30th
Taking Stock
I was born in San Diego, California in October of 1984 at Sharp Memorial Hospital, where my mother still practices as an Emergency Department physician. My mother considered herself blessed that she had ever had a child at all, given previous use of a type of birth control pill that was later found to render many childless.
My earliest memories relate to—of all things—my participation in youth sports. I was a champion sprinter in grade school, a talent I turned into a weapon on the soccer field. At the “right wing” position of the “Surf” Soccer team, I remember practicing biweekly on polo grounds, traveling to tournaments at far-away places like Las Vegas—and most of all, the feeling of zooming toward the goal with a soccer ball at my feet. My efforts on the soccer field culminated in our team being named state champions when I was ten—it was a joyous ride home to San Diego from Sacramento.
Like a typical Californian, when I wasn’t playing (or practicing) soccer, I was often outdoors: cruising around on my longboard skateboard, bodysurfing at the beach, or playing “pogs” with the other kids on my suburban block in Del Mar.
Beginning with pre-K, I had the privilege of attending a series of selective, private schools. Indeed, I have never attended a public school, for better or worse. At La Jolla Country Day School, the earliest subject I remember learning was D’Nealian, a type of print writing that one learns before cursive. I remember learning how to curl my “r’s” and “f’s” just right. I remember participating in arithmetic exercises where one arrives at a mathematical way to form “24” from four different numbers. I remember science projects in which I examined the effect of different lubricants on a train track; I remember (visiting and) building a model replica of the San Juan Capistrano Mission, a former Spanish missionary outpost in California that recruited American Indians to the Christian faith.
Sometime in middle school my interests became more intellectual. I became very much enamored of a series of detective novels, reading every single Hardy Boys book in print. I was so captivated by this series of books that, upon finishing them, I even took up Nancy Drew novels, which were designed for young female readers! A few years later I would discover my own knack for writing, and became a proficient short-story writer. One of the most important things that La Jolla Country Day did was to get all students on a computer as soon as possible. The touch-typing I learned then served me well in this endeavor. At this time, I also became interested in chess, participating in tournaments throughout the state. I continue to play chess, though only recreationally, today.
At age 13, I had my Bar Mitzvah, where I read in Hebrew from the Torah and delivered a sermon from the Haftarah. By this point I had become a fairly potent critical thinker. I distinctly remember being an atheist by the time I underwent this initiation ritual.
I went to high school at the Bishop’s School in La Jolla. I grew to be quite large—6’3”, to be exact—while there. Thus while I continued to excel on the soccer field, I also took an interest in football and tennis, serving as running back for the Knights for two years and playing varsity tennis all four years of high school. At Bishop’s, I took a rigorous course load that taught me the fundamentals of mathematics, science, Western history, and writing/composition. I put my writing chops to work in penning a column for the school newspaper, The Tower. I recall an exposé on local favorite hamburger place In-n-Out and its secret menu receiving wide readership. My continued interest in creative as writing secured me a Molly Martinek award for a short story I wrote relating a story of a young person who goes fishing for the first time and his reflections on the morality of the act. I was named a National Merit Scholar for my performance on the PSAT, and performed similarly well on the SAT. My senior year, I accepted an invitation to attend Pomona College, a liberal arts school located in Southern California.
At Pomona, my mentor was John Seery, a professor of political science, who would later serve as my advisor. I visited his office at least weekly to debate him on any number of socio-political points. I had discovered the elegance of economics by this point and was eager to compare my “rational choice” model of human behavior to his more sanguine view of human nature. Unable to convince him, I put my opinions in print, serving as assistant editor of the school newspaper, the Student Life, penning columns on everything from local campus politics to the arrival of Facebook at Pomona. (In the beginning, Facebook was rolled out school by school.) Liberated from having a prescribed curriculum, I took a wide array of courses at Pomona. I learned Mandarin Chinese up to an intermediate level. I took computer science courses. I took neurobiology courses, where I recall ablating a section of a rat’s brain called the nucleus accumbens in order to measure the effect on his movements. (An even more interesting neurobiological happening was when the girl to my left feinted as a result of the procedure.) True to my interests in writing and the nature of human action, I majored in political science. I graduated in 3.5 years, and headed to Washington, D.C to take an internship with the Cato Institute.
The Cato Institute is a public policy research organization—commonly known as a think tank—located in the nation’s capital. It employs about 100 scholars who examine public policy issues—such as immigration or health care—and the legislation surrounding these issues. Typically the scholars take a “free market” perspective, one that had come to dominate my thinking by this time. After interning at Cato under polymath Will Wilkinson, I would go on to become a Charles G. Koch Fellow at a neighboring think tank, Competitive Enterprise Institute. There I would pen an important commentary on the maltreatment of chronic pain patients by the DEA in the pages of the Washington Times, and manage a video documentary project entitled the “Politics of Pain” on the same subject. I also blogged regularly on FDA issues at CEI’s flagship blog, “Open Market.”
Subsequently, I was hired by the Cato Institute to serve as Staff Writer. While at Cato I penned numerous important articles for Cato Policy Report, for which I served as assistant editor, and wrote from scratch Cato’s 2007 and 2008 Annual Report. In addition, I edited the President’s Bimonthly Memo, a newsletter, and Cato’s Letter, a quarterly piece of direct mail. Continuing my interest in FDA regulation, I contributed to the American Spectator an argument against the FDA taking over tobacco regulation, which unfortunately, didn’t sway Congress. I would also write on USDA regulation of organic foods in the Washington Post and the issue of whether to fund “preventive medicine” in the upcoming health care overhaul in the Washington Examiner. Indeed, I was a featured health policy commentator in every major Washington, D.C. newspaper, and continue to publish on these subjects. At Cato, I also had the privilege of working under David Boaz, the executive vice president of Cato and a person to whom I still look to for his work ethic, tenacity, and vast intelligence.
Where does a young, childless, self-sufficient 23-year-old live in Washington, D.C.? Why, in the area with the cheapest rents in town. Thus, I lived in an apartment in an area dominated by projects, Ledroit Park. Each day as I traveled (by skateboard) to work at the Cato Institute, I saw urban poor living without access to many of the amenities I had taken for granted in growing up, things such as sanitation, proper nutrition, and access to health care. My feelings of powerlessness over this situation were the reason I began volunteering two nights per week at Howard University Hospital, the hospital nearest my apartment and one that served the urban poor. I volunteered in the emergency department, transporting patients via gurneys and lab tests on my own two legs. Once I became familiar with Howard University Hospital, I began leading a monthly tour of the premises for new hospital employees.
Though at the pinnacle of the public policy world, by this point I had realized that my talents for writing were portable. Especially after making the connections I did, if I wanted to write—and be read—I knew that I always could, regardless of whether I was stationed at a think tank or not. But if I was to be a significant player in the health policy debate, and have a significant impact on the people I knew needed help the most, then what I needed was additional knowledge and direct experience.
I did not think that a degree in economics, as many of my colleagues at Cato completed, would be sufficient. I additionally took lineage into account—the product of two doctors, carrying the family mantle seemed a natural choice.
Currently I am in the process of completing my pre-medical coursework as a post-baccalaureate pre-medical student at American University. Having already taking organic chemistry, calculus, and statistics at AU, I am currently mastering (second-semester) physics and biology. I volunteer both at Howard and at Georgetown, where I shadow prominent echocardiologist, Steven Goldstein, and his fellows. At Georgetown, I have I have seen amazing things such as open-heart surgery. At Howard, I have participated in them, sometimes ferrying patients in the throes of Sickle Cell attacks to the emergency room.
Soon I will take the MCAT. In June 2010 I will apply to medical school. It will not be long before I begin the next phase of my life, as a physician.
