Potential careers I am planning to explore while in college are public speaking and publishing books to bridge the gap in our broken healthcare system. We need a strong voice that can seamlessly bring together integrative medicine in our country. Too many young children are taking medications and too few adults know their actual medical treatment options. We are creating a drug-dependent generation who lean too heavily on medications and surgery to try and fix healthcare problems that can be solved through healthy communication, altering their diet or simply getting acupuncture. Our drug-dependent mentality is creating a sick-care model, not a healthcare system. The devastating side effects from medications and the number of unnecessary surgeries are costing our country billions of dollars. The number of patients who need more surgeries due to failed surgeries is at an all-time high. Patients believe they need these surgeries or these drugs when in fact some studies have shown up to 90% of the recommended surgeries are in fact elective, and not critically necessary. I want to empower people to understand their healthcare options before they go under the knife. I had seven doctors recommend a life-altering hysterectomy before ever having the chance to have a child. The first time I was advised to cut out my uterus I was merely 17 years old. This is a travesty. Luckily, I did not heed their medical advice. Instead, I suffered for years thinking I had tried everything to alleviate my pain. Not one doctor mentioned alternative medicine. Not one suggested trying acupuncture even though it had been used to treat pain for 4,000 years, on billions of people. Study after study has proven its efficacy yet, no one is being referred out for the therapy. Millions of people have received irreversible knee, hip, and back surgeries. Hundreds of thousands of hysterectomies are performed in the U.S. alone; up to 500,000 annually. That is 450,000 surgeries that are considered elective, not life-saving, and not at all necessary. Simple herbal medicine and acupuncture can reduce uterine bleeding by half, without robbing women of their reproductive rights. There are no known severe risks to this ancient medicine yet women are being forced to believe they have no other option. Women are told they have no choice. They believe these words, why wouldn't they? Once committed they are looking at a lifetime of hormones, or worse yet, mesh embedded into their bladders, bowel and bodies. The number of auto-immune conditions that are caused by foreign objects left in women's bodies is criminal. We have a better way. First do no harm is what we rely upon in this nation yet we are being given the wrong information. I feel there is a symbiotic way we can use the best of both worlds. First, use the least invasive medicine. First, use natural medicine that does not do irrevocable harm. First, protect the patient's rights and then and only then take away her ability to have a baby for the rest of her life. Then and only then, give her a surgery that may cause her to need a second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth surgery down the road. Give people a chance to know we can approach the body with respect and gentleness and still get excellent medical care.