Esther Medo is a senior at North Carolina State University majoring in Biological Science. She is studying to become a trauma surgeon and has interests in music, sports, and reading. When she's not caregiving or studying, she loves trying new things from food to traveling.
Perspectives in Healthcare is brought to you by CareYaya, America's number one rated solution for in-home senior care, providing industry-leading quality care at the most affordable rates from over 50,000 students nationwide. CareYaya is known especially for delivering the most reliable and affordable overnight senior care and 24/7 care in many major metro areas including Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.
The table was unremarkable. Institutional furniture in an independent living facility, the kind chosen for durability rather than charm. But for Esther Medo, a senior at North Carolina State University, that table became a classroom where some of life's most essential lessons were taught between spoonfuls of ice cream.
Her patient, a man who had lived through decades she could only imagine, sat across from her with his favorite dessert. They had made this pilgrimage downstairs countless times before. Ice cream was not merely a treat for him but a ritual, a small pleasure that punctuated the rhythm of his days. On this particular afternoon, Esther shared her aspirations for the future. Medical school. The long road ahead. The dream of becoming a trauma surgeon. What he told her next would become a touchstone she would carry forward: Never give up on your dreams. He knew it would be hard. He said he was always rooting for her.
In that moment, the traditional boundaries between caregiver and patient dissolved. Here was not simply a young woman performing a service, but two people engaged in the ancient human practice of passing wisdom across generations. The man understood something about perseverance that transcended his need for assistance with daily tasks. And Esther, ambitious and driven, received advice that no medical textbook could provide.
For more than a year now, Esther has been working with CareYaya, attending to individuals ranging from their fifties to their mid-nineties. Her responsibilities vary: helping with household chores, supporting those with mobility challenges, assisting people whose memories have begun to fade, and often simply being present as a companion. The work requires her to move fluidly between roles, each patient presenting distinct needs, distinct personalities, distinct histories.
She entered caregiving with practical goals in mind. Medical schools require clinical hours, tangible evidence that applicants have spent time in the presence of illness and healing. She also possessed, as she puts it simply, a longstanding inclination toward helping those in need. What began as resume building, however, evolved into something more profound.
"Caregiving has impacted my skills on evaluating situations," Esther reflects. The work demands constant assessment, the ability to read a room, to notice subtle changes in mood or physical state, to respond with appropriate intervention or gentle presence. But beyond the technical skills, she discovered something unexpected about the nature of illness itself. She learned that people react differently to the same diseases. Two individuals with identical diagnoses might face their conditions with entirely different emotional landscapes, different coping mechanisms, different needs for support.
This recognition has made her more patient, more compassionate, more understanding. These are not merely pleasant personal qualities but essential professional tools for someone who aspires to work in trauma surgery, where the ability to see each patient as an individual rather than a case number can mean the difference between adequate care and exceptional healing.
The diversity of her patients has also taught her about the elasticity required in caregiving. She advises prospective student caregivers to approach the work with an open mind, to resist the temptation to specialize too early in only day shifts or only night shifts. "Go into it with the mindset of wanting to learn something new from every patient you encounter, everyday," she counsels. "If you do this you will gain the most from this experience."
This philosophy reflects a mature understanding that education happens not only in lecture halls and laboratories but in the homes of elderly people who need help reaching the cabinet where the dishes are stored, in the slow walks down hallways, in the conversations that meander through decades of accumulated experience.
Esther's path has not been conventional in the way many pre-med students approach their clinical requirements. While others might seek positions in gleaming hospital corridors, she has chosen the intimate, often invisible work of in-home caregiving. She is also someone who loves trying new things, from unfamiliar cuisines to destinations she has never visited. This openness to experience serves her well in caregiving, where each new patient represents uncharted territory. Her interests in music, sports, and reading suggest a person who seeks connection and meaning through multiple channels, who understands that a full life requires engagement with the world in its many forms.
As she continues her final year at NC State, studying biological science and preparing for the rigorous journey toward becoming a trauma surgeon, Esther carries with her the accumulated wisdom of her patients. The man who loved ice cream gave her permission to persist through difficulty. Others have taught her about resilience in the face of declining health, about maintaining dignity when the body no longer cooperates, about finding joy in small moments.
In trauma surgery, she will encounter people at their most acute moments of crisis. The work will demand technical precision, certainly, but also the very qualities she has been cultivating in living rooms and assisted living facilities across her community: the ability to see the whole person, to remain calm in uncertainty, to offer both competence and compassion.
The ice cream is long finished. The table has been cleared countless times since that conversation. But the lesson remains. In choosing to spend her college years caring for people who society often renders invisible, Esther Medo has received an education that will serve her throughout her medical career. She has learned that healing is not only about surgical intervention but about human connection, that expertise without empathy is incomplete, that the quiet moments of care are where character is both revealed and formed.
She entered caregiving to accumulate clinical hours. She is leaving it with something far more valuable: a foundation of wisdom built from the accumulated experiences of people who have lived full lives and who, in their moments of need, taught a future surgeon what it means to truly care.