I graduated from medical school last week and will shortly start my residency in family medicine. From this vantage point in my career, I have already been privileged to be a part of many people's lives. Doctors see people at their best and at their worst. We assist at birth and death. We comfort the mundanely curable and the tragically terminal. Frankly, we see some very unsettling things, the depths of human suffering. Yet, for me personally, the most disturbing part of medicine is the impact of medical cost on patients. The conditions caught too late due to finances. The patient bankrupted. The needed prescription unfilled. The multitude of injustices. As a health care provider, I accept the inherent uncertainty in health - no one knows why one child gets cancer and another is healthy. I can't change that, and spiritually believe that I am not meant to understand it. But for a wealthy modern society to so greatly neglect the health of those least able to advocate for themselves is unethical. It's our failure to take care of our fellow man. It's un-American. Let's fix it.

Sarah GaleWyrick MD