"Growing up and the medical field" - UIC GPPA essay

~please describe your motivation for choosing your intended career and include any experience you have had that contribute to your choice.~

*Growing up I have always been attracted to the medical field. My desire to help those in need of medical attention has always overpowered any other feelings of mine. I imagined myself pursuing the career of becoming a doctor and because of my attraction towards medication, I was ready to diligently work to become what I dreamed of. However, a few simple words from someone dear to me has changed my path of careers for good.

*One day I spent some time speaking to a troubled friend of mine who was speaking about how he can never have his dad back to normal. He continued to pour his troubles out, and explained to me how his father was prescribed the wrong medication, thus causing his dad to have clinical depression. The wrong medication? How was it possible that spending eleven years in school studying can lead to a mistake. Especially one so major that has caused injury. And how about the pharmacists, who are suppose to double check what is being prescribed and not just mindlessly dispense medication to patients. That is when I begun my research.

*What I came to find was truly shocking. About 1.5 million U.S. residents are harmed or killed each year because of medication errors (Health Grades Incorporation, 2009). Weren't doctors supposed to provide health care not injury and death? Wrong. On average a patient hospitalized in the U.S. will experience at least one medication error per day and seventy percent of those errors are believed to be preventable (Health Grades Incorporation, 2009).

*I struggled with which career I wanted to pursue because I did not want to be a part of the carelessness of doctors who treated patients as their pathway to money. However, I felt that I could not abandon medicine and turn my back on this invisible flaw. It was then that I made a decision to become a pharmacist.

*Since I have always been interested in the medical field finding out about medication error has concerned me about medication being administered and distributed properly. Choosing my career, I could have been that one doctor who truly cares about their patients who will not make any medication errors; but as a pharmacist I will not only be able to correct the medication errors that go on in the pharmacy, but I will also be able to double-check the medications prescribed by doctors so that less errors will be made.

*Overall, I will work my hardest to become a pharmacist to stop the medication errors occurring throughout hospitals and pharmacies. I may not be able to prevent all errors but I will surely fix any that come my way. Patients will have a reason to trust what is given to them, and look at the future with hope and not fear. I am ready to work to my full potential to become the one pharmacist who cares about their patients' health.

But work on rewording this essay, it could be written in more, eloquent language. I'd also say that emphasize more on the storytelling, you have too much of your internal head yoodahs. It's great, it really is to have a lot of your thinking, but it would be beneficial to be like: oh that dad, i felt so bad. he was a single parent and his kid had to help him. it inhibited his job and his boss threatened to fire him blagh blagh blagh.[/b]