Notes

Texas State University Honors College Essay
TOPIC: "Research Interest"
"How being a sick child influence my interest in healthcare?"
"Health is Wealth" I got to experience this saying even before I could learn about it. As an infant, I was diagnosed with jaundice and in the years that followed, hospital visits became a regular phenomenon. My most vivid memory is of when I was hospitalized due to malaria. For 10-year-old me, this experience was more of a sleepover because of a girl who was hospitalized right beside me. Sleeping, talking and motivating each other and figuring out how they inserted the cannula into me were parts of our daily routine. One night I woke up with a constant bell ringing, I couldn’t comprehend what had happened. But I became scared when I heard the fear in the hospital staff's voices as they rushed her to the ER. The following day, I got discharged and the next hospital visit was far from soon.

In the years ahead, this incident and my regular visits to hospitals inspired my interest in healthcare. Even though I was probably only ten at the time, I wanted to find a way to help people like her. I wanted to find a solution so that nobody would have to feel the way she did; nobody deserved to feel that pain and fear. So, in high school, I took a keen interest in biology. I started actively participating in local clubs that perform health campaigns. I volunteered to support a local health clinic with basic administrative tasks in a group. We visited old-age homes, helped facilitate a school dental check-up, raised awareness about several health issues and performed a vaccine awareness program in our community during the COVID-19 pandemic. I have also been organizing a monthly blood donation program as a volunteer club member with a team.

While I have been successful in making a positive impact on my community’s health awareness, there is still more work to be done. For instance, cervical cancer is the most common cancer in Nepal. It is one of the most preventable and curable cancer types, but more than half of the diagnosed women pass away because of the disease. This is because of the lack of awareness about HPV vaccines among the women of rural areas. Also, the Nepal government doesn't have the budget to afford HPV Vaccines for everyone, but it is still very rich in medicinal plants. This scenario sparked my interest to research to find out the uses of medicinal plants like Morinda citrufolia in the treatment of cancer. It's a fruit found abundantly in Nepal and is very rich in anti-cancer properties. In the future, I want to contribute towards the production of herbal medicine which every Nepali woman can afford to fight against the HPV Virus (the main cause of cervical cancer).

As I learned more about the medical world, I became more fascinated with the body’s immune responses, specifically, how our body reacts to different diseases. My desire to major in biology in college has been stimulated by my fascination with the human body, and its processes, and the desire to find a way to help people with diseases specifically cancer. I hope that one day I can find a way to at least lessen the symptoms so that children and adults don’t have to feel the same fear and bitterness that the girl beside my hospital bed felt.