A
t the age of 16 I began training in martial arts.
What started as a hobby, a way to get in shape
and increase my self-confidence, soon turned into a
passion. I unexpectedly found myself on a path.
This path was one of self-exploration and develop-
ment. As I progressed in rank and understanding
and began to appreciate the benefits of improved
health, discipline, and self-esteem, as did so many
students before me, I developed a desire to teach
and pass on what I had been taught. After a num-
ber of years of assisting, several fellow instructors
and I opened up a martial arts school. I was in col-
lege at the time and frequently finished classes and
immediately raced down to the school to teach or
train. I found those days extremely challenging and
rewarding.
However, I soon discovered that my parents and
family did not fully appreciate my vision of my life
as a martial arts instructor. Although they were
always supportive, they encouraged me to consider
other avenues of employment. Given that my
father was a lawyer and I was a history major, law
seemed a reasonable way to make a living while
continuing my career as a martial artist. After going
through the application process, I was fortunate
enough to be accepted for admission. As I began to
contemplate graduation from college and the
prospect of the first year of law school, I began to
question my decision. I simply did not feel passion-
ate about becoming a lawyer. I began to reevaluate
what I did feel passionate about. What was it about
teaching martial arts that made me feel so fulfilled?
What I soon concluded was that I enjoyed
teaching and I enjoyed helping people improve
their health and well-being. Although a number of
careers would have afforded me the opportunity to
teach and promote health, I decided to become a
physician. For is not the essence of medicine to
teach people to improve and maintain their
health? In fact, the Latin root for doctor, docere,
means “to teach.” I can still remember the phone
call to my parents when I informed them that I was
deferring my law school entrance and planned to
start premed classes in summer school less than a
week after graduation.
Over the next year and a half, I completed
the premed requirements and was ultimately
accepted to Boston University School of Medicine.
During that time, I continued on my path of self-
exploration. I continued teaching martial arts and
began to question why conventional medicine did
not often utilize methods from other healing tra-
ditions. I had seen multiple examples of problems,
such as back pain, improved through the use of
t’ai ch’i, or asthma through the use of various
breathing exercises. I had seen multiple students
lose weight, improve their control of stress, and in
general improve their quality of life. To me a mar-
tial arts instructor, nothing felt more meaningful
and rewarding. To me, this was the essence of
good medicine.
As I began my formal medical training, I quickly
realized that teaching patients to improve or main-
tain their health was a part of medicine that often
got lost in trying to provide patients with the latest
advancements in order to diagnose, treat, or cure
disease. I also realized that others were less than
understanding of my desire to expand the usualix