I am not one of those people who always knew that they wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be a million other things, including an astronaut (until the day in 5th grade when the Challenger exploded), a figure skater ('til I figured out that I kept falling every time I tried to skate), a nuclear physicist (I actually sat down and thought about it at the age of 10 and got overwhelmed), and a music therapist (kept that one going until college).

Looking back I guess it was obvious at a few points. My mom was an RN and I loved her medical textbooks. They fascinated me. I've always liked fixing things, and I was labeled a perfectionist in kindergarten. My father was a Presbyterian minister and my mother a talkative nurse who couldn't hide the pain and turmoil that ruled her life after a nasty postpartum depression that never went away. Their marriage dissolved when I was five and the next few years were a series of stepmothers that I'd like to forget, moves to different states and different schools and feeling, well, different all the time. I finally settled in with my grandparents, and near my mother, in a small southwest Virginia town which shall remain nameless but which lies in close proximity to Virginia Tech (go Hokies!).

I stayed there for most of my life. I was told that I was a smart kid, but never put my mind to anything. I was a good musician who might have been great had I put some effort into it. My high school teachers thought that I had "potential" but probably never counted on it taking me anywhere. I never truly knew what I wanted to be until college, when I discovered a love for science that I hadn't noticed before, and looked at the doctors that I had known all of my life and thought that maybe I could do what they did. I finally started trying and the efforts paid off.

In the middle of deciding what path the rest of my life should take, I met my future husband, made plans to marry him, and then lost my mother unexpectedly to a car accident. At that point, I knew, and I started making solid plans to pursue a dream of medical school. Life's too short, you know. I worked hard, and prayed for guidance, and hoped.

Allen and I married. I had trouble finding a job after college graduation, and then all at once found an ad for the local free clinic and for CNA training, and knew that despite my grandmother's protests about the workload that it was right. I spent 2 years working with people in the hospital and community and solidified that desire to spend the rest of my life taking care of others. All of the long hours, the humiliation of having people I had gone to high school with refuse to speak to me because of my job title, and the sweat and tears paid off.My letter of acceptance to my first-choice medical school arrived in November 1999, and I eagerly (and nervously) started in August 2000.

As I said before, life is too short, no matter who or how old you are, to pursue the dreams that you have. You don't have to be the straight-A valedictorian or the Ivy League graduate to guarantee your success in medical school. You have to be real, and you have to have a sincere love for the work that you do and the people that you do it for. You have to know your limits and accept the realities of the profession that you're pursuing. Even during the worst of times, I know that this is where I belong, and what I've worked towards all my life.

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