In the Light
Shannon Larabee
Alyssa Perez
Issue date: 2/28/08 Section: Arts & Features
Sitting in an ambulance rushing headlong toward the hospital, a patient goes into cardiac arrest. Most people who saw a human fighting for life would stay away from hospitals and emergency rooms for good, but not senior Shannon Larabee.
"The feeling of 'all I know how to do is CPR' bothered me," Larabee said.
This feeling of helplessness has been pushing Larabee to be a doctor since her childhood. Today, as a Molecular Biology major, Larabee is on the path to understanding any and every problem that the human body can throw her way as she applies to medical schools in her home state of Texas and around the nation.
"The human body absolutely fascinates me. How did we end up the way we are? How are our bodies always functioning?" Larabee said.
It is this love and curiosity about the body that Larabee has explored through shadowing general surgeons, her possible specialty, over the summers and participating in Southern Madison County Volunteer Ambulance Corps (SOMAC) since her sophomore year.
"I got to shadow a general surgeon and even got to watch a seven hour surgery. I liked the fact that he knew so much; he could look at a patient and his chart and he knew exactly what tests to run. I want to be able to put a person back together like that. Say, 'X, Y and Z are wrong and figure out how to fix it all," Larabee said.
As passionate as Larabee is about medicine, she simply glows when she talks about her involvement with the Colgate Ballet Company over the past four years. She has even been director of the company for the past three semesters and was able to get children from local ballet classes involved in the production of The Nutcracker. Although she has had to curb her involvement this semester due to the looming MCATs, her eyes still glow anytime she hears "ballet."
"When you're a dancer you have to figure out how you move, understand your body," Larabee said. "So ballet gives me an appreciation of the aesthetic of the human body. Dancing is a story of motion, beauty in motion. It's beyond words."
"I'm a dork," Larabee joked after expressing her excitement for her upcoming 18-hour shift with SOMAC this Friday; but I am sure that the man in the ambulance is eternally grateful for that self-proclaimed "dork" that helped save his life.
"The feeling of 'all I know how to do is CPR' bothered me," Larabee said.
This feeling of helplessness has been pushing Larabee to be a doctor since her childhood. Today, as a Molecular Biology major, Larabee is on the path to understanding any and every problem that the human body can throw her way as she applies to medical schools in her home state of Texas and around the nation.
"The human body absolutely fascinates me. How did we end up the way we are? How are our bodies always functioning?" Larabee said.
It is this love and curiosity about the body that Larabee has explored through shadowing general surgeons, her possible specialty, over the summers and participating in Southern Madison County Volunteer Ambulance Corps (SOMAC) since her sophomore year.
"I got to shadow a general surgeon and even got to watch a seven hour surgery. I liked the fact that he knew so much; he could look at a patient and his chart and he knew exactly what tests to run. I want to be able to put a person back together like that. Say, 'X, Y and Z are wrong and figure out how to fix it all," Larabee said.
As passionate as Larabee is about medicine, she simply glows when she talks about her involvement with the Colgate Ballet Company over the past four years. She has even been director of the company for the past three semesters and was able to get children from local ballet classes involved in the production of The Nutcracker. Although she has had to curb her involvement this semester due to the looming MCATs, her eyes still glow anytime she hears "ballet."
"When you're a dancer you have to figure out how you move, understand your body," Larabee said. "So ballet gives me an appreciation of the aesthetic of the human body. Dancing is a story of motion, beauty in motion. It's beyond words."
"I'm a dork," Larabee joked after expressing her excitement for her upcoming 18-hour shift with SOMAC this Friday; but I am sure that the man in the ambulance is eternally grateful for that self-proclaimed "dork" that helped save his life.
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