The Privilege to Care

I am so deeply privileged.

Privileged to study healthcare in the United States. To sit in lecture halls learning from leaders in this country. To wear scrubs. To be challenged in learning how to care for the human body, its pain, its resilience, and its quiet miracles. To be surrounded by knowledge, opportunity, and support.

I do not take this for granted. Because I know it could have been so different.

As I prepare for my studies in healthcare, I must reflect on my beginnings. I didn’t arrive here by accident.

I was born on the island of Borneo. My family is Kadazan, making us indigenous to the land. My childhood was shaped by two worlds: one of wisdom, cultural richness, and deep spiritual roots…and another shaped by the privileges of the West. I feel incredibly lucky to have grown up with access to education, safety, and opportunity, knowing that not everyone, especially back in my home, gets that chance.

Back home, health was not a guarantee. In rural areas, clinics are scarce. Transportation is limited. Care is often delayed. I’ve seen how far families must travel just to be seen. I’ve heard stories of individuals suffering from malnutrition. Others from preventable infectious diseases. Many going without basic vaccines. Of elders living with chronic pain, not because they are weak, but because the system never made space for them. In rural Borneo, many families earn in a month what I used to make in just two weeks at my part-time job - if that. That difference between what’s expected here and what’s possible is something I’ve never forgotten. 

And yet, I was given a different path.

I was given the privilege of education in America. I was given the chance to learn. To choose this profession. To say, “I want to be a nurse. I want to go into critical care.”.

That choice alone is a privilege many people will never be afforded.

Sometimes I sit with that truth, and it deeply humbles me.

Because I am no more worthy than those who stayed behind. The ones who are just as bright, just as strong, just as full of potential, but who never got the chance. I know that. I carry them with me.

There is a piece of Borneo in everything I do. In how I pay attention. In how I sit with people’s pain. In the small, quiet ways, I try to honor their stories.

I earned my degree in Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt, a program that allowed me to study health through an interdisciplinary lens, drawing from the medical sciences, humanities, and social sciences. It pushed me beyond the traditional biomedical model and into a deeper understanding of how various forces shape health.

I wasn’t just learning what disease is, but why some communities suffer more than others. Why is access uneven? Why are health outcomes unjust? I studied medicine not just as a science, but as a human system. To understand the body, the systems that hold us together, is not something I take for granted.

That foundation taught me that to care for someone truly, I must first understand the world they live in.

It gave me the language to speak about health disparities, but also the conviction to help dismantle them. 

So privileged am I to further learn about them from a textbook now, knowing my earliest understanding of them came from watching my loved ones move through a healthcare system that, at the time, lacked the resources to fully support them.

It’s what led me to nursing: my desire to stand closer to people.

Working as a CNA, I saw healthcare from the inside out. I wiped tears. I held hands. I watched patients, especially overlooked ones, long for dignity. And that’s when I realized: the most sacred part of this work isn’t just medicine. It’s presence. It’s advocacy. It’s remembering that healthcare is not just a profession: it is a form of love.

Through to live well., inspired by the Kadazan phrase “Ahhanzan zou doh ahvasi” or “let us live well” I return to what matters: emotional wellness. Stillness. Ritual. The small, human choices we make that keep us grounded even in suffering.

And I want to take what I’ve learned and bring it home.

To Borneo. To underserved communities. To the bedside of every patient who has ever felt invisible. 

I want to be a bridge between privilege and purpose. I want to help build a healthcare system where wellness is not determined by geography, income, or race.

Where the ones who come after me don’t need privilege to dream.

Because every human being deserves to live in dignity. Deserves to be seen. Deserves to be cared for.

And I will spend the rest of my life fighting for that kind of world.