Undergraduate /
basic-yet-profound message - "Why do you want to enter medicine?" Amherst Essay [4]
Please respond to one of the following quotations in an essay of not more than 300 words. It is not necessary to research, read, or refer to the texts from which these quotations are taken; we are looking for original, personal responses to these short excerpts. Remember that your essay should be personal in nature and not simply an argumentative essay.Prompt 3: "It seems to me incumbent upon this and other schools' graduates to recognize their responsibility to the public interest...unless the graduates of this college...are willing to put back into our society those talents, the broad sympathy, the understanding, the compassion... then obviously the presuppositions upon which our democracy are based are bound to be fallible."
The staccato of the clocks and the distant mumbling of the nurses reverberated to and fro across the walls of an empty ER. Volunteering at the Rumah Sakit Cahaya Kawaluyan Hospital, I lingered, desperately waiting for my shift to end. As a battalion of nurses and physicians prepared to take respite from a day's long-fought battle against maladies and injuries, Dr. Franklin, a standing physician, approached me with an inquiry:
"Why do you want to enter medicine?"
"I'm amazed by the human body and..."
"That's not gonna do you any good in the long term," he remonstrated almost condescendingly.
I was intrigued; here was Dr. Franklin, a remarkably quiet man, finally breaking the silence he had so familiarized me with.
"Do you know what makes us different from the others? Idealistic but, most of us actually use our scholarship to help people. Again, why do you want to enter medicine?"
Like a scene from a movie, Dr. Franklin grinned and left. His last question resonated in my mind, quelling the sound of his footsteps as he departed. Using the facade of simply asking a question, he transferred a basic-yet-profound message. The trademark of medical practice along with most fields is the translation of science, history, math into a mold flavored by pragmatism. Fascination coupled by a desire to engineer knowledge into a form that could very well affect others is a powerful synergy. Dr. Franklin renewed an awry perspective, providing a realization that the approach of any subject for the sole desire of knowledge, while devoid of any practicality will result in the failure to truly "go far."
The doctor's theme extends to nearly every facet of knowledge. Given an erudition without a need for application renders what was learned as obsolete.