Osteopathic Personal Statement

Growing up as daughter of two immigrant refugees, I learned to conserve my resources because we were not always financially stable and had to minimize household spending with methods such as attempting home remedies before going to a doctor. Like my parents, my grandmother followed the same tradition as she believed western physicians made patients sicker and therefore did not trust them. When she was suddenly admitted to the hospital for fluid leakage of the liver, the damage to her internal organs were too severe to be treated. Although at first I assumed my grandmother was being cynical about American culture of healthcare, I later learned that my hometown consisted of a large Vietnamese population that were not receiving adequate healthcare services, including individuals like my grandmother. My grandmother’s experiences have compelled me to pursue medicine to offer medical services available to underserved populations.
I was further exposed to the inconveniences associated with receiving medical attention in Dr. Jason Van Tassel’s otolaryngology clinic in a suburban city called Fremont, California. His clinic heals and cures diseases from patients from underserved communities in populous cities but also many from distant towns like Manteca who must commute over two hours. Considering the congested traffic that occurs within Silicon Valley and the Bay Area, many patients invest more than half of their work day to seek a specialist (or any physician, for that matter) as their local clinics either do not have accessible physicians or they provide medical care with no integrity to cure symptoms and diseases. The patients I have encountered have expressed their frustrations with their treatment management because their local physicians often do not cure their diseases but expects their patients to frequently return for costly follow ups. My empathy reaches out to these populations, as I am influenced and inspired by the lack of adequate services in areas like Manteca to further address the needs of available physicians. I decided to form my own ideals about medicine when my father’s decided not to rely on synthetically made medications to manage his chronic diseases since they have potential side effects. Because he was raised and heavily influenced by the holistic approach to traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, he often sought alternative treatments to cure his chronic illnesses. At a certain point, he refused to take his blood pressure medications and attempted to cure himself with extreme dietary management. His beliefs compelled me to take additional physiology and toxicology classes outside of my degree to better educate his longstanding diseases and safe methods of treatment. With my new understanding of the human body, I enjoyed explaining and educating biological systems to him and others who are unable to learn from credible resources. I continued to practice my passion to help those within reaching distance, particularly those residing in my …show more content…
Rather than becoming a physician that only focuses on treating the presented symptoms while ignoring the patient, I want to focus on healing with consideration to the mental states of my patients. Osteopathic medicine focuses on the body’s self-healing process by improving fluid circulation and increasing musculoskeletal range of motion while considering the mind, body, and spirit. Combining my interest to provide compassionate medical care and the medical sciences, I believe an osteopathic medical education will address my passion to serve my community in a way that revolutionizes today’s health