I was six or seven years old when I became fascinated with the human body. I was intrigued by how movement occurs, and how I could hear my own voice inside my head. About that same time my father gave me Claude M Bristol’s The Magic of Believing. To be honest I didn’t quite understand the book, but what I did understand was that our brain is the will driving us forward. Since that moment I became passionate about the brain, asking my parents all about the brain and how it works. After days of asking they finally said to me, “you should go to medical school!”

I entered medical school with one priority in my mind, to understand the brain. Of course I was very young and couldn’t fathom the vast information available, and that “understanding the brain” was only the beginning of a long and impossible quest.

The first year was amazing. Anatomy classes were unbelievable; a lot of information, but I was finally discovering what was inside me. Dissection of human cadavers was simply the best time of the day. I was sometimes kicked off the dissection table because it was already 7 or 8pm. When we studied the brachial plexus I was simply amazed; those beautiful fibres crossing each other many times to finally just becoming a couple of nerves in the upper limb.

The second year began with neuroanatomy. Fortunately we have one of the best professors; a neurologist who doesn’t use PowerPoint. Using a whiteboard and some coloured markers, he drew the medulla, the brain, the basal ganglia and some of the connections between them. Without doubt it was the best class of my entire career.

After the basic cycle it was time for some clinical practice. As you may guess, neurology was one of my favourites. I was amazed at all the problems the nervous system could be subject to, ranging from multiple sclerosis, stroke, and seizures to von Recklinghausen disease. That neurology clerkship confirmed my passion for learning about the brain was still there.

In my final year, I will be completing a neurosurgery clerkship. Following this, my career goal is to become a neurosurgeon. To me, neurosurgery encompasses exploring the clinical findings and possible treatments (or even cures) for some of the diseases diagnosed.

Finding what you are passionate about- what you love- will make your career much more fun. Being passionate will give you a more powerful approach to what you do (studying, working, living), by driving you forward to achieve your goals. To me, the nervous system is what I’m passionate about; it drives me forward to keep studying it, to try to understand it, and hopefully dedicate the rest of my life to working with this beautiful system. Have you found your passion as a medical student?

A fifth year medical student in the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá Colombia, I am interested in neurosurgery, neurology (neurosciences in general) and education. I am part of the neurosciences group of the Hospital Universitario San Ignacio, and the Hippocampus group, a student-based neurosciences research group.