Four years of hard work,

Hundreds of nights kept awake,

Studying for SATs and ACTs,

Because my future was at stake.

Finally it was all over,

No more tests I had to pass,

I walked proudly down the aisle,

Graduating second in my class.

My whole life spread out in front of me,

I was headed to the school of my dreams,

Embracing my future with open arms,

It wasn’t just bright-it gleamed.

That is, until I got the questions,

From my relatives and friends,

Their comments started haunting me,

It seemed there was no end.

“Why aren’t you going to medical school,

You have a 4.0,

If you just changed your major,

You’ll be amazed at the places you’ll go”

“No one uses psychologists anyways,

It’s become a field of the past,

If you just become a doctor,

You know your career will last,”

“Why are you studying psychology,

When Richmond accepted you in,

They have a prestigious medical school,

Think of how successful you could have been,”

But instead of swaying my thoughts around,

Which was these comments’ intent,

They only made my passion grow,

On destroying these opinions I was bent.

Stop telling me to be a real doctor,

When I can make a difference too,

I can heal people in my own way,

That I don’t have to be a real doctor to do.

Sure I can’t operate an MRI machine,

Or administer an EKG,

But I can raise a person’s self-confidence,

And help them grow to be the best they can be.

I can’t scrub into surgery or mend a broken bone,

But that doesn’t mean I’m not skilled,

I can communicate with people who open up to no one,

Relationships of trust I can build.

I can test the validity of researchers’ results,

I can conduct statistical tests,

I can compare two treatments for the same problem,

And determine which one is the best.

I can tell you all about Pavlov’s dog,

And Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,

I can take the findings of psychologists of the past,

And apply them to people in need.

I can improve relationships in the workplace,

I can study cross-cultural norms,

I can assess the severity of a person’s anxiety,

And discuss how to treat every form.

I can share to the world that mental illness is not bad,

I can work to end the stigma and the fear,

I can hold hands and give support to people who need it,

I can always lend a listening ear.

Maybe I can’t make a heart beat again,

Or restore sight to a blind person’s eyes,

But I can make a difference, I can be the change,

Every day psychologists save lives.

So stop telling me to be a real doctor,

Stop saying can’t and start saying can,

Stop telling me to be a real doctor,

Because in my eyes, I already am.