Writing this at the age of twenty, I can still remember the exact moment I made up my mind to pursue medicine fifteen years ago. I was diagnosed with type one diabetes at the age of five after a stomach bug triggered my immune system to attack my pancreas. At that age, I had no idea what I wanted to be. I assumed that maybe I would be a gardener or a firefighter, before I was airlifted from Abaco to Nassau. I was surrounded by doctors and nurses working around the clock to get me out of diabetic ketoacidosis, which I was lucky to be cleared of in about 13 hours. It was a record for the hospital at the time. However, I wasn’t cleared to go home right away. I spent nearly a month in the children’s ward, feeling more like a prisoner rather than a patient. My family only got to see me for a few hours, the halls were uncomfortably sterile and blindingly white, and my days were often a strict routine of hourly blood sugar checks. About my third miserable week into my stay, I was crying as one of the nurses had to separate me from my mother when visiting hours were over. I still hadn’t grasped why my parents couldn’t stay with me the entire time and I know it wasn’t easy for them either. The nurse, who felt sympathetic to my situation, decided to take me for a walk to a different ward; the NICU. She brought me to an incubator with two infants who had IVs attached to their little hands. She smiled kindly at me, pointed at the babies and softly said, “See these children here? They’re just like you.” I asked her what she meant, and she explained that these children were diagnosed with type one diabetes as well. At that moment, I felt like a whole new world had opened up for me. I remember the first thought that crossed my mind after I fully grasped what the nurse had said. I knew that when I wasn’t feeling well, I could always tell someone; however, babies couldn’t advocate for themselves. Their only means of communication was crying; they couldn’t speak up when something was wrong. I told the nurse right then and there that I wanted to be a “baby diabetes doctor”, because I couldn’t pronounce pediatric endocrinologist at the time. The medical students, doing their residencies at Princess Margaret at the time, begged the nurses to take me around the hospital with them. They showed me how to inject insulin into oranges, told me about the importance of pediatric medicine, and furthered my already deep fascination with pediatric endocrinology. It’s been fifteen years since then, and my conviction in pursuing pediatric endocrinology has only strengthened. As a diabetic myself, living in The Bahamas, where we don’t have as many resources for diabetes and other endocrinological conditions, I understand the consequences of a lack of resources. I am someone who understands how stressful it is for families who don’t have consistent pediatric endocrinologist visits. My parents would save up money for an annual visit in summer, but children change constantly. We needed an active relationship with a pediatric endocrinologist, not once-a-year visits. We still don’t have a present pediatric endocrinologist for our growing population of juvenile diabetics, or the necessary resources on all our islands that will ensure our community is better equipped in supporting one another. This scholarship would be another building block in giving back to this community which I love so much.

Born in Kochi, Kerala, I moved to The Bahamas with my parents when I was eighteen months old. Despite being raised far from India, my parents ensured our heritage was the cornerstone of our household. They taught my little brother and I to speak Malayalam, encouraged our hunger for knowledge and understanding, surrounded us with cultural traditions, and consistently instilled important South Indian values: resilience, integrity, and a deep respect for our education. My father, a marine engineer, emphasized taking pride in every task we did and representing our homeland through excellence. My mother, a housewife at the time, taught us the importance of humility and hard work. They both instilled values of hard work and resilience that they were raised on in India upon us. Regular visits to Kerala further anchored my identity and sense of belonging. I reconnected with much of my extended family, witnessing their daily sacrifices that gave me greater appreciation for my roots. These trips gave me a more developed perspective as each personal educational milestone became a collective tribute to my family’s journey; how far we’ve come from Kerala. The relentless drive and work ethic my family has displayed through generations became a direct motivator in both my academic discipline and hunger to succeed in my undergraduate education. However, my financial situation has placed a heavy burden on my family. Presently, my father spends morning until evening working in the grueling heat, and mother also works a physically demanding job, managing and cleaning short-term rental properties. Neither of their innumerable sacrifices go unnoticed to me. Despite being heavily involved in extracurriculars and graduating high school as valedictorian, I was ineligible for scholarships provided by The Bahamian government despite my entire education being done in The Bahamas. My parents have almost entirely self-funded my college education so far, supplemented only by the Mannkind scholarship, which provides me $10,000 over two years. While we can manage basic household necessities, covering the upcoming monthly tuition installments requires an unsustainable balancing act that leaves no room for emergencies. This scholarship would provide my family with vital financial relief, preventing my family from taking on more stress while allowing me to focus on completing my degree. My parents have always been the biggest support in my life and have never wavered in their encouragement for me pursuing my dreams. They would move mountains for me if the need arose. Receiving this support allows me to take some weight off their shoulders and honor the sacrifices that began in a small Kerala town generations ago.

I still recall the blearing white walls and the scent of the sterile hospital room I occupied when I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetics at the age of five. I still remember the dull pain in my veins from blood being drawn every few hours, the ice-cold sensation of saline that would shoot through my blood vessels whenever they had to flush my iv catheters. I didn’t know that, five years ago, in that big hospital on the island of New Providence was where I would find a call that resonated so deeply with me. Before then, I didn’t know what I wanted to be as a child. I thought that maybe I’d be a gardener, or something of that sort. But in that hospital when I first formed an idea of what I could truly see myself doing for the rest of my life. What sparked it was not that I myself had diabetes, it was the realization that I wasn’t the only child. One day, while I was in the hospital, one of the nurses took me to the NICU. She smiled kindly at me and ushered me over to the incubators and pointed. “Those babies are just like you,” she said, in a hope of helping me feel less alone. But I didn’t. I felt an ache in my chest realizing that when I felt unwell, I could clearly advocate for myself, but these babies could not. All they knew how to do at this age was cry no matter what they felt. Who advocated for them if they couldn’t do it for themselves? This moment was what led me here. My end game has always been to become a pediatric endocrinologist and serve the most underserved populations, which is the biggest reason I pursued my biology degree. As a diabetic, I have seen and experienced a plethora of challenges and setbacks. This could range anywhere from noncompliance to the stigmas surrounding diabetes. I think the most riveting thing I had learned as a young lady pursuing pediatric endocrinology was just how high the level of noncompliance was where I live. After a recent shadowing experience on my homeland, Abaco, I learned from one Dr. Strachn that noncompliance was the greatest killer of pediatric diabetic patients. She had stated something that stuck with me since meeting her, “Many patients don’t live past the age of 18 in The Bahamas because they’re noncompliant.” While I also struggled with noncompliance as a child, what helped me most was my support system. As a diabetic, when setbacks and challenges arise, stress can be amplified and it’s important to have a steady line of support from friends and family who will push you to excel and stay on your goals. I also feel the assurance I have built up in myself over the last fourteen years helps me stay grounded. If I could make one contribution to the diabetic community, it would be to complete my studies and become a pediatric endocrinologist. It would be to go back to The Bahamas and give pediatric diabetic patients what my family and I didn’t consistently have, support. To this day, there isn’t a single pediatric endocrinologist in The Bahamas, and I want to change that. I want to be a voice for children who went through the same struggles I have. I want to advocate for children and families who don’t have access to that support. And finally, I want to be representation for my community and allow them to see that illness does not define or limit what we can achieve.

I have been dedicated to becoming a doctor since the age of five, when I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I remember being taken by the kind nurses to many different wards, including the NICU, where I was introduced to infants who also had type 1 diabetes. I had met someone like myself. The biggest difference I realized when I saw the babies was that they could not advocate for themselves and vocalize when their blood sugar was too low or too high. They could not communicate their needs easily. From then on, I have strongly desired to be an advocate for these children. Right away, I understood how inaccessible specialised healthcare was as a child living in the Bahamas. I remember the financial toll it took on my parents to have to plan and book an appointment only once a year for me to see my pediatric endocrinologist in the United States. While I was fortunate to have the resources to see my specialist, it was not feasible for me. Not having a caregiver on the island that my parents could have a constant active feedback loop with left more of the burden on my parents to navigate my medical condition more blindly. This issue was compounded by the fact that in 2019, my life was drastically flipped upside down by a category 5 hurricane. Hurricane Dorian devastated my island and left a catastrophe in its wake. My home was gone, my family and I were couch-surfing for months, and my brother's and my education was interrupted for several months. On top of this, COVID-19 made returning to some sense of normalcy even harder for my family. We, and many others, were starting from ground zero to rebuild our lives. I recall the despair I felt as I doubted I would ever be able to achieve my dreams after the hurricane and pandemic had so derailed my life. The last five years of my life had been the hardest years I had ever faced, but I was too stubborn to quit on my dream of becoming a doctor and helping those who had uplifted me. I pushed myself and dedicated myself even more. Surviving a hurricane and a pandemic gave me a renewed drive and purpose to reach my goals. These difficulties are my greatest advantages because I know what it is like to not have accessible care in both a tame (financially) and extreme (natural disaster) environment. I want my patients to know that I will stop at nothing to give them the highest level of treatment that I can. I have only made it so far because of the opportunities provided to me through the generosity of my community. I, too, want to extend this generosity to those around me. Healthcare is a human right, not a privilege; every human being, old or young, is entitled to this right. I will be part of a movement that will give everyone access to medicine.