November 23, 2002: On a bright and sunny Saturday morning, ASIA along with a group of young women, who either attend college or high school, gathered in the Wolffe Auditorium inside New England Medical Center to attend the ASPIRE discussion panel.

The Mission of Aspire, which stands for Asian Sisters Participating in Reaching Excellence, is to help young Asian American women to "find" their future by holding workshops on a variety of topics. They bring in professionals from different fields to hold discussions with the young women.

The topic of discussion that day was "Asian American Women in Medicine and Public Health." Those who attended this workshop had the opportunity to meet three women who had made their way into the field of medecine.

Sandy Chin, MD., an urologist gave a look into the life of working as a medical surgeon. Since Ms. Chin had an emergency call, she had to cut her story short. Shun Tsai, BU Public Health, explained to the listeners how she finally decided to work in the field of public health. She really enjoyed traveling, but at the same time, she wished to do something that would help others. Thus, her decision was to work in public health. Reshma Thadani- a Drexel 3rd year medical student, Masters of Public Health, and a graduate of Columbia University- explained to the listeners her long journey in finally deciding on what she wanted to do.

This was a great experience because I got to meet other young women who had trouble deciding whether the medical field was what they wanted to pursue. Now, they helped me decide what field of medicine I should seek. I would love to do this again.

- by Nancy Wong (II)