文书点评：空军指挥官（Air Force Leadership）

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.

点评：

文章是从一个故事展开，情节吸引。文章叙述笔者的经历相当丰富。从整形外科诊所建数据库－康复中心去执行医疗任务－保险公司担任网络发展技术员－空军通讯员。文章里出现了几处转折，说明作者在工作的过程中尝试通过兴趣来摸索自己的研究方向。通过在担任空军通讯员的期间发现其工作缺少人性化，从而明确了自己要走医学这条道路。

文章的不足：

1）故事的关联性。文章开头是对笔者在空军工作的一个情景的描写。虽然故事很有感染力，但看不出与笔者希望申请的方向的联系很大。笔者试图想表达一下自己的领导才能，但这方面的描述并不多，给人的印象不深刻。

2）人物形象不明确。笔者希望表现自己的领导才能，优秀的学术技能和丰富的工作经验，但因为要表现的内容太多，结果就没有了侧重点。

3）内容的针对性不强。既然是希望能从事医学研究，就应该把笔墨花在医学这个领域，而空军通讯员这类与专业不太有联系的工作可以简单描述，不必长篇大论。

译文：

空军指挥官

我是第三个进入掩体。我之后的另外7个人也很快就跳了进去。外面灼热难忍，气温高达126华氏度。我们在可以容纳5个人的沙包掩体内像洗桑拿浴一样，我们挤在一起就更加的热的，特别是戴着防MOPP阿尔法化学毒气的面具。在遭到化学武器袭击后我们十个人马上就挤在伊拉克边缘地区的一个蒸笼般的掩体里。下一步应该怎样做呢？谁会成为领导人呢？——我成了第一人选。

在我通往医学院的道路上充满了惊喜。在我获得研究基因方向的生物医学工程学位后，我没有耗费三年的光阴，而是成为了一名初级的空军军官。这些经验对我的观点产生了深刻影响，使我形成了独特的医疗思维模式，并坚定了我要成为一名医师的决心。

生物医学工程的学习使我能够将自己天赋的数学，物理和解决问题的才能与人类生理学融合在一起。把计算机建模，分析方法与生物学结合来解决现实上的人类的问题就犹如一杯鸡尾酒能令人身心舒畅。其中我建立了这样一个使用计算机技术去控制麻醉针注射的系统，它是通过一串电极和呼吸感应来持续地收集和评估来自病人的实时反馈信息。我通过在实验室工作可以应用医学解决大量的问题——更有效地控制麻醉浓度——这是非常振奋人心的。

为了加深对作为一名医师的理解，我自愿加入Connecticut州儿童医疗中心的整形外科部门，一个经常都是挤满患者的门诊所。从前台的工作人员到护士，助理医师，住院医生到主治外科医生，每个人都细致工作，彼此亲密无间，对病患充满爱心。我的任务是用计算机处理病人的信息，我通常会在医学记录实验室满是灰尘的文件夹里埋头阅读（这是获得期刊论文资源和达到其它目的有效方法）。我建立了两个数据库，跟踪在患脊膜脊髓膨出和肌肉疾病诊所里600名以上的患者，另外我还建立了一个主要的数据库跟踪外科手术的进展。这三个系统一直沿用到现在。

接下来的夏天，在大二结束后，我回到门诊所对这三个系统进行微调。我也为一篇关于子宫颈的脊膜脊髓膨出症的整形外科文章纂写了病患摘要。夏天结束后，我和六个外科医生到哥伦比亚佩雷拉儿童康复中心去执行医疗任务。我翻译医学史，安慰忧心家庭，记录人口统计资料，诊断和进行了73个手术。

从哥伦比亚回到RPI，我对人类需求有了更广阔的看法。我依然一如既往地希望能为人民服务，但我对这些服务的性质和途径的看法发生了一些改变。我隐隐感觉到它们正转变成计算机并有继续发展的趋势。为了挖掘我另一方面兴趣，在第二个夏天，我成为了一间大型保险公司的网络发展技术员，并且建立了这家公司的第一个企业内特网。这时我陷进了进退两难的局面，究竟是在医学还是计算机方面多做贡献呢？内心挣扎致使我考了个很不起眼的MCAT分数和写了些差劲文书。大三期中时，我暂停了对医学院的申请，谢绝了提供给我的Health Professions奖学金，并正式把自己由一名医生转变为一个通信官。

毕业后我的生活节奏飞快。在4年的空军通讯员生涯里，我游历过Mississippi, Louisiana, Kuwait, 还有Massachusetts。虽然我享受着领导下属对网络系统进行设计，安装和维护工作的乐趣。但我在毕业后的第一年就开始感到了一丝的失落。很显然，我是觉得有一点的欠缺。通过与未婚妻和知己推心置腹地交谈讨论后，我得出一个结论：这份工作缺少人性化。即使我和队员每天都在一起工作，并且我还是团队的领导人，但我们主要都只是进行着机械化的工作——无生气可言——除了阅读电子邮件或浏览网站，数据网络并没有真正地“帮助”人们去干任何事情。我开始怀念过去帮助大众的情景。

3年前，我转向了学习医学，并对医学方面的计算机技术产生了兴趣。尽管我熟悉多元化的信息技术和领导IT技术员提高了我们的整个团队的技能水平。但同时我也更深一层地认识了我自己和我的动力：假如没有我曾经在医学工作中的个人成就我是不能取得成功的。另外，在我岳父肾移植手术中，促使我回到初衷。

尽管如此，我认为我在IT和生物信息上得到的经验更大程度上应该是对于我的医学生涯的补充更甚于捷径。因为同时身兼看护人和医院管理者，医师会趋向于应用计算机和信息技术。我任职空军时所获得的领导能力，团队技能和技术知识对我在大学期间的学术，研究和自愿者经验产生了直接的影响。同时也会将我塑造成一个全面发展的医师。我已经做好继续起航的准备。