Air Force Leadership

I was third into the bunker. Seven more dove in seconds after me. It was a searing 126 degrees outside; inside our five-foot sauna of sandbags and concrete it was even warmer, and warmer still inside our MOPP Alpha chemical gear. Ten people packed into a sweltering bunker near the Iraqi border seconds after a chemical weapons attack, looking for direction on what to do next, and who was in charge? That would be me.

My path to medical school has led me through interesting terrain. Rather than spending the three years since I graduated with a degree in biomedical engineering pursuing frontier genetic research, I have served as an Air Force junior officer. The experience has had a profound effect on my outlook, shaped a unique model of medical care, and affirmed my desire to become a physician.

Biomedical engineering enabled me to fuse my natural proclivities for math, physics, and problem solving with an interest in human physiology. The merger of computer modeling, analysis, and physiology to solve real human problems proved to be an exhilarating cocktail. I worked on building a system that uses computer technology to regulate anesthetic infusion by continually collecting and assessing real-time feedback from the patient through an array of electrode and respiratory sensors. Working on a lab project that could resolve a significant problem in medicine -- controlling anesthesia levels more effectively -- was tremendously exciting.

To enrich my understanding of what it would be like to be a physician, I volunteered with the orthopedic surgery department at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, a high-volume clinic constantly buzzing with activity. From front office staff to the nurses, physician assistants, residents, and attending surgeons, everyone did their job with precision, cooperation, and compassion. My job was to computerize patient information, usually buried in dusty folders in the medical records library, so that it could be efficiently retrieved and researched for journal papers and other purposes. I built two database systems to track over 600 patients in the myelomeningocele and muscle disease clinics and a master database to track surgical operations. All three systems remain in use today.

The following summer, after sophomore year, I returned to fine-tune these systems. I also wrote the patient summaries for a journal article on the orthopaedic implications of cervical myelomeningocele. At summer’s end, I accompanied six orthopedic surgeons on a mission with Healing the Children to Pereira, Colombia. I translated medical histories, reassured worried families, and recorded the demographics, diagnoses, and procedures of the 73 operations.

I returned to RPI from Colombia with a much broader perspective on human needs. But something had changed. My desire to serve humanity remained the same, but subtly, I felt the nature and path of this service shifting toward computers and development. To explore this new facet of my interest, the next summer I worked as a web developer at a large insurance company and built its first corporate intranet site. My ambivalence about whether I would make a better contribution through medicine or computing led to uninspired MCAT scores and limp admissions essays. Halfway through senior year, I suspended my medical school applications, declined my Health Professions scholarship and officially recategorized myself from a medical to a communications officer.

My life moved quickly after graduation. My four-year Air Force obligation as a communications officer took me to Mississippi, Louisiana, Kuwait, and finally Massachusetts. I led personnel to design, install, and maintain network systems, but though I enjoyed it, I began to sense an internal disappointment about a year after graduation. Clearly, something was missing. After reflection and discussions with my fiancée and confidants, I pinpointed it: a lack of humanity. Although I worked with and led people every day, the sum of our efforts was just a properly functioning -- but otherwise lifeless -- data network that did not really “help” anyone do anything besides read email or view websites. I genuinely began to miss helping people.

Three years ago, I veered off my trajectory toward medicine to explore an interest in computer technology. Although I mastered many dimensions of information technology and sharpened my team skills by leading IT technicians, I also discovered something deeper about myself and my motivational structure: I cannot thrive without the personal fulfillment I once found in medical work. It was this realization, reinforced by my father-in-law’s kidney transplant, that spurred me to return to my initial calling.

Still, I see my experience in IT and bioinformatics more as a complement to my medical future than a detour, because both as caregivers and as hospital administrators, physicians’ lives will only become more entwined with computer and information technology. The leadership qualities, teamwork skills, and technological knowledge I gained in the Air Force build directly on my academic, research, and volunteer experiences during college and will only make me a well rounded physician. I am now ready and prepared to embark on that journey.

點評：

文章是從一個故事展開，情節吸引。文章敘述筆者的經歷相當豐富。從整形外科診所建數據庫－康復中心去執行醫療任務－保險公司擔任網絡發展技術員－空軍通訊員。文章里出現了幾處轉折，說明作者在工作的過程中嘗試通過興趣來摸索自己的研究方向。通過在擔任空軍通訊員的期間發現其工作缺少人性化，從而明確了自己要走醫學這條道路。

文章的不足：

1）故事的關聯性。文章開頭是對筆者在空軍工作的一個情景的描寫。雖然故事很有感染力，但看不出與筆者希望申請的方向的聯系很大。筆者試圖想表達一下自己的領導才能，但這方面的描述并不多，給人的印象不深刻。

2）人物形象不明確。筆者希望表現自己的領導才能，優秀的學術技能和豐富的工作經驗，但因為要表現的內容太多，結果就沒有了側重點。

3）內容的針對性不強。既然是希望能從事醫學研究，就應該把筆墨花在醫學這個領域，而空軍通訊員這類與專業不太有聯系的工作可以簡單描述，不必長篇大論。

譯文：

空軍指揮官

我是第三個進入掩體。我之后的另外7個人也很快就跳了進去。外面灼熱難忍，氣溫高達126華氏度。我們在可以容納5個人的沙包掩體內像洗桑拿浴一樣，我們擠在一起就更加的熱的，特別是戴著防MOPP阿爾法化學毒氣的面具。在遭到化學武器襲擊后我們十個人馬上就擠在伊拉克邊緣地區的一個蒸籠般的掩體里。下一步應該怎樣做呢？誰會成為領導人呢？——我成了第一人選。

在我通往醫學院的道路上充滿了驚喜。在我獲得研究基因方向的生物醫學工程學位后，我沒有耗費三年的光陰，而是成為了一名初級的空軍軍官。這些經驗對我的觀點產生了深刻影響，使我形成了獨特的醫療思維模式，并堅定了我要成為一名醫師的決心。

生物醫學工程的學習使我能夠將自己天賦的數學，物理和解決問題的才能與人類生理學融合在一起。把計算機建模，分析方法與生物學結合來解決現實上的人類的問題就猶如一杯雞尾酒能令人身心舒暢。其中我建立了這樣一個使用計算機技術去控制麻醉針注射的系統，它是通過一串電極和呼吸感應來持續地收集和評估來自病人的實時反饋信息。我通過在實驗室工作可以應用醫學解決大量的問題——更有效地控制麻醉濃度——這是非常振奮人心的。

為了加深對作為一名醫師的理解，我自愿加入Connecticut州兒童醫療中心的整形外科部門，一個經常都是擠滿患者的門診所。從前臺的工作人員到護士，助理醫師，住院醫生到主治外科醫生，每個人都細致工作，彼此親密無間，對病患充滿愛心。我的任務是用計算機處理病人的信息，我通常會在醫學記錄實驗室滿是灰塵的文件夾里埋頭閱讀（這是獲得期刊論文資源和達到其它目的有效方法）。我建立了兩個數據庫，跟蹤在患脊膜脊髓膨出和肌肉疾病診所里600名以上的患者，另外我還建立了一個主要的數據庫跟蹤外科手術的進展。這三個系統一直沿用到現在。

接下來的夏天，在大二結束后，我回到門診所對這三個系統進行微調。我也為一篇關于子宮頸的脊膜脊髓膨出癥的整形外科文章纂寫了病患摘要。夏天結束后，我和六個外科醫生到哥倫比亞佩雷拉兒童康復中心去執行醫療任務。我翻譯醫學史，安慰憂心家庭，記錄人口統計資料，診斷和進行了73個手術。

從哥倫比亞回到RPI，我對人類需求有了更廣闊的看法。我依然一如既往地希望能為人民服務，但我對這些服務的性質和途徑的看法發生了一些改變。我隱隱感覺到它們正轉變成計算機并有繼續發展的趨勢。為了挖掘我另一方面興趣，在第二個夏天，我成為了一間大型保險公司的網絡發展技術員，并且建立了這家公司的第一個企業內特網。這時我陷進了進退兩難的局面，究竟是在醫學還是計算機方面多做貢獻呢？內心掙扎致使我考了個很不起眼的MCAT分數和寫了些差勁文書。大三期中時，我暫停了對醫學院的申請，謝絕了提供給我的Health Professions獎學金，并正式把自己由一名醫生轉變為一個通信官。

畢業后我的生活節奏飛快。在4年的空軍通訊員生涯里，我游歷過Mississippi, Louisiana, Kuwait, 還有Massachusetts。雖然我享受著領導下屬對網絡系統進行設計，安裝和維護工作的樂趣。但我在畢業后的第一年就開始感到了一絲的失落。很顯然，我是覺得有一點的欠缺。通過與未婚妻和知己推心置腹地交談討論后，我得出一個結論：這份工作缺少人性化。即使我和隊員每天都在一起工作，并且我還是團隊的領導人，但我們主要都只是進行著機械化的工作——無生氣可言——除了閱讀電子郵件或瀏覽網站，數據網絡并沒有真正地“幫助”人們去干任何事情。我開始懷念過去幫助大眾的情景。

3年前，我轉向了學習醫學，并對醫學方面的計算機技術產生了興趣。盡管我熟悉多元化的信息技術和領導IT技術員提高了我們的整個團隊的技能水平。但同時我也更深一層地認識了我自己和我的動力：假如沒有我曾經在醫學工作中的個人成就我是不能取得成功的。另外，在我岳父腎移植手術中，促使我回到初衷。

盡管如此，我認為我在IT和生物信息上得到的經驗更大程度上應該是對于我的醫學生涯的補充更甚于捷徑。因為同時身兼看護人和醫院管理者，醫師會趨向于應用計算機和信息技術。我任職空軍時所獲得的領導能力，團隊技能和技術知識對我在大學期間的學術，研究和自愿者經驗產生了直接的影響。同時也會將我塑造成一個全面發展的醫師。我已經做好繼續起航的準備。