The Big Three
If I were to ask you what doctors, lawyers and engineers have in common what would you say? These are three distinct careers but one thing they have in common is that they all hold a very special place in the hearts of immigrant parents everywhere.
Unlike many children of immigrant parents, I don’t remember a time when my parents were kind enough to present me with my three possible career options. However, growing up I distinctly remember the three words “knowledge is power” escaping my father’s mouth. I was taught that the key to success was having access to information and using that information to improve your life.
Despite my parent’s lack of intervention but perhaps unconsciously influenced by my community, I aspired to become a doctor. But I didn’t just want to be a doctor, I wanted to be a humanitarian and I dreamt of working with “Doctors Without Borders.” To my disappointment and the dismay of my parents who were relishing in the prospect of me becoming a doctor, I wasn’t accepted to medical school.
The relationship between the three word’s infection, prevention and control was first brought to my attention during my undergraduate degree in biomedical science. Those three words put together changed my understanding of what it meant to help people be healthy. There was a shift in my thinking, helping people be healthy was no longer just about freeing them from illness, it was also about preventing them from becoming ill.
Being ill has the potential to affect all areas of a person’s life. Often when a person is freed from disease they are left to deal with the financial, social and emotional impact caused by their illness. Even in the absence of the disease, their quality of life may not return to what it was beforehand. Therefore, preventing illness is a way to ensure that people’s quality of life is not negatively impacted by their health.
Like my father, I also believe that “knowledge is power”. The state of our health at times may be a direct result of what we do or do not know. Therefore, it is imperative that people know or have access to information that enables them to be healthy, and that information is used to put measures in place that promote health. Whether it’s through social change, empowering people to make healthier choices or providing information that enables people to take control of their health, I believe that public health initiatives have the power to promote, improve and protect the health and wellbeing of a population which in turn tackles the health inequalities that plague our society.
My aspiration to become a doctor stemmed from my desire to help people be healthy and I thought that freeing them from illness was the way to achieve this, but I see that this picture was incomplete. Public health for me, not only paints a complete picture of what it means to help people be healthy but it’s also a way to advocate for the people in society who are affected by health inequalities.
If you were to ask me what doctors, lawyers and engineers have in common I would say that they all work to improve the lives of others. I may not have become any of these three, however I think I could still find a special place in the hearts of immigrant parents because I believe that a career in public health is a commitment to protecting and improving the lives of others which is a career that any parent would be proud of.
