My Scholar Ship

Caryl Vin B. Calang

Whenever people ask me about Medical school, I always reply in defense Im a scholar, not to
tell them that Im bright enough to be accepted as one, or that Medical school is as easy as
undergraduate studies, or that I have too much extra money in my pocket because my scholarship
already pays my schooling already, but that Im just grateful to be one.
My scholarship did not come as a surprise for me seven years ago, when I had the hurried
decision of taking almost every universitys entrance examination just for the sake of it. All the other
universities informed me that I was accepted as their scholar. So I already knew I was going to pass the
scholarship being a major in Biology at Xavier University. I knew Id soon take up Medical studies at Dr.
Jose P. Rizal School of Medicine. I knew I was going to become a doctor to help my mother in particular,
and the rest of the neighborhood. It did not occur to me that this voyage would be a stormy one. So I
took the boat and went on sailing.
Until that moment when I was told that I would not graduate on time. I kept convincing myself
and my parents that Id still be able to continue to Medical school, regardless of the year. At the back of
my mind, I was thinking about my scholarship. What if I couldnt get a scholarship? Should I insist to go
on? Or should I just accept the reality and be practical? These questions were left unanswered when I
was lucky enough to have entered Medical school on time and still got a scholarship miraculously. The
adventure thus went on.
It was on start of the third year of Medical studies when I encountered the greatest wave of this
journey. My mother suffered from an ischemic stroke involving the right middle cerebral artery. As a
medical student, I had already an idea on the prognosis of her illness. Being hypertensive with previous
histories of transient ischemic attacks and no maintenance medications, she needed to gain control of
her health to avoid having the same attack again. Drugs must be taken daily, physical therapy must be
done on a regular basis, and stress should be avoided. Hence, my mother had to retire from teaching
and my father had to double-time at work to compensate. At that moment, I was on the verge of
deciding to stop my schooling to decrease the familys expenses and to take care of my mother. But at
the same time, I asked myself, Am I doing this for the family? Or am I doing this for myself? I recalled
asking myself the same questions a few years ago. Then I remembered the story of Dr. Jose Rizal. Just
like him, I was also determined to become a physician to help my mother in her illness. Right then I was
even more determined to finish Medical school. I had a trump card and it was my scholarship. For as
long as I had this, I could still go on. Yes, gallons of worries and uncertainties have drenched me down
but my because of this scholarship, I was able to rise up.
Today, I am just so grateful. I havent yet reached the end of this journey, but I have a gut feeling
that it will all be worth the struggles and hardships. This ship has sailed with me from the shores of
ignorance and incompetence to the sea of knowledge and experience. Without this scholarship, I might
have been just a rower in a boat lost in the vast and frightful ocean of life.