I remember the first National Geographic my mom bought me, I must have been around 7. I had seen it at the grocery store and flipped through it until we checked out: it pictured a fetus, curled up in the womb. I was fascinated. It was (*insert Chris Trager voice*) literally the coolest thing I had ever seen. When we got home my mom pulled it out of a shopping bag and I remember freaking out. All I wanted for Christmas or birthdays were baby dolls from that point on. Not the ones where you just get to play mommy. The ones that were anatomically correct and would actually pee so I could see how much water I could feed it and monitor how fast it would come out.

I sometimes wonder where my drive for medicine came from. And until recently I honestly had no clue. But now I know that it was from seeing my parents work so hard to give my sisters and I the best life, and they did an amazing job. Both of my parents immigrated from Mexico. My father was orphaned at age 6 by a mother who died after giving birth and a father who decided raising 5 kids on his own was too much. My mother started working, selling tamales door to door as a young child. My parents tell funny stories about their childhoods but it’s laced with a bit of sadness at how hard they had to work - physically work - to live. Their circumstances are unimaginable. I can’t relate. But I know that I cannot relate because they worked to give me a life much more privileged than theirs. And for that I am grateful.

My parents had such an essential role in making me a lifelong learner, but it was my mother that stressed how important it was to be an educated woman. I was very young when she first told me, “you have to get an education so you don’t depend on anyone and if you’re ever in a bad situation, you can leave without thinking twice.” That’s one of the most important lessons she ever taught me. I was lucky that it was engrained at a young age because it became such a fundamental part of my mentality that still shapes my reality.

My parents gave me drive and a platform from which I could comfortably succeed in school without worrying about things many other children deal with like money, food, water, shelter. And for that I am grateful. My parents taught me about hard work. And though they didn’t push me to become anything specific they made damn sure I knew that “getting an education was my only job.” Where they had to work with their bodies, I had to work at school which is an absolute privilege that many children don’t have. And I am lucky to have parents that reminded me of that.