Au revoir, Portland!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, my time in Portland has already come to a close! It was a fast 10 months, and if it weren’t for some incredibly exciting opportunities ahead, I would be very reluctant to leave the beautiful West Coast. Nevertheless, I think the only thing better than living in a progressive, gorgeous city on one coast is being a premedical student on the other coast, so I’m calling it a net gain and putting these roots down in Baltimore, Maryland for the next chapter of my life.



It was a perfect, sunny day in Seattle.

My final couple of months in Portland brought with them many pleasures. For one, Susannah and I were able to go up to Seattle for our fourth visit in order to celebrate her uncle’s birthday. Every time I go to Seattle, I am blown away by its beauty, and if I have my druthers, I will settle there one day. The weather was absolutely perfect, meaning the snow-capped Cascades that surround the city were lucidly visible, the green foliage looked sun-kissed and resplendent, and the denizens of the city came out in hordes to sunbathe in the local parks. We enjoyed the company of Susannah’s family and ate delicious food (an Italian salad, a mushroom and asparagus salad, shrimp in shallot sauce on small pieces of toasted bread (sorry, Dad!), pasta Bolognese, and then strawberry shortcake with homemade whipped cream for dessert). It was such a feast both gastronomically and socially. Susannah and I always stay at another one of her uncle’s houses when we’re in Seattle, and this time, since I woke up earlier than either Susannah or her uncle Topher, I started reading a book called Work as a Spiritual Practice: A Practical Buddhist Approach to Inner Growth and Satisfaction on the Job. Topher ended up letting me keep the book, and I really loved it. It helped me to feel calmer, ironically, by learning to accept my anxiety, among other things. It was a great read, and I recommend it to anyone interested in being thoughtful about how they make a living and how to integrate work into your larger life.

The elegant tables at IRCO's Asian Pacific Islander
fundraising dinner

I was also able to spend a good amount of time with some of my friends and acquaintances in Portland before I left. Margaret, Susannah and I went to a fancy fundraising dinner for Margaret’s non-profit organization, the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization. We dressed to the nines and hobnobbed with some of Portland’s bigwigs, which was a blast. I went to another such fundraising event for a non-governmental organization that my clinic, Outside In, partners with called Project Access NOW. Project Access NOW is an organization of specialist doctors who donate their services to the sick and uninsured. Since my clinic is a primary care clinic only, you can imagine how invaluable it is for us to be able to refer our sicker and more complex patients to medical specialists when necessary. The event was another large gala event with fine dining and a few touching stories of patients with debilitating illnesses that were cured thanks to the generous doctors who donated their time and skills, such as a sweet Hispanic father who became unable to use his legs and was therefore unable to work because of spinal stenosis who was then given a donated surgery and rehabilitated back to his productive family life. It was very inspirational to attend both events.

From left to right, Susannah, me, and Margaret enjoy
a day at the Oregon coast.

From left to right, me, Gabe, Bridget, and Emily,
Outside In's referrals coordinators

My final days at Outside In were also really nice. As I trained my replacement, a sharp, wonderful girl named Jamie, I came to see a lot of areas where I could have been more thorough and more hard-working at my job, and that was somewhat disappointing. I always gave my job all that I had, but I realized that I didn’t always have the best systems in place for my work and that, like all humans, I have a tendency to delay or put off the less pleasant parts of my job. It was neat to get to train someone who will undoubtedly do better than I did at my job but at the same time to recognize the small impact that I had at that clinic. One of my patients wrote me a thank-you card for the work I did to help get her a free mammogram and breast ultrasound to rule-out breast cancer. Another one of my patients, a severe alcoholic who we sent to the emergency room because he was vomiting blood due to bleeding esophageal ascites, has been sober for a month and thanked Outside In for “saving his life.” The clinic has a much improved system of tracking Pap smears among its female population as a part of preventive services thanks to the autonomy they gave me to build and implement such a system. All in all, I think I left Outside In a little bit better of a place then it was when I entered, though as the cliché goes, I received so much more from them than I gave. I learned a million and a half medical terms and abbreviations. I made friends with fascinating, bright folks in the healthcare world. I got to use my Spanish daily in a medical context. I got to meet doctors doing great, interesting work and hear their advice for me on my own path. All in all, my job at Outside In was a total godsend. I was in the right place at the right time to have an epiphany about wanting to be a doctor and then to apply and get a job working in a medical clinic doing work that I really believe in and admire. I couldn’t have been more blessed.

A beautiful pond in a park in Ashland, Oregon

Other fun things that I did included seeing two more Shakespeare plays, The Taming of the Shrew and King Lear, in Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with Susannah. She and I will always love the Bard and the way that he so wittily writes about the complexities of human life. My coworkers all threw me a good-bye party at my supervisor Bryan’s house, and we had so much fun. The party was very Portland—almost everyone brought a kale salad that they had made with vegetables growing in their own yard. The first half of the night consisted of conversations, hugs, and reminiscing. The second half of the night was dancing in Bryan’s small living room to a playlist that I had designed with other coworkers that included everything from Whitney Houston’s "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" to Swedish House Mafia’s "Don’t You Worry, Child." When the night was over, I hugged my friends good-bye in the pouring rain and thanked them for inspiring and challenging me. It was a very cinematic moment, with the rain and the heartfelt embraces, and it was a perfect send-off before I left for Baltimore.

Laura, one of my amazing older sisters, also spent her money and vacation time to fly out to Portland to come visit me, and together we explored so many of the city's little treasure troves. We ate weird flavors of ice cream at Salt and Straw (I got an olive oil flavored scoop), had curry-batted fish on the 31st floor of a downtown skyscraper with Mom and Dad's friends Peter and Paula Johnson, watched The Great Gatsby in 3-D, walked around a neighborhood of beautiful houses in the light, drizzling rain, ate Mexican food at the most beautiful of Oregon's beaches (Cannon Beach), danced to a few pop songs at a downtown club, and perhaps most importantly enjoyed hours of conversation about our lives during the gaps in between and all throughout the activities that kept us busy. Spending three days with Laura completely rejuvenated me and recharged my batteries to get me ready for my move. I'm lucky to have such a wonderful sister.

Now I’m here in this new city, a Westerner on the East Coast, a humanities major studying to become a doctor. I couldn’t be happier. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the fact that I get to go back to school to study something so fascinating and practical. My loving, supportive, stable family and best friends are my foundation, and I can only hope to be successful and become a loving, bright physician to make them proud and thank them for their consistent efforts to helping me out. Wish me luck as I go back to school for the first time in a couple of years!