extra credit

Henry David Thoreau said, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately... To put to rout all that was not life... and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” I did not go to the woods; instead, I went to the rainforest to find myself. Looking back at my career choices over the years, I feel that I too have honored Throeau’s idea of finding my purpose, my vocation, my motivation, my life. If I died tomorrow, I would have no regrets and no lost opportunities; I believe I would have, at every chance, seized the day and made a difference.

At 15, I discovered my purpose when I traveled to Peru with my Spanish teacher and several other students. My bubble of ignorance and inexperience with world problems popped the moment I stepped out of Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima, Peru that June. Preconceived notions that I understood the plight and poverty of third world countries disappeared when I got the chance to see and experience firsthand the lives of the people behind the statistics and facts. While staying in the Amazon Rainforest, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to volunteer at the school at the San Pedro village, where I spent the day working and playing with the kids. Though they owned little more than the clothes they wore, their overwhelming joy was infectious, and I felt a call to find some way to change their lives the way they had changed mine. They had opened my eyes and given me a purpose in life. In the rainforest, one of my classmates unfortunately fell ill, but it provided me with the opportunity to visit the only medical clinic for miles along the Amazon River. The one doctor there was understaffed, underfunded, and underpaid, but he truly loved what he did. I had always wanted to work in the medical field and I saw in him the career I had always dreamed of, one where I could help others and myself. That experience was the most humbling of my life and one that I carried with me forever. From then on, I knew that nothing would be easy, but I have always enjoyed confronting challenges head on.

At 18, I discovered my vocation. I had the chance to return to Peru through Duke’s ENGAGE Program which allowed me to work with underprivileged villages in remote areas across South America. I spent the summer after my freshman year living with natives, working, building, improving, teaching, and learning together. Through these people, I gained much more than construction experience. That’s the funny thing about service. You go and do something to help others, but you end up helping yourself as well. I discovered things like faith and family do not always fit their black and white definitions. Rather, they blur in the grey areas, as we combine ideas from our different experiences and backgrounds. Success is a relative term: somedays it would be finishing a building in a village; others, just surviving the endless swarm of bugs. I realized that the world grossly underestimates the people in these countries who openly welcomed a college student to come live with them for months. They were proud people, who refused to let me and my classmates come in and do all the work, insisting that they too be a part of everything we did in their villages. Ultimately, I learned the most about happiness from the children who appreciated so much the little that I was able to give them through my time and work. The memories of those kids gave me the necessary motivation to continue in my pre-medical studies and courses at Duke, to survive graduate school, and to complete my internship and residency, so that one day I would be able to come back and give them something more.

Now, at 33, I have found my true passion, my life. I spend most of my year as a surgeon in a hospital in Raleigh and travel to Latin America for four months of the year to train doctors in clinics in underprivileged, hard-to-reach areas. Again, through Duke’s ENGAGE program, I, along with several other prospective medical students, dedicated my time and hard work towards creating a summer service opportunity. Students on this trip worked directly in hospitals in third world countries, much like the one I visited in Peru all those years ago as a teenager on a high school trip. Since then, I’ve returned multiple times to continue my work with the people who have made me a part of their family. It’s amazing to see how much things have changed here with each successive visit, as natives now can receive the adequate medical care they deserve. Ironically though, some things never change. I am now positive that I will never adjust to the sweltering heat of the rainforest. In fact, it’s days like these that make me miss the freezing cold North Carolina nights spent camping in Krzyzewskiville for Duke basketball tickets. I spend my days working on construction or in the hospital, participating in outdoors activities or instructing in the clinics. Finally, I can educate the people who taught me so much about life, although to me it seems like an unfair exchange for them.  Although I enjoy my time spent in the United States, learning new procedures and saving the lives of others, it is here that I feel at home. In America, I can satisfy my need to learn, research, and experiment. Here, I can serve others while still doing what I love. Deep down, I know this is where I was meant to be.

Thoreau lived alone in the woods for years. How he managed that, I really cannot fathom. I know that I am who I am, and I am where I am today because of the people I met on my travels. Without their influence, I would have never made it this far in my career as a doctor, nor would I have the drive and motivation to succeed in all that I do. Years from now, maybe no one will remember who I am. But that is not what matters to me. What matters is that I fought passionately, and that I changed the lives of those around me. What matters is that I lived, and that I lived deliberately.