To prepare for a career in medicine, I have volunteered at Good Samaritan Hospital starting in high school and lasting until I moved to Columbus for college. My duties included giving directions to visiting family members to patient rooms and escorting patients to their cars once they were discharged from the hospital. I also have had exposure to the medical field via job shadowing three emergency trauma physicians in the emergency department of Miami Valley Hospital, a cardiologist in California, and a gastroenterologist in a private practice. While shadowing the gastroenterologist, I witnessed multiple colonoscopies and endoscopies. The cardiologist I shadowed taught me how to read electrocardiograms and echocardiograms. The emergency department doctors that I shadowed taught me how to come up with differential diagnoses, as well as which symptoms are the most important to pay attention to and what to look for when examining a patient. They also taught me how to read chest x-rays, allowed me to observe how to do stitches, and observe how to intubate a patient.

While all of these technical skills are essential in a medical career, the most important lesson I learned from all of these physicians was how to be compassionate and caring towards patients and their families while they are going through difficult times and facing uncertain outcomes. Connecting with people and having the chance to develop relationships is one of the aspects of medicine that I find most important. All of the knowledge that I have acquired through the years by spending time in a healthcare setting has only strengthened my desire to continue to help people. Ultimately, getting more exposure to the field of medicine through this internship program opportunity and being able to increase my knowledge of physician and patient interactions would be an invaluable privilege.