All four years of high school, I was enrolled in the Health Science Academy. Basically, my classes were geared towards preparing me for a degree in the medical field. I had all these plans to become a doctor or some sort of medical specialist. Throughout Freshman and Sophomore year, we learned a lot of information about all things medicine. We learned terminology and body systems and diseases and just about anything you can think of. As we got into Junior and Senior year, we began to participate in clinicals. We got scrubs and lab coats and played nurse and patient in the lab we had. All of the students always had so much fun and we could not wait to do things like this for our everyday job.

Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a doctor. I love the idea of having something new every day and having to investigate a person's life to discover what is wrong with them. I was so excited when I got accepted into the Health Science Academy because I knew it was just preparing me that much more for college. I was eager to start clinicals as I got to senior year because I wanted the hands-on action that I would be getting as a doctor.

I got a preview of this action junior year. A local veterinarian always brought stray dogs and cats to the lab, and we got to give them shots and draw blood to check for heart worms. I always enjoyed doing this, so I expected senior year to be even better. Boy was I wrong!

As second semester of Senior year started, our classes began going to a local hospital to shadow during our class time. We shadowed the recovery floor, physical therapy floor, radiation floor, and the lab. I shadowed the physical therapy floor first, so nothing crazy happened. I chatted with the nurse in there and watched a man do a few exercises for a broken ankle. The second week is when things began to go downhill. I was assigned to the recovery floor, so we saw a few patient's post-surgery. The first patient we saw just finished a surgery a few days prior. She had an abscess in her rectum removed, so she had to stay in recovery for a bit to get over that. The cuts from surgery got infected, so we were told that the nurse was going to remove and replace the gauze. Hearing this and watching it were two totally different things. I went in the room expecting a quick replacement, but it was not. This was extremely painful for the patient, so there were screams and blood. I really thought I was going to die right then and there just watching this take place. It was in that moment that I realized I did NOT want to be a nurse nor a doctor. Props to all of the doctors and nurses who do things like this every day, you are brave and you are appreciated!