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Confessions of a Should-Be Doctor

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Kenyon chapter.

 

I never doubted that I’d be a doctor. I never doubted that I loved biology. Sophomore year I went at that frog dissection with vigor. Not in a sadistic, oh-hey-look-at-her-she’s-crazy kind of way, but with legitimate passion for science and anatomy. So I came to college with no doubts that I’d be biology major. That I was going to be pre-med. That I would go to medical school, do a residency, and be a practitioner. That I’d don those blue scrubs with pride, a genuine smile on my face as I handed a couple their new child. I saw ruptured aortas in my future instead of sharpened pencils and clerical work. I saw a swift and brilliant medical career with flasks of solutions and prescription pads and heroic emergency saves.

 

       

I doubt it now.

       

I can’t help but wonder if the reason that I’ve always wanted to pursue medicine is because I truly want it, or because it’s been pressed upon for so long. I have to ask myself: was I the one who initially imagined myself as a doctor? Or was it my dad (the doctor), my grandpa (the dentist), or my grandma (the doctor-enthusiast of the year)? “In graduate school” was never thrown casually around into conversations at my house. It was a stern dinner table with discussion points like “when you apply to medical school,” and “in residency you’ll…”

Do I want this?

Isn’t that everyone’s question? What can they do that they’ll love? What can they do as a career that will not make them want to melt into their office cubicle five days a week, nine hours a day. I want adventure; I want to run next to a gurney and plunge syringes into hearts and watch needles thread through veins on the way to a valve obstruction. But I’m not your average nineteen year old.

I’ve had a life plan since I was a child. I know that I want a fall wedding, that I want my husband to drive a Range Rover, that my kids will wear tiny pastel colored outfits to Sunday church.

Part of the reason I doubt everything now is because I know that what I choose today affects the future. It affects how I will budget my years as an adult. If I go to medical school, I’ll be at least twenty-six when I’m finished, and thirty when I’m done with residency. Will I be married? Will I have the kids I’ve always wanted?

       

So I guess I doubt my choices. With class behind me, I now have to actually be a person and figure out my major. Looking back ten months ago, I was so concretely set on what I wanted in life: Kenyon, medical school, marriage, a family.

 

 

Can I have it all?

       

It’ll be difficult, of course. A part of me wants to do it just to prove that I can. To call myself a doctor like my father is, like my grandpa was, like my great-grandpa and great-uncle were. Is it fair that I want to be something simply because it’s what I think I should be? Or is that just hindering what I can become?

       

For now, I’m still searching, past all the expectations and the doubt and the personal struggles. I am still searching for what makes me the best version of myself possible. I hope you do the same.

 

Photo Credits: CNN

Emma Miller, from Shaker Heights, Ohio,  is a senior Drama major at Kenyon College. She is a co-president of StageFemmes, a Kenyon student theatre organization dedicated to showcasing the talents of women in drama. Emma spends her summers as Assistant Director at a Jewish performing arts camp. Emma is thrilled to be in her second year as co-Campus Correspondent for Kenyon's HC chapter.  Emma was a founding staff member of her high school's online magazine, and her writings have also been published on the FBomb. She is passionate about girls' education, Jimmy Fallon, iced tea, Ireland, Cleveland, and SmartWool socks.