When I was a little girl I used to play "doctor" with my mom curing Barbies and fixing bears writing prescriptions with Paracetamol and Coricilin because they always had the flu. I used to suture everything with my dad and I used to be a patient for him all the time, all my clothes had nylon and cromic catgut all over the place. Those were great times, but deep inside I never really knew I could be like them. They talked in a different language, they smiled and cried, they we are worried and always wanted to go back to the hospital. I was really jealous about it, because they were b-days or graduation days, father and mother's days.. alone. But even though I was a little girl I understood that there was something greater than me, greater than those specials days... Later on I will find out. Growing up I wasn't able to decide wherther or not I wanted to be a doctor or that was the only thing I was to used to. I kept on hating and kept saying that I will never be like them, I will never put my family in second place. And years went on I finished high school, I entered to USMP (which besides all I am grateful for). When I Was finishing third year I didn't want to continue my career, not because I didn't like it (I know now) it was because I was scared of the total opposite. The first time a patient said thank you to me... I knew, there could be nothing else in the world better for me... so I grew into this beautiful world. To all my friends who have finished the first step with me, this is my unsaid graduation message: Even though we got hurt, angry, dissapointed, tired, humillated, diminished during all these past years, specially at the internship... we are here because this is who we are, because this is what we want, because Medicine is what we need for us to be really us. Fifght with your mind and continue with your mind this path that is only yours. Greatness is in a thank you, a smile, a pain released, a tear even. Remember for a second all those faces you hace seen this past year, and br proud of yourselves because you made a difference at least for a while. It took me a lot to consider the real importance of being a doctor. People put their trust, their lives in our hands, and they believe that we can do the imposible to make them better. Be the kind of person that your patients deserve and nothing else. I am so proud of everyone that I have seen working, the doctors that now represent my university have something unique that everyone talked about last year. They give everything, they have sensibility, they put themselves in their patient's shoes. They have heart. We know it... They know it.. It's time for everyone to know it.
When I was a little girl.. I wanted to be a doctor.
Today, March 17-2011: I AM.
Dra. Julia Gabriela Vasquez Lopez
CMP: 058281
