By Jackson Darby
2026:
Her senior year, she’s not sitting at a desk in school. She’s in the operating room … observing the birth of a newborn to prepare her for her future.
“I’ve been there to deliver babies and I’ve seen trauma patients come into the ER,” senior Jordan Bunch said. “I’ve also been able to see people who are normally in the hospital with issues like breathing or things that they can’t take care of at home.”
Her internship at IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital has given her the clarity she’s needed to finalize this difficult decision to become a doctor. The career choice has been driven by her love for learning and her heart for serving.
2037:
Now, that baby whose birth she witnessed is an 11 year old kid– going into sixth grade. Meanwhile, Bunch is fresh out of medical school ready to practice on her own.
As many people know, becoming a doctor doesn’t take the same amount of years as finishing high school.
It requires an extra 11 to 16 years of college, medical school, and hands-on training before fully stepping into the role.
Bunch hopes to become a physician and is thinking of a family medicine position right now.
“I’ll be done with everything and on my own to practice in 2037,” Bunch said.
She realizes how difficult the process will be, but her faith and dedication makes those worries not affect her as much as it might with others.
“I’m just trusting that whatever God has for me, He will provide and just guide me to whatever decision He’s calling me to,” Bunch said. “And if that changes, then He’ll just make that evident to me, just look at Jeremiah 29:11.”
Jeremiah 29:11 (ESV) says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
While Bunch’s inspiration came from her internship, another student’s motivation came from being in the hospital bed himself.
After developing a heart condition called pericardial effusion, senior Brycen McNeil was able to learn more about how the human body works.
“My freshman year I had a heart condition,” McNeil said. “Going back to think about it, I wouldn’t be interning at Ball Memorial right now if that hadn’t happened.”
Pericardial effusion is a buildup of excess fluid in the sac surrounding the heart (the pericardium). This can cause sharp, stabbing chest pain, shortness of breath, palpitations and fatigue.
It is treatable by either draining the excess fluid or letting it resolve itself which takes time. McNeil was fortunate enough for it to be resolved on its own.
McNeil is looking to become an emergency room physician and to hopefully go through Ball State’s Baccalaureate to Doctor of Medicine (B/MD) program.
“The B/MD program is an advanced placement in medical school,” McNeil said. “I reached out to them recently and am supposed to hear back from them this month, and hopefully everything goes to plan.”
He describes his plan as “a long path,” but he doesn’t look entirely on what’s miles ahead. His focus is to stay locked into the present and do his best one day at a time.
Not every future healthcare worker’s dream is influenced by actually being in the hospital room. Some sparks start by watching those same halls come to life through a screen.
Senior Lillian Vorhees wants to go into nursing, specifically the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit), which was inspired by the show “Grey’s Anatomy.” This medical drama dives deep into the lives of professional surgical interns, residents, and more.
While watching a show might be able to teach you some things, the medical field is too complex to be captured in one-hour episodes.
“I will be going to Ball State next year, which I’m excited about, but looking ahead to all the more years of education is not fun,” she said.
Different students will discover their passion in some way. Maybe not like the examples above, but they can simply be from the people closest to them.
Following her cousin’s footsteps, Kennedy Corey has dreamed of becoming a labor and delivery nurse since she was a little kid.
She always wanted to do something involving helping kids; her backup plan was to do something at the elementary school level.
To become an L&D nurse, it takes two to four years of nursing school (to earn a bachelor’s degree), and one to three months to pass the NCLEX-RN exam to become a Registered Nurse. Then another two years or more, working in the hospital (mostly postpartum or general medicine first), before transferring to the station of L&D.
“I just try to think about what my future’s going to look like and how rewarding it will be in the long run,” Corey said. “That will definitely help, especially since the extra years of learning isn’t fun to look forward to.”
These are different stories, each with different backgrounds. However, each of these students is taking the same steps for the same kind of path and will be helping others when it matters most.
