Being brought up in a community of people that did not have healthcare, there were rarely thoughts about an illness that will cause fatality if they did not seek medical attention. The medications were always herbal remedies and lots of rest if possible. In addition, to everyone's knowledge doctors are similar to car mechanics back in China so they assumed likewise here in America. Unless the family has children that are required to be vaccinated before they are allowed to attend school, no one else in the family consider getting any vaccine. However, luckily enough for all immigrants they are required a set of vaccination before immigrating here. For those old immigrants that have been in the country for more than 10 years, they are less protected and refused to any booster shots even under the public recommendations. Knowing this most of my life, I thought as long as I did not see a doctor, I will not be severely sick.
Among the last courses of my undergraduate study, I took Medical Microbiology and this course disproved what I have believed in the relation between illnesses and doctors. Many of the infectious disease pathogens are contagious, and may show signs similar to a common cold, and some like Neisseria Meningitidis where when symptoms are apparent the survival rate drops. One that is more common in my community would be Tuberculosis, because as most immigrants they have been exposed to it, and because of how contagious it can be through the respiratory tract. Treatment for active Tuberculosis requires multiple drugs and a lengthy treatment time for at least 6 months. Both of these show signs similar to a common cold, but yet if these diseases are not detected, identified and treated an epidemic will occur.
Despite my interest in school, I was preoccupied with many other responsibilities for my parents and my mother's business. Since my father is disabled, my mother is the only provider but the paid working at Chinatown was not enough. Therefore, my mother moved to south bay area and started farming. Due to her language barrier, I had to be the one to take care of company's administrative work. That includes applying for permits, mandatory workshops/meeting, statements, payroll, and etcetera. Anytime that the company ran into some issues, my priority will have to shift to address it before my course work. Not to mention my mother has health issues of vertigo, hypertensive and work related injuries that required me to be on-call for any emergency. In addition to the on-call schedule, it was mandatory for me to travel back home every weekend to run errands since my mother is not able to drive, and to obtain information on task/s that must be done while I am in school for the business. This schedule did not change even when I had a Saturday class I would still travel home for one night and then go back to school the next day.
My father lives separately from my mother due to his disability, and my mother's hectic work would not have allowed her to take care of him. With my father's blindness, he has a caregiver that helps him for a couple hours a day. Every first week of the month I would either drive to pick up my mother to meet up with my father for his monthly checkup, and to restock on any of his supplies and foods. Anytime my father runs into any difficulties he or his caregiver will give me a call, but the good part is that he lived in San Francisco and it is only an hour away from school.
As my mother's business grew, she had hired more people and I am able to pass my responsibilities off to others relieving myself. In addition, my mother's side of the family had immigrated from China which volunteered to help with taking care of my father in the bay area. Since then I had been able to focus a better and be able to really think about my future. However, with my interest in Medical Microbiology I did not consider going into graduate study because I was not aware of a Master's program related to it. Not to mention that throughout my educational journey I have only heard about Law or Medical school, and I was not interested in either. Therefore, I seek for employment after receiving my Bachelor of Science degree related to my interest in microbiology.
As I have been researching in the career that I would like to be in, I found myself leaning more toward a more community based related field. With that mindset, I went back to school for post-baccalaureate for the under-division courses that I did not do well in during my undergraduate study. As I have grown to understand how important it is to have a good foundation in biology, I adjusted my ways in studying and worked my hardest to achieve a better grade and understanding.
With the degree in Master of Public Health in Infectious Disease and Vaccinology I want to be there to help detect a potential outbreak, isolate and identify the pathogen so treatment can begin. From areas where I grew up in, they are more susceptible to outbreaks due to poor housing and the overcrowding of residents. As it was mention before, they do not have healthcare and they would simply rest at home until they feel better. In situation as such, an outbreak similar to the swine flu or SARS are more probable. The reason being that people in such a community cannot afford to see a doctor, and presumed the illness to be a common cold which will be self-limiting, or in other words one will get better after a few days of rest. As one falls ill, others around will soon to follow and until a group of people seek medical help at a time health officials will not be aware of the outbreak.
In this field, not only would I want to be involved in the initial outbreak but to make awareness of how to prevent such event from occurring. In order to achieve that, the area must have strict surveillance of potential communicable pathogens and providing the knowledge of such pathogen and how to prevent one from catching it. With that being done, the community will have a form of control to prevent the communicable disease from spreading. My intentions are to keep even not well developed communities, with families that are not well educated to be informed on how to protect their families and when it is necessary to seek help. With that, I aim to help reduce the risk factors in certain geographic areas where communicable diseases are prone to be transmitted.
The medications were always herbal remedies and lots of rest if possible.
... I don't understand what you meant by " lots of rest if possible" :( Better rephrase this part.
In addition, to everyone's knowledge doctors are similar to car mechanics back in China so they assumed likewise here in America.
.... are you referring to migrant Chinese living in America?
Well... you describe the background well, but very less is said about how your passion for this field developed. I wish you said more about that because you need to show them that you have a real interest in this field and you continued to pursue your interest.
