In becoming who I am, I've collected mentors and role models. My role models were never the ones my friends in gradeschool had. I had to seperate myself from my brother who had the market cornered on the all-american boy from kansas role, sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't have become something else if I didn't have him to polarize me into a more nerdy persona. I know that I would have always been prone to it, even he ended up becoming an engineer, a science heavy profession, but to be myself and not a lesser copy of him, I think my rolemodels became Einstein instead of Chamberlain, comic book superheroes instead of Jordan. There have been others like my father and my mother, my highschool science teacher, the doctor who got me started in all this...all of them have bigger shoes than I ever hope to fill. But, I'm blessed for them and I know I'm in some way headed in the right direction as I occasionally get letters from people that I've taught, letting me know they are going into pediatrics or science since learning under me. It's a huge honor when I get them, I save them in a drawer at home...I went into this thinking if I saved one life, the effect would last acrossed generations. That feeling is muffled in comparison to the sense of accomplishment I get in knowing that, from time to time, I join the ranks or my progenetors and even if for a little while get to be like them, a teacher and a rolemodel.
Newbie Doc
