Stand Back and Look: A personal inventory.

Something that we probably don't do enough of is take inventory of our life experiences and stand back for a moment. Stand back, look at those experiences, and consider the question, "What is this all coming to? Where are these experiences taking me?" I'm in one of the scariest pursuits of my life. I just applied to Stanford's Physician Assistant program. If I get in, it is going to be a very tough couple of years where my family and I will have to make some huge sacrifices. On the other hand, if I don't get in, I'm not sure how I'll take it. This has been something I've been working very very hard for. I've been working toward this goal for a very long time, and not succeeding will inevitably lead to some serious self-evaluation. Even sharing this with you is difficult because this could give you a front row seat to me falling flat on my face. However, I feel indebted to my friends and family to share this experience because you are the ones who have made it possible to get this far. The following is my Statement of Purpose letter written to my PA school admissions staff.


This letter took weeks of work and a lifetime of experiences to write.



I first read the 20th century medical missionary, Dr. David Livingstone's appeal that “sympathy is no substitute for action,” when I was just a teenager. Even when I was young, these words were profound for me. Through years of heart-wrenching lessons from the urban emergency systems, travel to developing countries, and interpersonal relationships with the homeless, those same words seeded an unshakable sense that the life of every individual is of incalculable value and deserves to be invested in. Part of the answer to our national and global “need epidemic” is in building stronger, healthier communities, and that all begins with access to medicine. I am ready and motivated to help confront this epidemic, starting in my own community, California's impoverished Central Valley.

I lacked a meaningful understanding of the necessity of strong community until the Summer of 1996. I was 16 years old the first time I spent a few weeks working with runaway and homeless youth at an urban rescue mission with the organization Center for Student Missions (CSM) in inner city Los Angeles. Preparing dinners for terminal AIDS patients, sitting in dining halls listening to stories of abuse, drug addiction and sexual exploitation of kids my own age – at times uncomfortably squirming in my seat – I developed a sense of urgency that has never left me. After graduating high school, I traveled to Honduras to aid an embedded humanitarian missionary organization and witnessed first hand how unrelenting poverty affects a community. Awed by the level of despair in Honduras, and attracted to the prospect of positively impacting lives through service, I enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard a year later. Whether delivering medical care to a boat loaded with interdicted migrants, treating a sick person at a homeless shelter, serving breakfast to Modesto's homeless on Sunday mornings, or traveling thousands of miles to volunteer at a remote clinic in Haiti, my desire to transition into the role of a clinician has only grown stronger. Haiti opened my eyes to a whole new level of desperation while treating the neglected peoples of the rural high mountain villages in make-shift clinics. Hundreds of men, women and children would stand in line all day to be seen by our only doctor. At one point, Dr. Jack Sorg, detained at a missionary hospital hours away from our rural clinic, entrusted me with the weighty responsibility of conducting the examinations and treatment decisions in his absence, an experience that affirmed and emboldened my pursuit of the role of Physician Assistant.

These experiences also taught me to never underestimate the value of gaining insight through overcoming obstacles. For example, after completing my active duty commitment to the Coast Guard, I moved back to the Central Valley with my wife and brand new son in tow. Job prospects were few. Employers were reluctant to hire a reservist due to the risk that I could still be activated in time of war or natural disaster. I could find nothing more than minimum wage jobs before eventually landing a position as an ED technician at a small community hospital making less than ten dollars per hour. On this meager wage, I scraped together my few resources and set out to earn a paramedic license at a school two hours from my home. I spent hour upon hour away from my family traveling, doggedly working to keep my small family fed and housed, and studying in all-night diners and cafes. We had no health insurance, one broken down pick-up we couldn't afford to fix, and an old, high-mileage Chevy Cavalier, yet we still succeeded in moving toward our final goal. We learned the hard way how to budget and make ends meet while pursuing a better life and a meaningful career.

The plights of those who find themselves on the fringes of society or in the vacuous abyss of the financially insecure working class resonate deeply within us because we have lived through these experiences ourselves. Building community through service and even sacrifice must be a priority of primary care providers. Particularly in impoverished areas such as the Central Valley, affordable (and even free) healthcare is not just possible, I now understand, it is essential in strengthening a community. This is the realization of a journey begun when I was just 16 years old. Through this amalgam of life experiences and hard work, I stand well prepared for this important next step in helping to serve my community.