It’s hard for me to believe that a few years ago, I completely turned my back on an acting career I had spent almost two decades building and instead decided to forge into an unknown world of medicine. Even now, with nearly seven years of experience in the medical field and currently in my fourth year of medical school, I sometimes feel lost for an identity.
At the time of my decision, I found myself increasingly unhappy about the lack of control I felt over my own life, which in itself is the nature of the artistic business. I found myself disgustingly self-obsessed in a career path that forced me to sell myself as a product as I teetered along a tightrope of uncertainty as to where my next paycheck or job would come from. And as the world became more chaotic, I developed a more profound interest in the well-being of a humanity that is plagued with inequality, misunderstanding, and hate. I found it harder to justify my commitment to a field where I was unable to see a way to marry my passion with making a significant contribution to humankind.
While art is a necessity, it has its limitations. We are taught as artists that art serves a reflection of the human condition and forces viewers to come to terms with the truth. It begs uncomfortable questions, demands answers of societal problems and gives a voice to those without one. But it is limited in its funding, in catering to audiences that don’t want to be shown the uncomfortable truth and in its saturated market of too many vying for a shrinking field. I can only describe my decision to leave the theater as a burning obsession to somehow make a practical difference in the world and to serve the voiceless in a direct manner outside of a safe and sterile space with polite applause at the end. And so I went into medicine.
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