I have pediatrics to thank for my existence. My parents met in the University of Chicago pediatrics ward. My mom was doing a clerkship and my dad was in his residency. So, the first job I ever knew existed was pediatrician, because my dad is one, so it has always been on my radar. Before I ever knew what shadowing was I got to shadow my dad on days school was off, and watch him help young kids my age by putting casts on, doing routine checkups and just listening to them. I was always so proud to have him as a dad, seeing him make other kids as feel as safe and comfortable as he made me feel. For a long time I have known I love working with children, babysitting was always my favorite teenage job, and Child Development was the very first elective class I took in high school, even though I was warned it had lowered many a GPA. It was my first ever college-level class and I fell in love with it. Learning about how early childhood experiences shape us, but also how plastic and resilient children are amazes me, so my first quarter freshman year I took another class on child development, and after that began working in the Project on Children’s Thinking lab at my university. I got to work with 3-5 year olds twice a week, guiding them through the various studies we did, and watching how their minds worked. I was further convinced that pediatrics could be right for me when I had the opportunity to shadow a pediatrician, during sick visits and routine checkups of kids from 3 days to 18 years old. No appointment ever seemed repetitive because each age comes with different experiences and concerns, as does each child. It was so clear to me that the physician I shadowed had good relationships with all his patients and their parents, and took so much joy in being there for them as they grew up. Having good health in early childhood is so important, and I would be proud to provide healthcare for children. This field interests me because I could go on to become a primary care physician or a specialist, both of which appeal to me—primary care for its breadth of treatment and long-term relationships with children and their families and its importance on the frontline of healthcare, and specialties for a depth of knowledge and expertise, and the continued learning and innovation that comes with being involved in both clinical and academic medicine.

When I was 12, I was not a big fan of doctors. It wasn’t the fluorescent lights, or the smell of disinfectant, or the fear that I might find out I was horribly ill. I was already horribly ill, and I disliked doctors because they had decided it was their life’s mission to try to save me. In 6th grade, as my body changed in ways that made me uncomfortable, I channeled my competitive side that usually drives me to academic excellence toward far less healthy goals; instead of focusing on my love of learning and achievement, or challenging myself intellectually, I began to challenge my body. In a period of six months, I had lost so much weight that despite my best efforts to hide it, my parents sought treatment for my anorexia. I was taken to doctors who drew my blood, weighed and measured me, did EKGs, and confirmed my parents’ fears. To aid in my recovery, my parents took me to a new pediatrician, “Dr. B”. She was a caring person, but because she was no-nonsense and said I would need inpatient care if my parents did not set strict goals for me, she was my enemy. Yet it worked. The fear of missing out on school while in inpatient treatment, or potentially permanently damaging my brain, helped me discover for myself reasons to nourish my body fully. If I valued my intellectual side, why was I actively causing my own brain to atrophy? If I loved school and learning, why was I starving myself so much that I couldn’t focus in class? Thus Dr. B gave me the tools to jumpstart not only weight restoration, but self-restoration. I wanted to live up to my ideals, achieve my dreams, and thrive. My love of learning made recovery easier. Every time I ate a “fear food” I was able to enjoy it by reminding myself that this food was going directly to power everything I wanted to do. The recovery process is what got me interested in physiology. I learned that I could eat cake, because my brain requires sugars to survive. A simple understanding of physiology helped empower me to recover before high school, and the drive to learn how the body—my body—works has been empowering me to pursue my goal to become a physician ever since. I enjoy working towards this goal, as it enables me to keep discovering all the ways the human body is so beautifully and naturally designed to survive and thrive. This process of restoring myself back to health gave me a deeper awareness of how great it feels to restore both body and mind, and fostered a desire in me to help others who need it, prompting me to volunteer at a hospital, a homeless shelter, and as a crisis counselor with a hotline. These opportunities allow me to continue to participate in restoration. At the hospital, I play a part in promoting the restoration of normalcy and human connection in a pandemic by serving as a greeter and mask ambassador. As a crisis counselor, I have the privilege of helping clients regain a sense of calm in truly vulnerable moments. At the clinic serving unhoused people, I help restore dignity by assisting Alaina the RN in providing food, birth control, and more as she and I seek to meet residents’ health care needs with kindness and professionalism. Alaina goes above and beyond for patients by picking up their medications and driving them to appointments if they cannot get there, a model that I aspire to, helping people feel supported and cared for, especially in their most vulnerable moments. The power of restoration, in these and many other forms, is something I truly believe in, and the ability of physicians to restore health, hope, and even joy is truly special. However, I know that medicine has its limits, that it is not always able to restore or recover health. This year I had the honor of working with a resident of the shelter, “H,” a 76-year-old Polish immigrant who is being treated for breast cancer, cardiovascular problems, and age-related macular degeneration. Due to her worsening vision, I spend one day a week helping H organize her appointments and teaching her how to use the seeing- impaired accessibility features to navigate her phone. H is not recovering, her eyesight is progressively worsening, and on some days she feels hopeless, which can make it hard for me to stay positive. But by the end of our visits, she often feels better. That, sometimes, is the best that a medical practitioner can be: a caring, human presence. To me, to be a doctor would be to engage with people at a level most professions never get to, to be in a position where people are comfortable sharing their most difficult experiences with you, and trusting that you will not only listen respectfully and non-judgmentally, but that if there is a way to help, you will strive to find it. Growing up with two physician parents I know how trusted physicians are; at nearly every gathering, hike, or vacation, people would say “if anything goes wrong we have two doctors here!” I would treasure this ability to help people feel safe. As a former patient, I remember how it feels to be afraid, and I realize now that as a physician I will have the ability to alleviate those fears for others. Though I once disliked doctors, I would now like nothing more than to be one myself, to help others just like myself move from danger to safety, mistrust to trust, sickness to restoration.

This fall, when I dropped off some donations at Connections for the Homeless, I noticed some staff unloading a delivery from a food bank. Excited at the possibility of being involved in something after not being able to for months, I asked if I could help. While helping, I learned that the shelter had recently hired a nurse for their clinic. Interested, I asked if she needed volunteers. This is how I began assisting Alaina, with anything from office tasks to illness prevention. Doing COVID testing and assisting to enlist and schedule people for vaccinations helped me regain the sense of agency I lacked during quarantine when I felt there was nothing I could do. I volunteered in many capacities at the clinic, and one of favorite parts about my position was getting to meet and engage with patients. I discovered that most patients just want to talk to someone, and be listened to. If they were willing, Alaina had me do patient intakes to find out what they wanted to see her about and most shared with me what was going on in their lives. This allowed actual clinic visits to be quicker, facilitating Alaina seeing more patients, while still providing patients the opportunity to tell their story and be heard by another person. Working in this capacity made me realize that I have the ability to make folks feel comfortable and that I love getting to know people by taking a personal history. From these talks, I was able to synthesize the variety of communication given to me into a clear narrative for Alaina. Then I observed her visits and learned about how she treated the issues that came up in those conversations. Through this experience, I learned a lot from patients about the systemic barriers to healthcare that the unhoused face. Gaining this knowledge and discovering how much I enjoy patient interaction increased my conviction that I wanted to pursue a career in medicine, so I could continue to fight against systemic barriers to healthcare and further my mission to make healthcare accessible to everyone. My most rewarding experience was assisting and developing a close relationship with “H,” an elderly homeless woman living at the shelter I volunteer. Over the year that I have been getting to know her, H has opened up to me a lot about her life, both in Poland and after she moved to the United States. She has not been homeless very long, but as an undocumented immigrant when she began losing her eyesight a little over a year ago and could no longer work, she had no social security to support her. Recently she lost her nephew, her only living relative, and her cat of 16 years. I have little experience with the losses she is going through, but being there for her as much as I can in this time feels like one of the most important things I have ever done for another person. She is the only person in my life to give me a nickname, “Majeczka,” the Polish diminutive of Maya. I know as a physician I will not have as much time to dedicate to every one of my patients as I do to H, but I hope to show all of them how much I care about them, as I can for her. My experiences with H have helped me see that being a physician, and being able to be of service to others is truly my calling, as I feel the best and the most human when I am helping others feel better.