"When I grow up I am going to buy a hospital so I can take care of you and myself if we ever get sick". These were the first words I told my mother after recovering from a severe illness at the age of five. During my illness, my mother became my pediatrician because we were unable to afford medical treatment in Ghana. Due to my experience as a child, I acquired a personal devotion for helping sick children; believing that my life's purpose was to provide medical aid to children all over the world who were financially unable to receiving proper medical care.
As a result of our impoverished lifestyle my mother sent me to America at the age of seven to live with my father. Growing up in America, education became a constant reminder that there was a bridge between poverty and success that could be crossed. After all, I lived in a country that advocated the American dream, a dream I held responsible for my academic drive. Moving to the United States taught me about diversity and how to communicate and accept others cultural differences.
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During my junior year of high school I started searching for medical volunteer opportunities. It was at this time that my mother informed me about her (of) stage three breast cancer diagnosis, a diagnosis she received three years prior to telling me because she feared it would affect my grades. Once I heard the news I began to see time as an enemy, constantly ticking against me. I started spending all my time studying because I thought if I finished school early and started working I could save her life. In the summer of 2014 I was granted the opportunity to volunteer at Methodist Sugar Land