Personal Journey: As a first generation student attending a PWI I am actively trying to maintain a strong connection to my Mexican-American community, which allows me to maintain a deeper understanding of people's cultural heritage. Through the quality of being a first generation I can effectively develop my knowledge of medicine to be a good candidate for. The major aspect of medicine is mostly the same across all cultures, to cure and solve the medical problems of patients. Combining these two concepts encourages me to desire to learn others perspectives of medicine and continuously maintain an open mind. This helps forge linkages and bridge gaps between individuals of different backgrounds in the healthcare system, allowing a sense of belonging and mutual understanding to be established. To add on, having that deeper cultural perspective also allows me to advocate for diverse spaces to value all the different customs, traditions, and beliefs, which is also helping me develop an aspect of modern medicine, cultural competence. My strong connection and recognition of my own culture enables me to accomplish these efforts because I can appreciate and respect differences across cultures, considering I'm more sensitive to diversity. I can carry these qualities into relationships to challenge any personal bias I might have in modern medicine and continue to approach others with diverse backgrounds with an open mind to acknowledge their viewpoint on life. Having these more work based skills like diligence, empathy, and a multidimensional thinking brings a unique and effective approach to my work, making me ideal for the medical field. As a multidimensional thinker I view my environments in holistics sense to bring awareness and make deeper connections others might overlook. To accomplish this I analyze situations from multiple perspectives to explore innovative solutions, and visualize complex social and technical concepts. This skill is crucial in medical environments, where understanding intricate relationships and patterns often requires the ability to think beyond traditional linear models. Being a Mexican-American developed my empathy since it enabled me to grasp the nuances of cultural and individual experiences. In the realm of medicine this quality leads to more insightful and well-rounded outcomes, and helps me visualize and understand the social concepts previously mentioned. Having immigrant parents, I observed their perseverance through challenges, and the consistent dedication to work towards their aspirations. This diligent way of living is embedded in me, directly contributing to my academic success so far. It was through these qualities that helped me come up with a logical solution to my struggles my first year. My multidimensional way of thinking helped me recognize the common factor of my struggles was my inefficient study methods. Since I remained diligent even with the number of failures, I analyzed each one and identified the patterns that worked for my learning style to apply them to my study methods. This process took great attention to detail; therefore, I committed to spending my spare time learning material and the type of student I was. This experience also made me realize how truly passionate I was about my career goals. No matter how alone and lost I felt, or how hard things got, my devotion to being on the pre-medical track never wavered. This loyalty to my career when I was most struggling, helped me really secure that being part of the medical field is one of my true passions. This love fueled my desire to keep putting in the effort and time needed because I knew it was all a part of my journey of becoming a pediatrician.

I entered every doctor's office with a parent filled with stress since the language barrier between them and the physician meant they couldn't understand whether their child was healthy or not. The same feelings shifted on me when I had to translate medical words I'd never heard before, and I recognized this same experience with my friends in similar situations. Thus, initiating my interest in pediatrics at a young age, considering I experienced the impact a pediatrician could have on various aspects of their patients' lives. Pediatrics isn’t only about physical health; it must consider the child's happiness and comfort. To accomplish this, I wish to strengthen my emotional intelligence/awareness to know how to adapt and approach various dimensions of well-being, emotional, social, physical, etc. Learning this is crucial because it will help reduce a child's anxiety/fear of the doctor and create a trustworthy environment, allowing positive physician-patient relationships to flourish. These concepts aren't attained through lectures or books; they require real-world applications. As a first generation student attending a PWI I am actively trying to maintain a strong connection to my Mexican-American community, which allows me to maintain a deeper understanding of people's cultural heritage. Through the quality of being a first generation I can effectively develop my knowledge of medicine to be a good candidate for. The major aspect of medicine is mostly the same across all cultures, to cure and solve the medical problems of patients. Combining these two concepts encourages me to desire to learn others perspectives of medicine and continuously maintain an open mind. This helps forge linkages and bridge gaps between individuals of different backgrounds in the healthcare system, allowing a sense of belonging and mutual understanding to be established. To add on, having that deeper cultural perspective also allows me to advocate for diverse spaces to value all the different customs, traditions, and beliefs, which is also helping me develop an aspect of modern medicine, cultural competence. My strong connection and recognition of my own culture enables me to accomplish these efforts because I can appreciate and respect differences across cultures, considering I'm more sensitive to diversity. I can carry these qualities into relationships to challenge any personal bias I might have in modern medicine and continue to approach others with diverse backgrounds with an open mind to acknowledge their viewpoint on life. Having these more work based skills like diligence, empathy, and a multidimensional thinking brings a unique and effective approach to my work, making me an ideal for the medical field. As a multidimensional thinker I view my environments in holistics sense to bring awareness and make deeper connections others might overlook. To accomplish this I analyze situations from multiple perspectives to explore innovative solutions, and visualize complex social and technical concepts. This skill is crucial in medical environments, where understanding intricate relationships and patterns often requires the ability to think beyond traditional linear models. Being a Mexican-American developed my empathy since it enabled me to grasp the nuances of cultural and individual experiences. In the realm of medicine this quality leads to more insightful and well-rounded outcomes, and helps me visualize and understand the social concepts previously mentioned. Having immigrant parents, I observed their perseverance through challenges, and the consistent dedication to work towards their aspirations. This diligent way of living is embedded in me, directly contributing to my academic success so far.

I entered every doctor's office with a parent filled with stress since the language barrier between them and the physician meant they couldn't understand whether their child was healthy or not. The same feelings shifted on me when I had to translate medical words I'd never heard before, and I recognized this same experience with my friends in similar situations. Thus, initiating my interest in pediatrics at a young age, considering I experienced the impact a pediatrician could have on various aspects of their patients' lives. Pediatrics isn’t only about physical health; it must consider the child's happiness and comfort. To accomplish this, I wish to strengthen my emotional intelligence/awareness to know how to adapt and approach various dimensions of well-being, emotional, social, physical, etc. Learning this is crucial because it will help reduce a child's anxiety/fear of the doctor and create a trustworthy environment, allowing positive physician-patient relationships to flourish. These concepts aren't attained through lectures or books; they require real-world applications. As a first generation student attending a PWI I am actively trying to maintain a strong connection to my latinx community, which allows me to maintain a deeper understanding of people's cultural heritage. Through the quality of being a first generation I can effectively develop my knowledge of medicine to be a good candidate for. The major aspect of medicine is mostly the same across all cultures, to cure and solve the medical problems of patients. Combining these two concepts encourages me to desire to learn others perspectives of medicine and continuously maintain an open mind. This helps forge linkages and bridge gaps between individuals of different backgrounds in the healthcare system, allowing a sense of belonging and mutual understanding to be established. To add on, having that deeper cultural perspective also allows me to advocate for diverse spaces to value all the different customs, traditions, and beliefs, which is also helping me develop an aspect of modern medicine, cultural competence. My strong connection and recognition of my own culture enables me to accomplish these efforts because I can appreciate and respect differences across cultures, considering I'm more sensitive to diversity. I can carry these qualities into relationships to challenge any personal bias I might have in modern medicine and continue to approach others with diverse backgrounds with an open mind to acknowledge their viewpoint on life. Having these more work based skills like diligence, empathy, and a multidimensional thinking brings a unique and effective approach to my work, making me an ideal for the medical field. As a multidimensional thinker I view my environments in holistics sense to bring awareness and make deeper connections others might overlook. To accomplish this I analyze situations from multiple perspectives to explore innovative solutions, and visualize complex social and technical concepts. This skill is crucial in medical environments, where understanding intricate relationships and patterns often requires the ability to think beyond traditional linear models. Being a Latinx developed my empathy since it enabled me to grasp the nuances of cultural and individual experiences. In the realm of medicine this quality leads to more insightful and well-rounded outcomes, and helps me visualize and understand the social concepts previously mentioned. Having immigrant parents, I observed their perseverance through challenges, and the consistent dedication to work towards their aspirations. This diligent way of living is embedded in me, directly contributing to my academic success so far.