In a rural village in the mountains of Panama, I found my calling. At that time, I was part of a group of 20 teenage high school seniors doing a month of community work as part of our school community service requirements. I was returning from evacuating a teenager who was involved in an accident while repairing his house. I, a teenager and the paramedic for our group, was the only source of “medical” knowledge for 40 miles around. Specialized care in this area was a luxury that none of the villagers could afford, but yet there was a great need for care for these almost forgotten people.
It was sitting in the back of an old four-wheel drive pickup on the dusty and rough road back to camp; I decided that I would try to make a difference in people’s lives. Maybe not exactly in that village, but I would strive to help those around me, especially those in greater need and this has been my motto throughout my life. I had recognized a need for physicians and specialists who could provide on the spot attention to problems beyond the scope of the general practitioner.
Subsequent volunteer experiences with medical projects have only strengthened my desire to be a surgical specialist. I have watched diseases devastate individuals, families, and communities because care has been inaccessible. I have seen the progression of blindness, the loss of limbs and the deterioration of mental illness due to lack of specialty care. In particular, I have been struck by the way that certain medical conditions that can be cured by surgical management go unchecked in developing countries. I have seen the human spirit broken one too many times. I aspire as a specialist to provide state-of-the-art care to patients financially prohibited from this basic care. I also plan to offer continuity of care to patients that need it.
Changing the world by myself is an unreachable goal, but I can change the world around me. I can change the world that I touch, through my touch. I am sincerely committed to general surgery as a means of preserving the gift of health in the people that most need this gift. General surgery provides the opportunity to treat, with old and proven as well as new evolving technologies, surgical pathologies. One of my fascinations with surgery is the ability to see in a short period of time the success (or failure) of surgical management of disease and the profound impact surgery has on people’s lives. My interest in general surgery also stems from the new advancements in the fields of minimally invasive surgery and critical care.
I have been prepared for the challenge of a general surgery residency through my rigorous academic curriculum. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree at Baylor University in the United States with high grades, I attended medical school in Panama because of the extreme difficulty of a foreign undergraduate to be admitted to an American medical school as well as the financial burden it would have placed on my family and me. I entered a medical school with very high academic standards, where more than 2000 applicants competed for 140 entering positions and graduated in a class of only 54. During my medical school career I was part of the editorial committee of the medical and scientific journal, helped in the organization of an international medical student conference, and worked as a research assistant at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s Molecular Evolutions Laboratory project on freshwater fish genetics.
Working after internship as the private physician on a luxury yacht for an Italian billionaire in Panama offered me the opportunity to assist guests and international personalities to whom good medical care is a natural part of life, but also allowed me to provide free care to impoverished rural communities and deepen my sense of commitment to improving their lives through my care.
I am familiar and comfortable with the hard work, academic challenge and dedication required in a surgical residency, and I cannot wait to begin. These two years of general surgery residency have provided me with a strong clinical and technical background to the challenges to come. To my residency program, I will bring deep commitment to learn and expand my surgical basic science and technical knowledge and share this in an academic environment. I look forward to this next stage in my training with great anticipation.