Growing up all I wanted to be was the shortstop for the Atlanta Braves.
It
was Jeff Blauser who held that job title in the late 90’s as I was growing up,
and some of the most memorable moments from my childhood were spent watching
him patrol the left side of infield in Atlanta.
Still to this day I don’t know if anyone has ever coveted anything like
I coveted Jeff Blauser baseball cards in 1997.
I played shortstop for my Dixie Youth Coaches Pitch team in Lexington,
SC and for a boy growing up in South Carolina, playing for the Braves seemed
like a good idea.
Eventually,
though, reality settled in about the time puberty delivered its first blow to
my budding athletic career. My mother
affectionately referred to them as “love handles.” While transitioning to high school football now
became the natural choice; professionally, at 13, it was back to square one. That began a long process of deciding what I
was going to do with my life: Business executive, lawyer, teacher, rodeo clown
. . .
Fast
forward to fall 2007. As a freshman
biology major at the University of South Carolina, I began taking the first
steps of a long journey toward becoming a physician. I had found a passion for science, and my love
for people gave me a peace about pursuing medicine. Finally, my life was honed in on a clear,
singular, focused (and what I hoped at the time a realistic) goal. Goodbye nights of lying awake wondering which
of the infinite career paths from which to choose. Goodbye guidance counselor sessions about how
I could be a productive, sane member of society for the rest of my life. Hello, direction! Hello, clarity! Hello, to exactly what I want to do with my.
. .
“So
what kind of doctor do you want to be?”
.
. . life?
For
awhile I thought it was orthopaedic surgery, then it was family medicine,
radiology, cardiology, or emergency . . . maybe even OB-GYN. It seemed that every week I wanted to practice
a different field and it was exhausting.
Finally, I just settled in to this answer: “I have no idea; I will get a
better understanding during my third year of medical school. I still have
plenty of time to decide.”
Well,
third year is upon me, and quite frankly I can’t shake the feeling that time is
running out. In less than a year I will
start working on applications for residencies, and the thought of that is
nothing short of . . . well, I try not to think about it.
There
has been no shortage of advice though.
-
“If there is something you really want to do that’s great!
However, it’s probably because that something you have the most experience in.”
-
“Most people end up changing their minds from what they first want
to do.”
-
“First you have to decide if you like surgery or not, then you
have to decide if you like working with kids or adults.”
-
“You just have to find your tribe, you know, the physicians that
seem to have similar personalities to yours.”
-
“Every field has its pros and its cons. The pros are easy to love, the trick is
finding an area where you are able to tolerate the cons as well.”
-
“Asking someone to chose a specialty this early on is like asking
someone who’s never played golf if they want to be a pro golfer.”
Where
do I fit into the medical landscape? Right now I’m not sure. I still have a lot of advice to digest and a
lot of experiences to gain. While I’m
confident that I won’t ever be playing shortstop in Atlanta, I am certain that
I will be doing the things that I have always loved to do – I’ll be learning
and I’ll be helping people.
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