I'm currently an incoming medical student at OHSU. Pursuing a career in medicine, I see a lot of my peers whose inspirations are physicians. My inspiration is my mom. She was an incredibly gifted and kind person who spent her career as a computer science professor working to bring more women into STEM. I knew her as my mom, as Dr. Howe, and also as a cancer patient. There is an inherent vulnerability that accompanies being a patient, and it can be easy in medicine to get caught up in the clinical duties associated with the role of a doctor and forget that the patient being treated is not a faceless concept, but an autonomous individual. Before passing away in 2017, my mom spent 10 years navigating the role of the patient, having been diagnosed with both breast cancer and relapsing leukemia. In that time, I learned the importance of recognizing and respecting the patient experience and I saw first-hand the difference a moment of humanity can make. There are moments where our lives change forever, and working in medicine means putting yourself in the situation where you are often there for these difficult, life changing moments. That is a responsibility I take very seriously, and I aim to honor that commitment in my practice as a physician. I'm approaching my degree independently, relying on the savings I've accumulated from working through my undergrad and my gap year. Therefore, any funding I receive in the form of scholarships brings me one step closer to being able to support myself through medical school. The work experience that I am using to fund my education has not been in lucrative fields, and much of it has included volunteer work, but I feel it has been imperative to my journey to medical school. Through my roles, I have gained skills and perspective on both directly treating patients, and (more broadly) learning how to be a positive force in other's physical and psychological wellbeing. I’ve worked in research, wilderness leadership, and clinical and ambulatory medicine. I've loved being able to synthesize seemingly disconnected fields to provide a better participant experience for rafters and skiers, and a better patient experience in EMS. All my jobs have taught me what it means to support someone through difficult moments, and through them I've learned skills that I will take with me to my work as a physician. In retrospect, though, I feel that the most important thing I've learned from my work, is that while all of my jobs been different, they've all helped me discover why I want to dedicate my life to medicine.

I view my impact through the way I interact with the people around me. As such, success means that I have been able to leave a positive impact on the people around me. I’ve seen this already in the jobs that have been meaningful to me, and I intend to carry it with me into my work as a physician. I'm currently an incoming medical student at Oregon Health and Science University. Pursuing my MD, I see a lot of my peers whose inspirations and mentors are physicians. My inspiration is my mom. She was an incredibly gifted and kind person who spent her career as a computer science professor working to bring more women into STEM. I knew her as my mom, as Dr. Howe, and also as a cancer patient. There is an inherent vulnerability that accompanies being a patient, and it can be easy in medicine to get caught up in the clinical duties associated with the role of a doctor and forget that the patient being treated is not a faceless concept, but an autonomous individual. Before passing away in 2017, my mom spent 10 years navigating the role of the patient. In that time, I saw first-hand the difference a moment of humanity can make. Working in medicine means putting yourself in the situation where you know that you are the person in the room for someone’s life changing moment. That is a responsibility I take very seriously, and I aspire to be a positive presence to patients during these moments. For the past few years, I have led a weeklong rafting trip for incoming freshmen at my alma mater. In this role, I help students navigate leaving home and transitioning into college. This can be a difficult transition, and students often share their anxieties with me. I work hard to extend respect, compassion, and constructive support to my students, and I’ve been told by them and by fellow leaders that I am gifted at helping people feel cared about and listened to. I pride myself on my people skills, and I think I am good at connecting with people because I am straightforward, genuine, and people can tell that I really care about the things they say. I take my role as a mentor for incoming freshmen seriously, and what has stayed with me from that job is knowing that during a vulnerable, scary time in these teenager’s lives, they felt that they had someone they could trust. I have had students find me after this trip to ask for help in situations such as sexual assault and mental health emergencies. In these scenarios, I’ve been able to connect students to the resources they need, and I am grateful that in these moments they didn’t feel alone. I think this skill is invaluable as a physician, and I feel the most tangible, attainable step a physician can take in providing humanistic care is demonstrating respect. It can be easy to get caught up with the clinical side of medicine and forget that the patient in front of us is still a person. Remembering to respect their story is fundamental to creating a comfortable environment for all patients. I aim to show sincerity, respect, and kindness to the people I work with. To me, success means that my patients felt they were truly heard and respected in my care.

I'm an incoming medical student at OHSU. Pursuing my MD, I see a lot of my peers whose inspirations and mentors are physicians. My inspiration is my mom. She was an incredibly gifted and kind person who spent her career as a computer science professor working to bring more women into STEM. I knew her as my mom, as Dr. Howe, and also as a cancer patient. Before passing away in 2017, my mom spent 10 years navigating the role of the patient. In that time, I saw first-hand the difference a moment of humanity can make. I know how hard those moments were on my family, and my aspiration as a physician is to be able to support other people going through similarly difficult, life changing moments. I currently work in EMS and wilderness leadership. Both of these positions have taught me what it means to be there for people during difficult times, and I aspire to take these skills with me into my work as a physician. Accountability is incredibly important in medicine. When people’s lives are dependent on you doing your job to the best of your ability, accountability takes on a new meaning. Because being accountable to yourself is no longer just about you. It is also about the people that are trusting you to help them in dire moments. A commitment to accountability means respecting that people are trusting you. In wilderness leadership, these people are my guests that I take safely into intense, unpredictable environments. In medicine, they are my patients. There are a number of qualities that come to mind when I think about how I want to approach my career in medicine: such as humanity, efficiency, curiosity, and responsibility. But fundamentally, in the role of the physician, I see these traits as a byproduct of a commitment to personal accountability. My commitment to accountability, my work ethic, and my ability to persevere through difficult environments has fundamentally shaped the kind of student I am now, as well as the kind of physician I aspire to become. Outside of my dedication to my patients, I feel a similar ethical obligation to looking out for the wellbeing of the people around me, such as my coworkers. My mom earned her PhD in computer science in 1988 and at that time she was one of 3 women in her program. When she began her tenure as a professor, she was only the second woman hired in the department. She never let these stats make her jaded, and, instead, used her positions to elevate and inspire other women and underrepresented voices. I’m used to walking into a job and being one of the only women there. While I wish I didn’t have to have these experiences, I always think back to my mom. She believed that change isn’t one big concept, it is the small actions we take in our interactions with the people around us. I feel lasting change is rooted in these moments, and I aim to embody this ideal in my career in medicine.

My mom was a gifted and kind person who spent her career as a computer science professor working to bring more women into STEM. I knew her as my mom, as Dr. Howe, and also as a cancer patient. She passed away when I was in high school, but I aspire to embody her spirit of positivity and dedication to uplifting underrepresented voices. My mom earned her PhD in computer science in 1988 and at that time she was one of 3 women in her program. When she began her tenure as a professor, she was only the second woman hired in the department. She never let these stats make her jaded, and, instead, used her positions to elevate and inspire other women and underrepresented voices. Sadly, working in wilderness leadership and EMS, I’m also used to walking into a job and being one of the only women there. While I wish I didn’t have to have these experiences, I always think back to my mom. She believed that change isn’t one big concept, it is the small actions we take in our interactions with the people around us. I feel lasting change is rooted in these moments, and I aim to keep this ideal with me in my career in medicine. It's hard for me to think about my upbringing and not see it as influential in shaping my path. After my mom died, I found myself existentially lost. I was young and in the middle of establishing my values and identity. Her death made me question a lot of assumptions I’d made about how I wanted to build my life. The turmoil that follows a major life upset had me grasping at meaning in my life. What I found was when I was struggling and I chose to do something for someone around me, it made me feel better. It made me feel like despite the randomness of the universe, there was a way to scrape out happiness. The key was to look outside of yourself. The first time I treated a patient, I found that feeling again. The feeling that the world is bigger than me. I'm now an incoming medical student at OHSU. I'm pursuing my degree in order to bring the same respect and commitment to my patients that I saw my mom bring to her students and colleagues. To me, legacy means remembering the things that made you love someone and working to embody them in your own journey. I don't see my relationship with any past as black and white, so I don't have an easy answer to whether I want to continue or break the cycles I saw growing up. What I do know, is that I believe I have been inspired by some very influential people in my life. I don't think that inspiration makes them perfect, and there are ways I am trying to grow to avoid some of the mistakes I saw them make. But it does mean that I choose to remember the things that inspire me and take those things with me as a reason to be the best person I can be. I hope that commitment to growth and dedication to providing for the needs of the people around me can serve as an inspiration to others, as well. As I would be happy if that were my legacy as a physician.

I'm currently an incoming medical student at OHSU. Pursuing a career in medicine, I see a lot of my peers whose inspirations are physicians. My inspiration is my mom. She was an incredibly gifted and kind person who spent her career as a computer science professor working to bring more women into STEM. I knew her as my mom, as Dr. Howe, and also as a cancer patient. There is an inherent vulnerability that accompanies being a patient, and it can be easy in medicine to get caught up in the clinical duties associated with the role of a doctor and forget that the patient being treated is not a faceless concept, but an autonomous individual. Before passing away in 2017, my mom spent 10 years navigating the role of the patient, having been diagnosed with both breast cancer and relapsing leukemia. In that time, I learned the importance of recognizing and respecting the patient experience and I saw first-hand the difference a moment of humanity can make. Working in medicine means putting yourself in the situation where you are the person in the room for someone’s lifechanging moment, and often that moment of humanity can come from a healthcare provider. That is a responsibility I take very seriously. My freshman year of college I got involved with outdoor leadership. To work as a trip leader, I needed to take a Wilderness First Responder (WFR) course. Halfway through the course we had a scenario where we were responding to an unresponsive patient who had fallen off a cliff near a waterfall. Our instructors were actively spraying us with a hose to try and reinforce the waterfall feel, which was a fun touch that added to the chaos of 6 of us working together to respond to our patient. I was responsible for directing patient management and was periodically checking our patient’s level of responsiveness (LoR). On one of my LoR checks, our patient began to “wake up,” although I knew it was simulated, the moment he opened his eyes, was a moment that changed my life. The idea of being able to have that immense an impact on someone’s life, is not something I’d previously processed as possible. Since that day, I’ve dedicated my life to pursuing an MD and sought out positions that allow me to be a positive force in other’s physical and psychological wellbeing. My path to medicine has been a culmination of non-traditional roles. I’ve worked in research, wilderness leadership, and both clinical and ambulatory medicine. These experiences have taught me what it means to support someone through difficult moments, and through all of them I have learned skills I will take with me to my work in medicine. Perhaps most importantly, though, now that I am looking back on these roles, is that while all of them have been different, they all taught me why I want to dedicate my life to medicine and the kind of impact I want to have on my patients.

Pursuing my MD, I know a lot of my peers whose inspirations are physicians. My inspiration is my mom. She was an incredibly gifted and kind person who spent her career as a Computer Science professor working to bring more women into STEM. I knew her as my mom, as Dr. Howe, and also as a cancer patient. Her experience with cancer has been instrumental to my perspective on what humanistic care looks like. My mom passed away when I was in high school, but I try to honor her legacy by applying myself to work I think is important and that she would be proud of. Community service was something my mom valued highly, and we volunteered together at a number of local charities, including local conservation/animal groups and cancer focused non-profits. My mom and I's volunteer work has stayed with me as a memorable component of our relationship. As an adult, I try and embody her service ethic and commitment to bettering the communities she was a part of. My work in healthcare is so centered around helping people in need that I struggle to use the word selfless to describe it. I think this is because I feel that there is a unique benefit to the self when you stop thinking about your own needs and start thinking about what's best for the people around you, so I don't really view it as selfless. It is in this 'selfless' philosophy that I have found the most happiness and self-contentment. While pursuing my MD, I’ve sought out positions that allow me to be a productive member of my local community by positively impacting the wellbeing of the people around me. I’ve worked in outdoor leadership, research, and clinical, ambulatory, and wilderness medicine. In whatever field I am in, I always try and find a way to use my training and education to give back in innovative ways. The communities I’m involved in are very meaningful to me and I feel that finding ways to better them is imperative to fostering their long-term success. I have volunteered as a mentor to incoming college students, a clinical EMT at a free clinic, a debate judge and coach, and a wilderness medicine instructor. I sought out these roles to adapt my existing skills to new areas that I felt were beneficial to my community. For example, when I was working as a raft guide and outdoor leader for my College Outdoor program, I was also a nationally certified EMT. As such, I volunteered to lead trainings on wilderness medicine for other leaders. I had leaders tell me that the skills that we covered in my presentations were invaluable when they had to provide aid in real world medical crises. Knowing that I was able to help (not just) my own patients, but also people I would never meet, inspired me to continue looking for creative ways to use my background for new health-based initiatives. I then developed a curriculum on psychological first aid in a wilderness setting that I have since adapted to urban EMS. I am uniquely passionate about the importance of providing psychological first aid during any patient interaction, and I intend to continue looking for ways to grow in this area throughout medical school. Finding, creating, and participating in community initiatives and volunteer organizations are essential components of my desire to work in medicine. I intend to use my MD to (not only) provide the highest standard of care to my patients, but also to find ways to better my community at large.

Pursuing a career in medicine, I see a lot of my peers whose inspirations are physicians. My inspiration is my mom. She was an incredibly gifted and kind person who spent her career as a Computer Science professor working to bring more women into STEM. I knew her as my mom, as Dr. Howe, and also as a cancer patient. Her experience with cancer has been instrumental to my perspective on what quality care looks like, and what it means to respect the patient experience as a provider. My mom passed away when I was in high school, so she'll never get to see the things I've accomplished as an adult. But I try to honor her legacy by applying myself to work I think is important and that I feel she would be proud of. Community service was something my mom valued highly, and we volunteered together at the animal shelter, a local breast cancer charity, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and an animal conservation group. The reason I mention these experiences is that my mom and I's volunteer work has stayed with me as a memorable component of our relationship and as an adult, I try and embody her service ethic and commitment to bettering the communities she was a part of. In my path to pursuing my MD, I’ve sought out positions that allow me to be a productive member of my local community by positively impacting the wellbeing of the people around me. I’ve worked in outdoor leadership, research, and clinical, ambulatory, and wilderness medicine. Something important to me in all of the fields that I’ve chosen to work in, is that I always try and find a way to use my training and education to give back to my community in innovative ways. The communities I’m involved in are very meaningful to me and I feel that finding ways to better them is imperative to fostering the long-term success of any community. I have volunteered as a mentor to incoming college students, a clinical EMT at a free clinic, a debate judge and coach, and a wilderness medicine instructor. I sought out these roles as a way to adapt my existing skills to new areas that I felt were beneficial to my community. For example, when I was working as a raft guide and outdoor leader for my College Outdoor program, I was also a nationally certified EMT. As such, I volunteered to lead trainings on wilderness medicine for other leaders. Through this position, I had leaders tell me that the skills that we covered in my presentations were invaluable when they had to provide aid in real world medical crises. Knowing that I was able to help not just my own patients, but (through this adaption of my skills in EMS) also people I would never meet, inspired me to continue looking for creative ways to use my background to develop new health-based initiatives. I later developed a curriculum on psychological first aid in a wilderness setting that I have since adapted to urban EMS. I am uniquely passionate about the importance of providing psychological first aid during any patient interaction, and I intend to continue looking for ways to grow in this area throughout medical school. Finding, creating, and participating in community initiatives and volunteer organizations are essential components of my desire to work in medicine. I intend to use my MD to (not only) provide the highest standard of care to my patients, but also to find ways to better my community at large.

I'm currently an incoming medical student at OHSU. Pursuing a career in medicine, I see a lot of my peers whose inspirations are physicians. My inspiration is my mom. She was an incredibly gifted and kind person who spent her career as a computer science professor working to bring more women into STEM. I knew her as my mom, as Dr. Howe, and also as a cancer patient. There is an inherent vulnerability that accompanies being a patient, and it can be easy in medicine to get caught up in the clinical duties associated with the role of a doctor and forget that the patient being treated is not a faceless concept, but an autonomous individual. Before passing away in 2017, my mom spent 10 years navigating the role of the patient, having been diagnosed with both breast cancer and relapsing leukemia. In that time, I learned the importance of recognizing and respecting the patient experience and I saw first-hand the difference a moment of humanity can make. There are moments where our lives change forever, and working in medicine means putting yourself in the situation where you are often there for these difficult, life changing moments. That is a responsibility I take very seriously, and I aim to honor that commitment in my practice as a physician. I'm approaching my degree independently, relying on the savings I've accumulated from working through my undergrad and my gap year. Therefore, any funding I receive in the form of scholarships brings me one step closer to being able to support myself through medical school. The work experience that I am using to fund my education has not been in lucrative fields, and much of it has included volunteer work, but I feel it has been imperative to my journey to medical school. Through my roles, I have gained skills and perspective on both directly treating patients, and (more broadly) learning how to be a positive force in other's physical and psychological wellbeing. I’ve worked in research, wilderness leadership, and clinical and ambulatory medicine. I've loved being able to synthesize seemingly disconnected fields to provide a better participant experience for rafters and skiers, and a better patient experience in EMS. Based on my work as a RA in a lab that works on psychological wellbeing, I have developed a training curriculum for wilderness medical providers, urban EMS providers, and raft guides. It develops principles of psychological first aid that can be used to provide support for patients and participants experiencing acute stress. Developing this curriculum has been meaningful to me as it allows me to (not only) incorporate my research into my treatment of patients, but also honor what I learned from my mother’s experiences as a cancer patient. Moving beyond abstractly supporting humanist medicine to empowering current providers with an adapted skillsets based in current research has helped me develop my own perspectives on what providing psychological care looks like. I intend to continue looking for ways to grow in this area throughout medical school, as I am always looking for ways to better my practice and best support my patients. All my jobs have taught me what it means to support someone through difficult moments, and through them I've learned skills that I will take with me to my work as a physician. In retrospect, though, I feel that the most important thing I've learned from my work, is that while all of my jobs been different, they've all helped me discover why I want to dedicate my life to medicine.

I am an incoming medical student at OHSU, so I have given a lot of thought to how I intend to interact with our current healthcare system, and what changes are available to current providers within a much larger context of social norms and systems. I think a part of my background that surprises people is that besides completing my medical pre-requisites during my undergrad, I also pursued a degree in philosophy. During my degree, I became passionate about the metaphysics of medical topics, and specifically, the way we characterize human traits. This includes the differentiating of natural and human kinds. Natural kinds are those that exist outside of the human influence. Human kinds are developed and influenced by the social factors. In medicine, we prefer to deal with natural kinds, as they are easier to study objectively. However, especially in medicine, there are notable ‘gray areas’ between the kinds: such as race and gender. While it would be less complicated to view these as natural kinds, they are not. Our perception of race and gender is a product of culture. This can be seen, historically, as our view of constructs like ‘black,’ or ‘feminine’ have evolved. Human kinds can be changed through the way we view them: thus the social evolution of these concepts. The ability to reshape human kinds, and the subsequent influence of the evolved concept on then shaping a new norm is known as Hacking’s looping effect. This has historically been seen in in medicine, through examples like the historical medicalization of queerness, followed by its modern de-medicalization. The reason I wanted to discuss human kinds and the looping effect, is that the area of healthcare I would change is the current health equity divide that exists in our country. However, effectively closing this divide is not a simple endeavor. There are tangible steps that need to be taken to address health inequality: like improving access and decreasing costs. But a broader solution is more extensive and less simple. Our medical system has structural norms that can make it a difficult space for vulnerable populations. For example, even when adjusted for income and insurance, black populations are still less likely to have access to kidney transplants, pain treatments, etc. In my research, I have learned that this is (at least partially) due to the social influence of human kinds. This can make change feel inaccessible to those of us operating within a system defined by norms that have developed at a level far greater than ourselves. But, at an individual level, we do have some control over the way we are influenced by cultural perceptions of human kinds. Cultural understanding of concepts like blackness are not homogenous. As such, how we learn about these human kinds can be powerful in shaping our perception of them. I feel that how physicians, and other medical professionals, learn about approaching these topics in medical contexts can shape their long-term practice. Therefore, the change I would make is to emphasize to physicians that although we can't change the entire system through one individual action, our actions still matter and they have ripple effects. The looping effect dictates that our perceptions of human kinds are a product of the way they are defined culturally, but it also means that individual perception ultimately shapes and reshapes our larger cultural perception, which allows for growth and change. This means that through intentional learning, even individual providers can help to redefine our norms, and we can begin to shift our cultural paradigms to make medical spaces more comfortable for marginalized groups.

One of my favorite things about reading is that it can expose us to a diverse array of ideas, many of which are told by characters and people unlike ourselves. Through that narrative we can begin to understand the complex, multidimensional experience of humanity and the people around us. Given that, boiling the literary cannon down to one book is difficult for me, but I am going to choose based off which book I feel like I recommend and discuss with people the most frequently. That book is "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Camus. I read this for the first time in high school while trying to reconcile my own teenage existential crisis, and I found the themes of the text resonated with my own inability to make sense of a irrational and, at times, very difficult world. The original Myth of Sisyphus tells the story of a man condemned to spend eternity rolling a boulder up a mountain. Since he knows that the boulder will always fall back down the mountain, Sisyphus must live within the confines of his own futility. Camus uses this as a metaphor for the human condition of absurdity. In many areas of our lives, we all feel the redundancy of our boulders and ask questions regarding the meaning of spending our lives pushing them up a mountain. In my discussions of Sisyphus, I have found very few people that don't identify with this metaphor. We spend most of our lives wrapped up in the importance of the boulders we choose, and as such I feel that Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus" is incredibly relevant in understanding the existential stressors that many of us struggle with. As such, I think if I was only able to recommend one book, it would be "The Myth of Sisyphus" as I still think about Camus' explanation of Sisyphus' plight, and I still find strength in his conclusion that "one must imagine Sisyphus happy."

The wilderness is an intense environment, and it has taught me the importance of effective leadership. I’ve been working as a raft guide for the last 5 years. In that role, my job is to meet a group of strangers (who have likely never previously worked together as a team), establish their trust, teach them the fundamentals of rafting, keep them safe, and maintain a positive environment. I am a successful raft guide, not because of any physical attribute, but because I know how to earn participants’ trust. I feel that at its core, leadership means understanding the responsibility you have to the people who place their trust in you. I’ve learned what it means to have someone trust you with their life, and what it means to honor that trust. This requires knowing how to maintain a calm presence during periods of stress, and how to listen to the people you are leading to make informed decisions for the good of the group. One example of this is a trip I ran on the Rio Grande; we were taking a group of participants rafting who were veterans with the Wounded Warrior project. Before the trip my supervisor let me know there was a family (a mom and her 3 daughters) who were especially nervous about the trip. I decided to take them myself, (part of my job as the trip leader is to assign guests, so I assigned this group to myself) as I was confident that I could connect with them and ensure that we had a positive experience. I assured them they were more than capable despite their anxieties and emphasized that I would be there to provide clear direction. I laid out clear instructions at the beginning of the trip and built on those instructions throughout the trip. They did great and afterwards the mom wrote me a very kind letter. She explained that their family was going through a difficult time and her daughters (especially) were really struggling with confidence and mental health. She felt that the trip had been important to her family in seeing their own potential and having a leader that provided a sense of security and made them feel comfortable pushing themselves to try something they didn’t think was possible. Being able to inspire people to handle difficult situations and knowing how to generate trust during periods of stress are aspects of leadership I’ve developed through my time in the outdoor industry and that I aspire to take with me into my positions in medicine. I feel these skills are directly relevant in medicine, as patients bestow a similar trust in their physician as my participants do in me when I take them into a wilderness space: both roles require trusting a stranger with your wellbeing. I am about to start medical school at OHSU, and I intend to apply my background in wilderness leadership to my patient interactions as a physician. Often in medicine we are helping patients navigate acute stress and I feel my ability to provide a calm, reassuring presence is instrumental to providing for the overall wellbeing of my patients.

I'm currently an incoming medical student at OHSU. Pursuing a career in medicine, I see a lot of my peers whose inspirations are physicians. My inspiration is my mom. She was an incredibly gifted and kind person who spent her career as a computer science professor working to bring more women into STEM. I knew her as my mom, as Dr. Howe, and also as a cancer patient. Before passing away in 2017, my mom spent 10 years navigating the role of the patient, having been diagnosed with both breast cancer and relapsing leukemia. In that time, I learned the importance of recognizing and respecting the patient experience and I saw first-hand the difference a moment of humanity can make. Working in medicine means putting yourself in the situation where you are the person in the room for someone’s lifechanging moment, and often that moment of humanity can come from a healthcare provider. That is a responsibility I take very seriously, and I feel supporting the emotional well-being of your patients is at the core of supporting their general wellbeing. In my journey to medical school, I have sought out positions that allow me to be a positive force in other's physical and psychological wellbeing. My path to medicine has been a culmination of non-traditional roles. I’ve worked in research, wilderness leadership and medicine, and both clinical and ambulatory medicine. I've loved being able to synthesize seemingly disconnected fields to provide a better participant experience for rafters and skiers, and a better patient experience in EMS. Based on my work as a Research Assistant in a lab that works on psychological wellbeing, I have developed a training that I have presented to wilderness medical providers, urban EMS providers, and raft guides. It outlines a set of tools that can be used to provide psychological first aid during periods of acute stress. This work has taught me what it means to support someone through difficult moments, and through all my jobs I have learned skills that I will take with me into medical school. Looking back, I feel that although my positions have all been different, they all taught me why I want to dedicate my life to medicine and the kind of impact I want to have on my patients.

I'm currently an incoming medical student at OHSU. Pursuing a career in medicine, I see a lot of my peers whose inspirations are physicians. My inspiration is my mom. She was an incredibly gifted and kind person who spent her career as a computer science professor working to bring more women into STEM. I knew her as my mom, as Dr. Howe, and also as a cancer patient. There is an inherent vulnerability that accompanies being a patient, and it can be easy in medicine to get caught up in the clinical duties associated with the role of a doctor and forget that the patient being treated is not a faceless concept, but an autonomous individual. Before passing away in 2017, my mom spent 10 years navigating the role of the patient, having been diagnosed with both breast cancer and relapsing leukemia. In that time, I learned the importance of recognizing and respecting the patient experience and I saw first-hand the difference a moment of humanity can make. Working in medicine means putting yourself in the situation where you are the person in the room for someone’s lifechanging moment, and often that moment of humanity can come from a healthcare provider. That is a responsibility I take very seriously. My freshman year of college I got involved with outdoor leadership. To work as a trip leader, I needed to take a Wilderness First Responder (WFR) course. Halfway through the course we had a scenario where we were responding to an unresponsive patient who had fallen off a cliff near a waterfall. Our instructors were actively spraying us with a hose to try and reinforce the waterfall feel, which was a fun touch that added to the chaos of 6 of us working together to respond to our patient. I was responsible for directing patient management and was periodically checking our patient’s level of responsiveness (LoR). On one of my LoR checks, our patient began to “wake up,” although I knew it was simulated, the moment he opened his eyes, was a moment that changed my life. The idea of being able to have that immense an impact on someone’s life, is not something I’d previously processed as possible. Since that day, I’ve dedicated my life to pursuing an MD and sought out positions that allow me to be a positive force in other’s physical and psychological wellbeing. My path to medicine has been a culmination of non-traditional roles. I’ve worked in research, wilderness leadership, and both clinical and ambulatory medicine. These experiences have taught me what it means to support someone through difficult moments, and through all of them I have learned skills I will take with me to my work in medicine. Perhaps most importantly, though, is that while all of them have been different, they all taught me why I want to dedicate my life to medicine and the kind of impact I want to have on my patients.

My freshman year of college I got involved with outdoor leadership. To begin working as a trip leader, I needed to take a Wilderness First Responder (WFR) course. About halfway through the course we had a patient scenario where we were responding to an unresponsive patient who had fallen off a cliff near a waterfall. I was responsible for directing patient management and was periodically checking our patient’s level of responsiveness (LoR). On one of my LoR checks, our patient began to “wake up,” although I knew it was simulated, the moment he opened his eyes, was a moment that changed my life. The idea of being able to have that immense an impact on someone’s life, is not something I’d previously processed as possible. Without my work in wilderness leadership leading me to wilderness medicine, I’m not sure I would have discovered my passion for treating patients. But, since that day, I’ve dedicated my life to pursuing an MD and I’ve sought out positions that allow me to be a positive force in other’s physical and psychological wellbeing. During my undergraduate degree, I worked as a ski instructor, wilderness trip leader (paddle boarding, camping, backpacking,) raft guide, REU intern, and wilderness medicine educator. During the year, I often worked one or more of these jobs simultaneously. This taught me how to manage my time efficiently and how to recognize when I am overextending myself. I’ve learned how to navigate prioritizing the activities that are important to me and curtailing my involvement in other areas. When I began working as a wilderness guide, I didn’t expect to experience crossover with my work in medicine, but I quickly learned that the basis of wilderness leadership is pushing people out of their comfort zones, and this inherently induces stress. My role as a wilderness leader (both as a ski instructor, raft guide, and general trip leader) is to create an environment where people can navigate an acute stress event in a productive way. This requires understanding how to provide psychological support to someone during a period of stress. The skills I’ve gained through this work has served as the basis of my current research, which involves identifying factors for a positive stress experience through the lens of acute stress in a wilderness setting. This background has led me to develop and run trainings on how to incorporate psychological support into wilderness patient treatment, and I recently presented an adaptation of this training specified for the EMS responders at the ambulance service I work for. In all my patient interactions, I work to maintain compassion and use the skills I’ve learned in wilderness leadership to create a comfortable environment for my patient, regardless of their circumstances. My path to medicine has been a culmination of non-traditional roles. My experiences with research, clinical practice, and wilderness leadership have taught me what it means to support someone through difficult moments, and through all of them I have learned skills I will take with me into medical school. Perhaps most importantly, though, is that while all my experiences have been different, what I really learned from them was why I want to dedicate my life to medicine.