Graduate / 'To honor Wes' - PA School Narrative for the CASPA [2]

I am trying to write a person narrative for Physician Assistant School. The prompt is to describe your motivation towards becoming a PA. The narrative can only be 5,000 characters long, and I was wanting to try and make a memorable impression with my narrative, not just a list of why I want to be a PA. I am terrible with grammar, especially the use of commas. Please comment and do not worry about being harsh, I want this to be the best it can be. Thank you!

It was New Years day I was 15 years old and I had just had a knee surgery on my right knee two months before. I was with my dad for the holidays, and he had flown off the handle and physically beat me. This is the day he walked out of my life, he would eventually come back but not for some time. I went home to my mom who had just lost her job and I did not know who was going to provide for my sister, brother and me, so I went to work. I helped out with bills that I could while going to school but it was never enough, and I missed having the father in my life. Little did I know that same year a new man would come riding in to save us. Wes became my mom's best friend, and the father I no longer had. He took me under his care and accepted me as a daughter when he did not have to.

No one in my family has an affinity for medicine, my mom was a teacher my dad a pilot, but I always had an interest at a very young age. Wes was an LVN and he encouraged me to get involved in medicine. His influence in my life made me want to get my CNA license while in high school. I worked hard and sure enough I got it in December of 2006, in the process however I learned that being a nurse or a CNA was not for me. I like the amount of time they spent with patients versus the little time that doctors spent with them but certain aspects of the job were not favorable. Wes continued to encourage me. So when I graduated high school I was still unsure of what I wanted to be, but I knew I wanted to be like the man that saved me.

Another man saved me around the same time Jesus Christ. When I went off to college I began a religion and biology degree because I decided I wanted to do medical missions, but I still did not know what I wanted to be. I then learned that this man that I had learned to call father, was sick; he had pulmonary fibrosis. In that last year of his life I thought I had let him down. I chose school over time with him because he was in Dallas and I was halfway across Texas, in Plainview. The last time I saw him he was in a coma, I am not even sure that he knew I was there, but I knew I had let him down. When Wes died in the middle of my sophomore year of college I wanted to quit and move home. I had stopped caring about classes and regretted the time I had not spent with him. At the funeral Papaw, Wes' dad reminded me how proud he was of me for going to school and pursuing the medical field whichever field I may choose. Proud was a word I had never heard from my biological dad, and I knew I had to figure out how to continue to make Wes proud.

I remembered my first knee surgery, I had seen the physician assistant more than I had seen the doctor, and I had actually developed a good friendship with him and began to wonder what was that all about. I talked to some advisors at my school and researched it online. I was pretty sure that physician assistant would be my path. I got in touch with the PA from my first surgery, he was no longer at the orthopedic surgeon office but a neurosurgeon's. He allowed me to shadow him for about 4 weeks one summer and I got to understand what a PA does. He did everything. He got to assist in surgery, he could diagnose on his own, consult with a doctor, he could prescribe medicines, and he got to spend a lot of time with the patients. I had not known that there was such flexibility in physician assistants. He got bored with orthopedic surgery and had some issues so he left and now is involved in neurosurgery, which he loves. I love that he could change his mind, and learn under a new specialty. I do not change my mind too frequently but I love to learn new things, and this aspect of physician assistants I love. I also love that physician assistants can open their own clinics if they decide to because I want to do medical missions. I thought that this meant helping people in countries like Peru and Costa Rica who have minimal medical help in the smaller poorer cities, but then I learned that our nation has those same problems. So whether I am in a rural city here in Texas or in another country, the career path of physician assistant will allow me to follow my dreams and honor Wes in the best way I know how.