Motivation

At the biomedical engineering program at UCI, I was frustrated by how few students and faculty seemed to have a good motivation and reason for their studies and research. It was so disappointing to time and time again sit in a classroom and not be able to find a single compelling reason why the instructor was in BME. There were certainly exceptions among faculty and students alike...but it shouldn't be the exception. It should be why they are in the classroom in the first place. This is the field where people are trying to help burn victims, and the hundreds of thousands who are waiting for an organ donation, and anyone with any kind of physical disability, and those with combat injuries, and on and on and on. How can you be in this field and not even appear motivated? No act should be necessary: motivated people live out their motivation.

On Tuesday in biomaterials, we saw pictures a patient who was born without a skull. And today we saw pictures of soldiers from Iraq, a man who had been shot through the jaw, and a woman who had large portions of her hands and face blown off by a bomb while driving a humvee, and another who's thigh was gaping open, and another who's face could hardly be recognized as such. The professor was getting our attention: he showed us the pictures and told us to find solutions for these kinds of problems. Do the research, make it clinical, make it real. Millions of people around the world are waiting for solutions, longing to attain "normal" physiological function. And they won't have to wait as long if the universities and hospitals and companies working towards solutions are filled with people who understand the needs.

So thank you, Dr. H, for sharing with us students your motivation, and for living out an admirable career, and for training us to seek the same. I wish all my instructors could and would do that.

I recognize, too, that there are a lot of possible motivations. In writing this entry I certainly don't discount the researcher who is focused on discovery and basic science, rather than clinical developments.

One more thing: all of this, every last bit, is dependent upon God existing, and upon God being good. If He doesn't or if He isn't, no one on this planet is worth squat, and the above motivation goes right out the window. So praise be to the God who is good, defines what is good, shows us what is good, who healed the sick when He walked this earth, and who is the ultimate bioengineer.