Undergraduate / My Purple Gloves: Common APP Option 1 [6]

I had originally written another common app essay, but decided a few days ago it wasn't getting my message across, and wrote this one on a different experience. What do you think, please be critical, like super mean critical! Also, I'm tentative about the title, I'm not sure whether to go with Purple Gloves or Room 308. thanks!

"Mav, I've got to get to the ICU, can you stay-", and then he was gone. Uneasily twisting the thumb of my purple latex glove, I stared at the retreating back of Dr. Murillo, as he left to check on a patient, and leaving me alone with 42 year old Marjorie Bramwell. Moments before, he had diagnosed her with pancreatic cancer.

It was the second week of my summer internship, and I felt right at home at Hanover Hospital. Growing up, my friends jokingly called me a long-term doctorholic. My Halloween pictures show a progressive line of Dr. Barbie; my Christmas letters demanded Hello Kitty casts and stethoscopes. I dreamed of conquering everything from polio to Cruetzfeld-Jakobs; exotic diseases I knew nothing about, but childishly idealized as monsters. As I grew older, I became mesmerized by the mechanical chemistry behind pathology, and fascinated by the evolving treatments that extended patients' lives. Working with Dr. Murillo, I felt like I was genuinely helping people, while being assured that pursuing medicine was the right choice.

But in room 308, my mind was a blank. Should I leave (i want to italicize this, or at least make it seem like i was thinking not saying it), I thought frantically, looking at everything in the room but her bed. I stared at my clipboard, frantically searching for the perfect comforting comment, but all I found were vital signs, numbers that now meant nothing. Finally, I glanced at Ms. Bramwell.

I can barely describe the raw emotions that appeared on her face; she looked disoriented and afraid, but worst of all, defeated. I remembered that the day before, Dr. Murillo had asked about her family, and she had replied, grinning, "I've outlived them all." She had just been told she had terminal cancer, and she was all alone. Hooked up to an IV bag and monitors, she herself could not leave the room, so what gave me the right to? Taking the seat next to her bed, I slipped off my right glove. I placed my hand on hers, and smiled. After what seemed like hours, her eyes half closed, she squeezed my hand. I had never felt such a combination of bitter despair and relief before, and to my surprise, realized that I was crying.

My hospital experience taught me valuable skills: how to take blood pressure, and dictation, and laugh at doctors' corny jokes. Most importantly, I learned that there is no craft to delivering bad news. It pains me deeply that despite modern medical advances, there are people whose lives are constantly devastated by illness, and I truly believe that mankind is on the brink of discovering cures. But meanwhile, no one should have to face treatment alone. Before that day in room 308, I had shied away from terminal patients, thinking that no matter how hard I worked, I would never be able to give them what they really needed. Sitting with Ms. Bramwell, I realized that simple conversation and company could make a world of a difference. Just by taking off my gloves, I too, could heal.