When I was younger, my picture was very narrow and out of focus. In 2012, my grandfather passed away from complications of a metastatic prostate cancer that he had battled for more than half a decade. I was 16 at the time, and I don’t think I was able to fully comprehend the intricacies of the medical treatments that were used to extend his life. Back then and for as long as I can remember, I have been interested in science and the natural world. I have spent many hours dedicated to activities like building collections of fossils and adding to bird watching lists. Importantly, I have always been a biologist at heart, so the science of human body was not something I was unfamiliar with or uninterested in. What was keeping me from understanding the bigger picture of my grandfather’s situation was the perspective and compassion that are realized when one commits to scientific inquiry and serves others through medical
When I was younger, my picture was very narrow and out of focus. In 2012, my grandfather passed away from complications of a metastatic prostate cancer that he had battled for more than half a decade. I was 16 at the time, and I don’t think I was able to fully comprehend the intricacies of the medical treatments that were used to extend his life. Back then and for as long as I can remember, I have been interested in science and the natural world. I have spent many hours dedicated to activities like building collections of fossils and adding to bird watching lists. Importantly, I have always been a biologist at heart, so the science of human body was not something I was unfamiliar with or uninterested in. What was keeping me from understanding the bigger picture of my grandfather’s situation was the perspective and compassion that are realized when one commits to scientific inquiry and serves others through medical