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Essay / My potential and motivation to excel in the field of medicine
Who could imagine that killing is healing? The only way to cure a serious aneurysm located at a dangerous junction in the brain is to induce hypothermia, which stops the heart. By medical definition, the person is clinically dead. However, this procedure also uses the important property of hypothermia to protect the brain and save it. This is just one of the beauties of medicine, which always intrigues me to learn more about the fascinating ways medicine can transform lives. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay This year I was lucky enough to be able to shadow Dr. Miriam Kimpo in her pediatric oncology clinic at University Hospital national, where I was introduced to Knudson's study. two-hit hypothesis. It was used to explain a medical case in which mother and son both suffered from retinoblastoma. I also had the chance to observe how she counseled outpatient cancer patients on different chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments and did an echocardiogram to check for heart defects. Obviously, being a doctor is very intellectually rewarding, as it requires critical thinking and decision-making. Dr. Kimpo's attentive listening to each patient and her patience when addressing patients' concerns about potential side effects of treatment highlighted the importance of soft skills and communicating complex medical terms in simple language that the patient can understand. The soft skills I learned through observations were applied when I led other students in a biology interest group in planning a mealworm masterclass for primary 6 students , as well as as a speaker. In the Children's Emergency (CE), a boy with O Level exams the following week was diagnosed with hidradenitis suppurativa where the severe pain was hampering his ability to write. Her trust in the doctor's expertise and trust in him to help her at critical times such as passing her O-level exams showed that being a doctor is a privilege and a worthy job. However, the CE experience also opened my eyes to the realities of life as a doctor. The doctor I was shadowing misdiagnosed a child with bacterial pneumonia when it was viral pneumonia and gave her levofloxacin before the blood test results were released. As such, he was severely reprimanded by an elderly resident. Obviously, as errors could be fatal, the stress of maintaining an error-free record even with long working hours of up to 36 hours was one of the doctor's difficulties. Yet it was the sense of fulfillment that came from their work that kept them going. While I also aim to pursue clinical research, I want to ensure I am exposed to medical research and medical facilities beyond the academic curriculum. As such, I completed 2 years of research at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School where I worked on RAC isoforms and ICMT, which helped me apply for grants with potential publication l next year. I learned to critique and draw inspiration from experimental methods from research articles, as well as use Huygens Professional for data analysis, thus keeping up to date with the latest research on RAC isoforms and recent imaging standards. Beyond broadening my field of knowledge,..