The woman sitting on the examination table half-heartedly feigns a cough. I find the eyes of the physician I am shadowing, who is standing behind the patient with a stethoscope to her back. After a brief moment, the physician steps back, returns the stethoscope to her neck, and winks at me. With a smile on her face, she tells the patient that her cough had not changed since she saw her two days ago; no, she did not have the flu, but maybe some cough drops would help.

Deftly, the physician changed the subject: How was she dealing with her husband’s recent passing? Was she spending time with friends? I was surprised at the physician’s questions. What did this have to do with this patient’s fake cough? There were four other patients left to see before the day’s end, but the physician was taking the time to speak about this woman’s social life.

When I reflect back to my first shadowing experience three years ago, I can clearly see the physician’s discernment. A patient who seemed to be a hypochondriac was a woman who was depressed and lonely, and whose highlight of the month was a doctor’s appointment. As much as I tried, I did not fully comprehend the expansiveness of the physician’s role. Since then, my encounters with medicine through my volunteering, academic, and research experiences have revealed a glimpse of the multifaceted life of a physician and have confirmed my desire to become one.

Volunteering in an emergency room opened my eyes to the vast scope of the health care system. Although there are obvious, gaping disparities in the access and quality of health care in America, the emergency room is, in a sense, the great equalizer. A wealthy business owner lies in a room next to the room of a homeless woman. A mother and father watch their daughter sleep in a hospital bed. Though they come from different walks of life, the patients eat the same food and receive the same level of care in the ER. Just as those ER physicians strive to deliver the best care to all of their patients, I hope to do the same as a physician.

The time I have spent in the research lab has made me realize just how little is known. My principal investigator, who has spent the majority of his career researching Alzheimer’s disease, was unable to answer some of my questions about proteins in the brain. The information I requested was simply not known. Each year, field-changing discoveries are made, and this highlights both the opportunity for contribution and the fallibility of medicine. There is not a solution for everything, and subsequently one must come to terms with uncertainty and mortality. Though this can be disheartening, I am encouraged by the advances in medicine and hope to contribute to the field by conducting research of my own.

My studies in the classroom have also given me a better understanding of the complexities of medicine. From studying mechanisms in Organic Chemistry to disease states in Pathophysiology, I gained a deep appreciation for the human body and its capacity to adapt and thrive. My Great Texts classes taught me how to view the world, and medicine, in the context of theological and philosophical works. Nicomachean Ethics showed me that it is not enough for doctors to do good deeds, but they must also do them in the right way, with prudence and tact. Through my thesis research, I am learning the nuanced impacts that art, personal beliefs, and the desire to dispense scientific knowledge have on our perception of the body and how it should be treated after death. Medicine is a complicated, multidisciplinary field, yet I revel the idea of navigating through it.

Until my senior year of high school, I wanted to be a journalist. The thought of investigative writing enthralled me, and I loved the idea of piecing information together to discover the bigger picture. I did not realize it then, but a career as a physician embodied everything I valued about journalism and more. A physician is not simply a health care provider: a physician is a therapist, a social worker, a nutritionist, a scientist, and a care coordinator, assuming all of these roles during a fifteen-minute consultation. The patient-physician relationship is unlike any other: it is both professional and profoundly personal. As I learn more about the medical field, I find myself being drawn ever closer to the career of a physician. This profession unites my passion for serving others with my desire to learn, think innovatively, and synthesize information from different fields so that the gap separating the known and unknown is narrowed, if only for a single patient. When asked why I want to be a physician, I always think back to that first shadowing experience. As a physician, I want to be able to recognize when and why patients are hurting. I want to know how to approach difficult situations. I want to give patients the resources to make decisions about their health. Above all, though, I want to have the skills to honor the role of a physician.