Recent graduates: Never fear if you haven’t picked a career yet; it’s never too late to figure out what you want to do when you grow up. Rahim Nazerali, MD, now an assistant professor of surgery at Stanford, is on his second.

He explains in this recent Stanford Health Care video:

I had a career in international health and I felt like I wasn’t interacting with enough people, I was doing a lot of behind the desk work and I never really interacted with the people I was affecting. I entered medicine for that reason.

And when he entered medical school at Brown University, Nazerali thought he would pursue emergency medicine or orthopedics. But he was wrong again. In the video, he describes a surgery — which he watched on his first day on a plastic surgery rotation — that convinced him that this field was the one for him. Plastic surgeons converted a gaping post-tumor chest hole into a natural looking chest: “You could hardly even tell that anyone was there,” Nazerali said. “At that point, I thought, ‘I want to do that."”

Now, he’s on the front lines of patient care, where he hopes to stay.

“Many patients come back in after they have their confidence back, after they have their life back, after they have their time with their family back,” Nazerali said. “That’s what makes it really rewarding.”

ID Hospital"s founding director Dr. Park Sang Hoon started his career at one of Korea"s top medical centers. As a specialist in maxillofacial surgery, he saw firsthand the positive impact a procedure could have on patients who were suffering from depression, low self-esteem and thoughts of suicide because of their appearance. Maxillofacial surgery was the means through which many patients were able to gain confidence and live the life they"ve always dreamed of. With this in mind, Park set up what is now Korea"s premier maxillofacial plastic surgery hospitals with hopes that he and his dedicated team can continue to help individuals find their happily ever after.


Original Article: http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2015/06/19/why-become-a-doctor-a-personal-story-from-a-stanford-plastic-surgeon/#sthash.gA38uDtt.dpuf