BY SARAH ADAMS
Sunday was the first step toward a brand new career for 64 Central Michigan University students. They are the inaugural class of CMU's College of Medicine, or "C-MED." The students were officially welcomed into the school with a "white coat ceremony."
Kush Sharma was among them. So was Barbara Buehler. After the ceremony, the two students reflected on the day's events.
"It is a wonderful day and just being up here and seeing the stage and all of the grads together? That was probably the best part: being next to your future classmates and the next four years that we'll be doing together and some of them were holding hands and it was really touching," Barb said.
"It's actually been a dream of my grandfather--who has been a physician's assistant in India to have his grandchildren be in a medical profession. Unfortunately, they were able to be here today, but when I visited him last week, he was jumping up and down: he's almost 90 now and he was so excited and so happy and he's provided so much support," Kush said.
"I'm going to be an amazingly trained person and I'm going to be a lot more developed professionally: I think that was a lot of what they're going to be doing," Barb said.
"I think being a doctor, what it means to me, it's such an honor to being allowed to have someone else trust you with their life in some cases. That they're willing to do everything, listen to your opinion and respect your opinion to make sure they're having the best quality of life possible," Kush said.
"Yes, doctors are able to provide healthcare; yes, they are treating illnesses, but they're really treating people and teaching people and that's the number 1 thing I wanted to become a doctor for is the education. Prevent by education. Prevent by being a human and teaching fellow humans," Barb said.
"I don't know specifically what type of medicine I want to study, but I do know that I want to be in an environment that will allow me to help the largest volume of patients possible. And I think that goes without saying that being at a school like Central Michigan University where their driving force is primary care and sort of helping the largest amount of patients possible is sort of where I want to be," Kush said.
"Yeah, training you to become a doctor, but training you to be a better person, too. And then I'll go to residency and be an amazing doctor from Central Michigan University and hopefully go up to the Northern Peninsula and work as a family physician," Barb said.
"There's a need for more physicians, but more importantly, there's a need for more equal distribution of physicians in areas around the country, and if I'm able to be in an area where I know on a day-to-day basis I'm able to help the most people possible? That will sort of make my dream come true and will make me a happier person," Kush said.
That was Kush Sharma and Barbara Buehler. They're members of the CMU College of Medicine's inaugural class.
The class will graduate from the program as physicians 4 years from now.
CMU's 2013-2014 academic year begins Monday, August 26.