Decisions, Decisions

Picking a career is one of the most important decisions you have to make. Or at least that is my opinion. I have been considering my career choices since my earliest memories and for a very good reason.

The career you choose determines what you do, where you go everyday, and the people you meet in the process. I have always been interested in one career field ever since I was about three years old. Before I go into my decision I better explain how I came to this decision. This decisions will make more sense once I explain. When I was very young my mother was in school to be a paramedic which meant she had a lot of studying to do. Since she was also a single mother she still had to read me bedtime stories and take care of me.

This made her decide to read her medical books to me as bedtime stories or to keep me entertained and I am so glad that she made that decision. Ever since she read me those books I have been fascinated in medicine and how the human body works. Beside just being fascinated in medicine I have also always loved babies. I always had a baby doll in my arms as a child. I never left the house without one and I took care of it like it was a real baby.

Eventually medicine and babies began to overlap in my three year old brain and I decided I wanted to work with both when I grew up. Again I was only three years old so I had no idea what jobs there were out there so I asked my mother what jobs involved both. She suggested that I go into Labor and Delivery so I will be surrounded by newborns all day long. I thought that was a great idea and had my mother tell me all about it. It sounded like the best job ever it combined everything I had a passion for. I was that child when they asked you what you wanted to do when you grew up, in elementary school, I replied a Labor and Delivery Doctor.

While everyone else said a princess or a singer or an astronaut, I wanted to be a Labor and Delivery Doctor. I shocked all my teachers when I gave them that response. Mostly because I did not just say doctor, I had a specific field I wanted to do and I was focused on it. No one could change my mind, many doubted me thinking I had no idea what I was talking about, but I did. I knew exactly what this job entailed. I wanted to be this until about fifth grade when I did more research and expanded my knowledge of medicine.

In about fifth grade my mother knew I was determined and suggested other careers that were very similar, she suggested Perinatology. I had never heard of this before. She explained that it was a doctor who specializes in high risk pregnancies. This sounded amazing as well it dealt with babies and was a very interesting field of medicine. Dealing with babies before they were born seemed so high tech and I was amazed that I could someday help a baby before they had even taken their first breath.

By eighth grade I thought Perinatology mostly dealt with mothers and you cannot even touch the baby, so how was this a job with babies? So I began more research and found Neonatology which is deals with critically ill newborns usually under 28 days old in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. This job seemed like the next step from Perinatology since it dealt with these high risk babies once they were born. I was in love with the idea of helping these poor, defenseless newborns fight to stay alive. Lately I have been looking back on all of these decisions and I noticed that I have one field that I have ever wanted to pursue, medicine concerning babies. As I have been doing more research on Perinatology I have found that it does involve babies and Perinatologist do many things besides just dealing with mothers, Perinatologists also do procedures on the fetus.

Perinatologists make almost twice as much as Neonatologist, but it is not all about the money. Perinatology is also called Maternal Fetal Medicine and can really help with a baby before it is born or diagnose something that needs to be fixed after birth potentially saving the baby’s life. As I have been doing this research I have been so torn between the two because both have great things about them. I was recently told by another doctor that Neonatologists do not do that much and it can get boring very quickly. I do not know if this is true for me, but this is what sparked my renewed interest in Perinatology. People have been saying lately that I do not need to know what I want to do now or that I will change my mind later to something completely different, but I do want to know now before I start college.

I want to know what I am studying for and put more of an emphasis on that. Also I will probably not change my mind and if I do that is okay, but I seriously doubt I will change into completely a different direction. I have wanted to be in this field my whole life I doubt I will be a lawyer one day or an Astronaut. Also Neonatology is a Pediatric specialty and Perinatology is an OBGYN specialty which are completely separate studies in medicine so it is important to know which one you are doing. So whichever career I decide on I will be taking a very different road than the other career.

In my opinion it is important to know what you want to do so you can be prepared for the journey that lies ahead.