Personal Narrative Essay: My Future Career in Medicine

At the end of my freshman year of high school, my school greatly emphasized the importance of the next two years of school because colleges would mainly be looking at these years. They also mentioned having an idea of what field we wanted to enter so that we could pick classes that would align with our intended career path.  However, like many other high schoolers, I had absolutely no idea of what I wanted to do in the future. 

It was the summer before my sophomore year when my family decided to go on a trip to Italy.  In my head, I was ready to just have fun on the trip and forget about everything related to school. On the second to last day of my Italy trip, my family decided that we wanted to go to the island of Capri, so we booked a tour. At 5 in the morning, we got on a bus and went down to Naples. On the bus, I noticed an older lady sitting by herself, but I thought nothing of it at the time because a lot of people go on solo trips. After 3 hours, we finally got to the dock at Naples and went to buy tickets for the ferry. In the scorching heat, we had to wait on the dock for the ferry, which was so stuffy because it was packed tightly with people. We waited for what seemed like forever. I then heard a commotion towards the front of the dock, so I thought it was the ferry. Several people were screaming, “HELP!”. In an urgent tone, others were asking, “Is anyone here a doctor?”. After asking several people, I found out that the commotion was caused by the old lady fainting because of the extreme heat. I initially felt bad because I remembered that the only lady was by herself. Fortunately, one of the travelers near her was a nurse, so she could monitor her until others could come to help.  Shortly after, the ferry arrived and we had to go. I felt a bit guilty that we had to leave the lady herself, but I tried to justify leaving by reminding myself that she had help. 

However, the image of the colorful houses, luscious greenery, and clear blue water lining the bottom of the white cliffs soon took my mind off of the incident. When our ferry stopped, we transferred onto a catamaran, which took us to the blue grotto. After the blue grotto, we had lunch with the tour group. At the restaurant, the group met back up with the lady and many people started crowding around her asking, “Are you okay?”.  The lady said we were fine and our group decided to just explore the bustling island for the rest of the day. Soon the sun was setting and we had to head back to the ferry. Just as before the dock started getting super crowded and it became super stuffy just like how it was in the morning. My mom and I quickly looked around for the lady, who looked like she was starting to overheat again. Since we were worried about her fainting again, I shared my portable fan with her. The ferry soon arrived and everyone boarded. The cool air and rocking of the ferry were incredibly soothing after a long day, so everyone quickly fell asleep. However, halfway through the trip, I abruptly woke up to a loud crash. When I looked around, I saw that the lady had once again collapsed. However, this time it seemed more serious because the ferry crew was looking around for a medical professional and information about our tour guide. At this moment, I felt inadequate because I simply did not have the skill set to provide any sort of help. Even though I knew some information about our tour guide, I did not know any Italian, so I couldn’t have communicated with the crew anyway. Additionally, I did not know any first aid, so I could not help in that regard either. However, everything was sorted out and we were soon headed back to our hotel. On the bus, we learned that the lady was actually from New York and was visiting her son in Italy. She told us she was going on the trip alone because all her children were too busy. The bus dropped us off in the same plaza it picked us up from. The lady was picked up by her son and that was the last I ever saw of her. 

After I returned from this trip, I kept thinking back about how guilty I felt because I could not help the women. I reflected on this situation and learned that I wanted to become more useful. I decided to sign up for a first aid course and I eventually started working as a lifeguard in the summers. I also volunteered to work in the first aid booth at local events, such as the fourth of July fireworks. In addition, I also started to volunteer at a hospice. At the hospice, I would pack up medicine kits for the patients and organize patient paperwork. Because of these experiences, I decided that I wanted to major in something related to the medical field, so I could later go on to medical school. However, I learned from my AP Economics teacher that his wife was a chemical engineer that formulates medicine. After learning about this, I became interested in the field and started to do more research. When I was applying to college, I decided to put down chemical engineering, so that I could have a backup plan in case I did not want to become a doctor later on. After I graduate, I hope to go on to medical school or to start working as a chemical engineer in the pharmaceutical industry.