I trace my great passion for the practice of medicine to my keen desire as a young person to mature into a ‘good’ person, non-selfish, empathetic, compassionate, a good listener, and hungry to help ease pain and suffering. I am sometimes accused of being a perfectionist, but this is the price one pays for giving one’s all, one’s best, 24/7. I could not be more devoted to lifelong education and research in Internal and Critical Care Medicine. A team player to my innermost core, I am always open to constructive feedback from colleagues and mentors to constantly improve my capacity as a physician.
I have completed my residency in internal medicine. I now feel most at home in the hospital at the center of the action. I am currently completing a fellowship in Neurocritical Care to benefit from total immersion into the foundations and challenges of Critical Care Medicine. During my residency, I especially enjoyed performing procedures such as central line insertions, arterial line insertions, drawing arterial blood gas samples, etc. I found myself most intrigued by the strategies and reasoning underlying the management of critically ill patients.
I also very much enjoyed providing ultrasound-guided procedures. I had excellent mentors and mirrored them, always maintaining total composure under highly stressful situations: codes, patients becoming unstable, and sudden changes in a patient’s clinical condition. As I observed their calm precision under life and death situations, I strove to be and do likewise. I made enormous progress as a physician this year, enhancing my abilities.
Multisystem approaches, cognitive skills, and technical skills that CCM involves are fascinating and wondrous. The broad spectrum of diseases affecting multiple organ systems encountered in the critical care environment is fantastic since I live for solving complex issues. After completing my residency, I did one year as an Internal Medicine chief resident to develop and sharpen my leadership and teaching skills. I was involved in teaching residents, supervising their performance, and giving feedback based on their performance.
I spent extended periods before medical school in India, bicycling through the countryside on dirt roads to build physical and psychological endurance to arrive at my ultimate destiny and prepare myself fully for a life of service with particular attention to the underserved in remote areas. Upon being selected to one of India's most competitive medical colleges, I realized that my hard work was paying off and that someone from the countryside who loved rural India could take their place amongst the best and excel at the realization of his dreams.
Playing soccer as a midfielder built my team spirit and nourished my competitive nature, cherishing victory yet gracious in defeat. Most of all, I always seek to fulfill my duty as a team member willing to go that extra mile to contribute to a successful group outcome – mainly when a life is at stake. I crave long hours on my feet listening to patients and their families, learning all that I can to put the pieces of the puzzle together and make the right, optimal decisions for each patient and their unique circumstances.
In addition to English, I speak, read, and write Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu. I have devoted a lot of energy to Spanish for the past several years, and I am getting better and better at communicating with patients and their families in this language. I am incredibly proud of my rapidly increasing ability in Spanish because of the way that this language opens doors to helping the underserved, who suffer the most from the lack of direct access to medical care.
Thank you for considering my application to your distinguished Pulmonary Critical Care Medicine Fellowship.
Fellowship Pulmonary Critical Care Personal Statement