One dissection, one laugh & one heartbeat at a time

She sat across the desk from me. Beaming, or so it would seem.
"I am really enjoying the medical school, I think", she said.

Just a few months back, when I had met her before her results, she had been a firebrand teenager who was quite unsure of what she wanted to pursue. Having very few close friends, she was a reserved person, who kept people at bay & her thoughts to herself. People had to earn the privilege, before she opened up to them.
I wondered how she would fare once out in the world. In college. And in life.
We had long talks back then and she decided she wanted to pursue medicine in the end. The prospect of touching human lives mattered to her the most, or so it would seem.

As she shared, medical school wasn't exactly a walk in the park. Days were long, the lectures were tough, her colleagues: complete strangers. And yet with each passing week, she pushed herself to engage more & more with her environment despite her reservations.

She found two other musketeers as unruly as herself and a tribe started to form. They were all each other's anchors, fueling mutual ambition and shared dreams, despite dramatically different backgrounds.
As she told me of the late-night coffees she shared over Guyton and Chaurasia with her friends, it was not just her knowledge that shone, but also the spark of the passion.
As I listened to her, I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that she wouldn't just be successful, but she'd be extraordinary. The world was waiting, and she was no longer alone, but ready to embrace it with open arms and fearless heart.

It fills me with hope to see the courage with which teenagers today embrace the unknown. The future is in good hands, hands stained with coffee and ink and the belief to change the world: One dissection, one laugh & one heartbeat at a time.

How can we provide them with the space they need to make their own mistakes and forge their own paths?