As a third-generation physician, I grew up thinking and dreaming of a being a physician, and 33 years later, I am still living the dream. I dreamt of saving people’s lives. I dreamt of a day like today when I received a LinkedIn request from a young lady on whom, 21 years ago, I performed a living donor liver transplant from her mother.
Today she is graduating from college and hopes to work in healthcare and would “love to catch up and thank you for everything.” I dreamt of using my skills to perform liver transplants so children could grow up, parents could enjoy raising their children, and grandparents could see their grandchildren grow up. These are the dreams that kept me studying and putting in the long hours of a brutal, but rewarding, training program.
These are amazing events and when I entered medicine were not even possible. As unlikely as these events are, I am blessed to not only to dream of them but to actually accomplish them. Events more unlikely to occur would not even be worth dreaming of, thus I have repressed a dream for 29 years.
My son was born 29 years ago, and my only dream for him was to be healthy. Born in the throes of cardiac decelerations, pre-mature and with neonatal jaundice, I was just hoping his was brain was normal and he did not have biliary atresia (the subject of my first peer-reviewed publication). As he developed a competency for math and science, and a love of helping people through countless hours of service, I thought, perhaps, he would become a fourth-generation physician. His love of helping the under-resourced drove him to earn a MPH, and I thought that maybe his calling would be to help populations rather than through hands-on clinical practice helping individuals. Then he started concentrating on applying to medical school.
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