Prick Therapy

I've been doing some thinking lately and I am kinda exploring the possibility of a career change. I've always wanted to work within the health care industry since high school. I've volunteered at Coney Island Hospital as a nurse's assistant where I fed patients, took their temperature, pulse, and respiration readings. I also was trained to change their sheets, give them bed baths, and assist the doctors with the crash cart in the event a patient was going into cardiac arrest. I loved it all, but didn't explore further into the field... partially because I didn't quite get the emotional support from my family or the encouragement a young mind needed to make a dream into reality... the furthest I've gotten in my senior year was considering studying dentistry or radiology. Alas, engineering at the time was a hot field... hence, I picked to study electrical engineering and later computer engineering in college. The rest as they say, "is history."

Ten years after my bachelor's and about four years after my master's, I'm finding myself wanting to change my career. I can't exactly see myself programming much longer or even being a project manager in the long run. I think I need something more. I want to make a difference in people's lives on an individual basis. My engineerng teacher in high school at one point convinced us medical science students that being an engineer was better than being a doctor. He said that as a doctor, you can only help one person at a time, but as an engineer, you can help the masses. I suppose he is 100% right to some degree, but I don't find it as satisfying now as I first thought I would. I crave the individual attention that I can give someone.

I guess when you grow up dealing with doctors and hospitals most of your life because one of your parents need regular medical care and you see how most patients are treated by what I call "business doctors", you know how disgusting it can be. If I were a doctor, I can never see a patient as a dollar amount or just a prescription away from getting them to leave your office. I am simply taken aback by how common it is for a doctor to simply write you prescriptions for whatever you want before they even lay hands on you to diagnose your health problems.

Once I was telling a female doctor that I was having anxiety issues and that I was feeling depressed, she just leaned on a counter and smiled/smirked at me. Then she got up and started writing several prescriptions to "treat" my problems. She said, "These medications will make you feel all better", as if she was selling me drugs on the streets. She didn't bother to explain any further even when I asked her questions. She just continued to smile and told me to take the medications.

After I left her office, I was like... "What the fuck?!" I did get the medications, just in case I needed to "feel all better", but I also refused to take them unless I really had an anxiety attack. Since this wasn't my first time having these issues, I simply resorted to taking things easy and as they come.

I think it's a bit late in the game for me to become a "real" doctor or something... but, I thought, perhaps I can study acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicines? I don't know much about any of this, but I was able to dig up some info online. Actually... what sparked all this was a brochure I picked up at San Jose University when I was there to play racquetball during my vacation. Perhaps all this was not a coincidence? I already had thoughts about acupuncture four years ago, but I guess, more recently the thoughts have become stronger.

In the underlying reality, I subconsciously always wanted to heal my mother of all her pains and aches due to a fall she had in her thirties and simply to heal her overworked body from being a farm girl at a young age, to being a seamstress over the years. I've grown sick and tired of all those doctors that tried to help, but couldn't or didn't help, but made things worst for her. I don't think I ever will become an orthopedic surgeon in this life time to heal her, but perhaps I would be able to use acupuncture to lessen or even rid her of her pain and to help her sleep at night? I think I can still achieve this in this life time. What do you think?

I need to do some more soul searching... as I would hate to start something and not finish. It's a big change for me... especially at this point of my life. I hate school, but perhaps, studying something that I truely love would make the difference? What do you think?