, something along the lines of a quick explanation ( My Fathers work had influenced me from a young age.. or something with at least a personal pronoun in the first sentence to make it obvious the story is about you)
