My toughest year during school was my last. It was not due to academics or balancing my social life, but due to the loss of a family member – my father. But the story doesn’t end there. The beginning is just as important, because it shaped my decisions after my father’s passing.
My parents came to America from Vietnam with nothing and unable to speak English. They worked hard – overtime, long hours, and sometimes two jobs – to provide for my four younger brothers and me. Being the oldest of five boys, I was tasked at a young age to care for siblings and even discipline them while my parents worked. My brothers and I were informed on several accounts that we were fortunate and lucky to be living in America; to be able to make something of ourselves rather than to live in the poverty stricken, opportunity-limited country of my parents. Thus, we were all supposed to study and work hard everyday to take advantage of those opportunities and achieve the American dream of prosperity and success.
Being a boy scout, our motto was, “Be prepared.” I took this to heart and tried to be prepared for most situations and misfortunes that crossed my way. However, if we fast-forward to my final year in pharmacy school, we will see a time that would debunk my former statement about being prepared – when my father passed away from a major stroke. At the time, my father was the primary breadwinner for our family of seven. With him gone, I was next in command as man of the house. This new responsibility left me with a sense of panic of epic proportions.
I was worried about planning funeral arrangements, getting paperwork for my dad’s death certificate, dealing with the Social Security Office, earning an income for the family, paying bills for the home, establishing health insurance for everyone, fixing my mom’s car, and a thousand other things. How was I supposed to do all this and go to pharmacy school? I was already in significant debt with school loans and, due to being in full-time rotations, had no time to work more to help my mom with the bills. I had to withdraw from my current rotation site to take care of my family.
I used that month off from school to calculate, assess (much like a SOAP note), and plan my family’s future and my own. My financial calculations kept pointing me toward one solution: graduate from school. So I returned to school with a new mindset, changed from my meaningless pursuit of prosperity and success, with motivation to ensure the survival of my family.
There had been a lingering guilt that I had been shouldering since my father’s passing. I had the power and knowledge to help prevent his chances of a cardiovascular incident, but did not actively apply that information directly to his hypertensive state. I felt responsible for his death and I blamed my passivity as a healthcare professional. I felt like a hypocrite.
Unbeknownst to me, I would encounter a community resident pharmacist that would change my career path. I met her during a rotation where she was completing her year of residency. I’m sure I bugged her with the numerous questions about her experience, and her answers kept sticking in my mind. It was one of those transcendent moments, when you realize that the plan you had for yourself may not be the plan meant for you after all.
So, I abandoned my notion to become a retail pharmacist. I was filled with a new mission that trailed away from the sole intent of providing money for my family, and looked forward to the opportunity to become a community pharmacy resident. My new objective was to become the best pharmacist that I could be, so that I could give my patients the opportunity to see their children grow up, get married, and graduate from school.
In retrospect, I wish I would have been more proactive with my father’s health; however, his passing was the catalyst for me to work harder, to learn as much as possible, and to become a better healthcare professional. I strongly dislike clichés but the saying “things happen for a reason” resonates deeply with me.
I hope that no one else experiences the loss of his or her parents early in life. But the loss of my father has allowed me to connect and sympathize with patients who have lost someone. The healing process takes time – a lot of time. And the truth is that the pain never really goes away. You just kind of learn how to deal with it. I like to think that my father’s death was a sacrifice, to steer me away from simply making a living to living for others.