Adriana Mercedes
BIOL294
Writing Assignment #5
Professor: Rinehart-Kim
Personal statement
Throughout my entire life, I have been surrounded by medicine. My mother is a general
surgeon, my brother is a radiologist and his wife is a pediatric surgeon, so I guess my career
path has been influenced by my upbringing. I grew up in a different country where medicine is
very underdeveloped so I was never truly interested in it; until my family moved to the US.
My mother and brother have sickle cell, and I have hypothyroidism and sickle cell
anemia so we were always in and out of clinics and hospitals; due to me living in a developing
nation the technology and facilities were never new and were not as advanced compared to
what we use here in the states so it never piqued my interest. Once we moved to the states, my
parents immediately took me to an endocrinologist and I remember walking into the clinic
thinking I had walked into a hotel.
Everything was new and technologically advanced. The scales, microscopes,
centrifuges and the entire hematology lab was something out of a movie to me; I was so
intrigued by it all. I started asking my mother to take me to her job with her so that I could see
what was going on and for 3 years I went with her and fell in love with medicine and medical
technology.
Sophomore year of high school I signed up for an introduction to Biology lab; my first class in
a lab and my first time ever studying and doing work in a lab and from that point on, I knew I
wanted to work in one. Throughout my high school career, I did a lot of lab shadowing and
shadowing of doctors which helped me figure out what I wanted to study and work towards.
Freshman year of college I decided to major in biology and work in a research lab to give me
more experience and help me narrow my options on what type of lab science I wanted to study.
Working in the research lab introduced me to cytology, histology, biomedical
engineering, hematology, microbiology, and pathology-I had a lot to choose from. I started by
shadowing every doctor that would allow it and taking courses that were related to each field
to help me learn more about each science and help me figure out what was the best fit for me.
After an entire year of thinking, asking questions, and sharing opinions with many people; I
decided that medical laboratory sciences and pathology were the two that I truly enjoyed
studying and working in. I switched majors to biomedical science and began taking more lab-heavy courses. Some of these courses were very difficult for me and required me to spend a lot
of time in libraries studying and getting tutoring but I made many new friends throughout it all.
When I decided that pathology and medical laboratory sciences were the best for me I
began speaking to pathologists and other lab scientists so that I was able to really see what their
work was like and to begin forming connections with doctors and coworkers to help me
whenever I needed it. During my sophomore year of college, I decided that I would go to a
masters program for medical laboratory sciences and then apply to a pathology assistant
program when I felt I was ready; now that I am a senior applying for graduation I have
completed a majority of my harder lab courses like cytology and histology and I am excited to
complete my last few classes so that I can begin to apply for master’s programs.
I am very excited to see what my future in laboratory sciences and pathology has for me
but for now, I am working hard to finish university with a strong background in medical
sciences so that I am the best candidate for any program I apply to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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