The first sounds from the fire house speaker startles me out of the post-lunch lull, but my spike of adrenaline is squashed when I hear the address, “Ambulance 2, 92 Oakhurst Lane.” Diabetic and wheelchair-bound, Sue was well-known to the firehouse as an ornery woman who had both indigestion and a good insurance plan. She would take any opportunity, it seemed, to call 911 for a trip to the hospital. Hoping that I wouldn’t miss anything truly exciting, I piled into the ambulance along with the rest.

In the beginning of my sophomore year, I joined the Kensington Volunteer Fire Department, grasping at the chance to fulfill a childhood fantasy. The bright red, shiny metal not only spoke to my engineering mind, but also gave me a sense of urgency that problem sets could not. Shortly into my first shift, I was called to a car accident on the beltway. As the Jaws of Life cut off the crumpled door, I held c-spine as the paramedic strapped the patient to the backboard, praying that no body part would move that shouldn’t. Reaching the hospital was a relief. The muscles in my fingers and forearms ached, but we had successfully stabilized the patient--an instant validation of all the hard work accomplished that night. I was hooked. Every Friday, I would take the two hour train ride to the small suburb of Maryland, sitting in anticipation of what was to come that night. This was medicine at its finest, I thought, coming in and saving the day amidst a storm of blaring sirens and flashing lights.

Sue completely flipped my understanding of this. Just like clockwork, almost every Saturday, we would hear the same dispatch, “ambulance to 92 Oakhurst Lane.” Every week, we lifted Sue onto the stretcher, and every week, I listened intently over the noise of traffic for her pulse. And, every week, I got to know Sue better. I learned about her son who had just joined the army and the depression after her divorce that caused her to lose control of her weight. I learned how it became a struggle to get out of bed and how her house became a metaphorical prison. Going to the hospital became an escape from the daily drudgery and downward spiral of her life. In the safe and protective hands of the physicians and nurses, she could not only understand why her body was changing the way it was, but begin to take back some measure of control. Medicine, I realized, was not just about the guts and glory and miracle of saving a life, but about the person who had that life. Sue went to the emergency room not just for a cure, but for the understanding of her body and her place in the world.

When I moved to San Francisco after graduation, I thought I wanted to be an engineer and develop life-saving technology that could impact thousands of lives. I was fortunate to work with amazing clinicians and researchers on the cutting edge of clinical care. As an engineer with a startup, I helped develop a new drug delivery device and as an engineer with Siemens, I worked closely with inventive and caring physicians around the world on new software and devices that could change the way healthcare is practiced.

But even 3000 miles away, my Saturdays with Sue gnawed at the back of my mind. The sense of shared community and mutual learning that I had experienced as an EMT led me to look for a similar opportunity. But instead of getting to know Sue fifteen minutes at a time in the back of a noisy ambulance, I wanted a chance to be involved on a deeper level. I applied for and was accepted to volunteer as a Long Term Care ombudsman, a government program established as part of the Older Americans Act. My job was to advocate for residents rights. Sometimes that would mean following up on abuse allegations or serving as the patient advocate on care planning meetings, but most of the time it meant just walking around the floor and getting to know the patients. I got to know dozens of Sues from all walks of life. F, a construction worker who suffered from ALS, wanted an electric wheelchair. W, a roofer who had undergone a life-altering fall wanted to change his DNR status. And G, a retired flautist, just wanted her CDs again. Interacting with social workers and conservators to provide solutions for them was a crash course on all the threads that needed to meet in order to provide the best care for a patient. Time and time again, I saw how a physician could provide hope in the midst of a patient’s darkest time--not hope for a miracle cure, as I had once naively assumed, but hope that comes with understanding his/her body, and regaining control of what seemed to be impending doom.

As an EMT, I observed how the right words at the right time from a doctor could be a turning point of a terrible day. As a research engineer, I saw how tirelessly they worked to push the boundary of knowledge to directly affect patient care. And, as an ombudsman, I saw how doctors could provide a comforting light at a time when all seemed lost. Each of these experiences has not only shaped my understanding of healthcare, but convinced me to pursue a career as a physician. Unlike an engineer, a physician combines not only continuous learning at the cutting edge of knowledge and technology, but also a will and expertise to effect the population at a deeply personal level.