My personal statement

"So we begin with what we know: The brain is an organ of adaptation that builds its structures through interactions with others...We must begin our guidebook with the thought: There are no single brains." These words, found in Lou Cozolino's, The Neuroscience of Human Relationships, resonated with me while reading them my freshman year in college. At the age of 23, I had just resumed a career in academics, unproven and uncertain of but one thing, that I was sure I wanted to provide a better life for myself and for those around me. Having worked many a blue collar job, I had seen first hand the physical and emotional traumas endured by acquaintances who hadn't much choice but to endure, many of whom were not given or unable to develop the flexible neuropsychological ability necessary to strive beyond the unforgiving realm of manual labor. Many friends of mine had gotten into drugs, to distract themselves from what had become their lives, or in many cases because of a biologically inherited drive for an immediate reward, a drive that short-circuited their ability to map out and follow through on any of their long-term goals. At 23, I craved a healthier world, a more understanding and empathic world, and thus enrolled at UW-Rock with the intention of becoming a physician assistant.

It is the result of ongoing investigations into the human condition that have led me to the acceptance that many of our earliest interpersonal experiences establish a trajectory for the rest of our lives. To Cozolino's second point, there are indeed no isolated brains in nature, we and the choices we make are experience-dependent. I recently looked at the class photo of mine from the 2nd grade, and it provoked many thoughts. Many of the faces were generic to me, forgotten over time, but several stuck out to me, examples of the consequences of neuropsychiatric illness. There was Bo, my friend and soccer teammate who as an adult later suffered from a crack addiction that nearly cost him his life, endowed with such a predilection genetically. There was Kenny, a boy from my neighborhood who was a troublemaker, and for good reason: he and his older sister were repeatedly and continuously molested by his mother's boyfriend; he had lost his father in a motorcycle accident at an early age, and he would later be charged with sexual assault. There was Liz, a demure type, who I to this day have an intense empathy for; I was not aware consciously that she was regularly beaten by an alcoholic father, evidence of which is clearly visible today, suffering from an intense anxiety and distrust of herself. And finally, there was Andy, a child who I had thought was off even at the age of 8, as he didn't seem to experience pain like the rest of us; he had two alcoholic parents, one whom he would later shoot. I have my suspicions to this day that his mother perhaps drank while pregnant with him, as she was no stranger to the bottle even when driving. It stays with me to this day that these childhood friends are some that I remember most prominently, as they never stood a chance to develop a flexible, healthy, adaptive attunement with their primary caretakers as a result of neurobiological illnesses they suffered, evident today in their own various ailments.

It stands to reason that I too was influenced greatly by my own personal experiences at a young age. In 1989 my grandmother was facing a 50% chance of death, suffering from Stage IV breast cancer. I was too young to understand the implications of such, but keen enough to understand that something was awry; her hair was falling out, and she had lost a dramatic amount of weight. I recall vividly that I made a concerted effort to entertain my grandmother and console her as best I could on nights that she would have me over to sleep. I was fortunate enough to have this strong, compassionate figure in my life for 17 more years before relapsing and finally succumbing to the cancer in 2006, the year before I enrolled in school. Those 17 years were made possible in part by tamoxifen, approved in 1990 by the FDA for preventative treatment of relapse of advanced breast cancer.
Cozolino later argues in his book that, in essence, what doesn't kill us can indeed make us weaker, that we are as a society, in many ways, only as healthy as our unhealthiest link. Health is an all-encompassing term that I define as "beneficial to the gene vessel", thus something that is not necessarily corollary to evolution. We have the potential as a society to transmit intergenerationally our traumas and illnesses, but equally present is the capacity for us live healthy lives and be healthy models for the next generation. Having proven to myself that I have the intellectual tools necessary to achieve a 4.0 in Neurobiology at UW-Madison, I have set forth in my very personal statement to explain how I became interested in medicine. Many experiences that have led me to choose this path: my grandmother's breast cancer, my mother's life-threatening brain surgery in 2004, and all those closest to me, as a child & today, who suffer from various illnesses; if I am humbled with the opportunity, I will become a promoter of health for my community, something I was primed for and have worked hard to transform myself into. Thank you.

Exhausting

It's crazy to think what is required by medical schools today. Beyond general proficiency--dare I say mastery--in the sciences, one must show the ability to write a complete, error-free, and deep essay in a period of 30 minutes, as well as have the ability to analyze in-depth art criticism essays on the Verbal Reasoning part of the MCAT. Good times.

Beyond this, one should Shadow doctors for a semester (or longer); one should show a commitment to the community, which isn't quite as difficult or vexing a thing, but is heavily time consuming; one should have a background in undergraduate research, which is baffling to me, given that any sort of substantial research as an undergraduate seems at odds with your status of being in the process of developing the skills and knowledge base needed for such research in grad school; further, one should have letters of recommendation from Faculty members of attended schools. At the smaller UW schools this is of no real concern per se, but being at UW-Madison, even as a neurobiology major, my classes are about 150 people per class on average. How is one exactly expected to develop a rapport with faculty members at Madison?

All of this is incredibly draining which I suspect is the intent of it. It's not exactly supposed to be easy to get into med school, nor should those who act whimsically get in willy-nilly. Even still, I can't help but ponder if this is the right choice. I certainly don't have all of the above characteristics (even if I fulfill 3/4 of the above), and the entire process has left me so anxiety-ridden that I'm not so sure working with people is appropriate anymore.

One thing at a time though.