ploto
08-07-2010, 09:55 AM
Really nice article on Pau's time in medical school and his continued interest in medicine.
For full article: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=friend_tom&page=drgasol-100806
...Interesting how so many 7-footers wear basketball uniforms. But when Pau Gasol was 11 years old and 5-foot-nothing, he was thinking about another line of work.
In November 1991, at his Barcelona grade school, Gasol learned that one of his idols, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, had HIV. He remembers feeling flushed and wanting to be alone. Magic, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan were all his heroes, and he was convinced he would now have to subtract one.
"I thought, 'He's going to die,'" Gasol says. "At that time, HIV … AIDS equaled death. I was wandering around school, just thinking about it, just wow. There was a lot of speculation on how you can catch it. You were afraid of sipping on somebody's bottle of Coke or eating off the same plate. Things like that or saliva. Is it transmitted by blood only? As an 11-year-old, it's a lot to take. It had an impact."
At home, he went looking for answers. His mother, Marisa, was a physician, and his father, Agusti, was a nurse, and he asked them if Johnson would be alive in the 21st century. They couldn't guarantee it.
He decided, at that very moment, to fix the problem. He decided, right then, to become a doctor.
"I wanted to find the cure," Gasol says. "I wanted to be able to find the cure for major sicknesses. I wanted to find the cure for cancer. I was an 11-year-old dreaming at the time.
"When they'd ask me what I wanted to be, I'd say doctor. I wanted to be a scientist. That was my answer. I always enjoyed biology, science -- math even. The dream I had was that it would be nice to cure lives and save people's lives. I didn't know how ... but it was something I pictured."
He focused on his studies, but as the years passed, he grew to 6-feet-nothing and then 6-foot-something. The sport of basketball had always been in the equation, but now that he was pushing 7 feet, now that he towered over most everyone in Barcelona, he would have a decision to make soon.
He tried balancing both basketball and medicine at first -- and, the truth is, he wasn't the better for it. By day, he was an 18-year-old, first-year med student at the University of Barcelona; by night, he was a pivot man on the FC Barcelona club team. It might've worked if he had owned a car, but he was forced to take public transportation from school to basketball practice -- either that or hail a ride from his parents -- and that took a major toll on him.
"Taking a bus is always tough because you always have to be ducking," the 7-footer says. "But it also made me grow up in many ways because I didn't have any personal life at that time -- I was only committed to basketball and medicine. Most of my friends were hanging, and my basketball teammates were playing basketball and hanging out, and the guys at med school -- they were studying. I was doing both."
During that exhausting first year, he cut corners wherever he could. In his first semester, he had full-squad basketball practices in the morning, three medical courses in the late morning/early afternoon and then basketball drill-work in the late afternoon. The only un-stressful days were game nights. He had to get creative -- wearing basketball shorts under his dress pants -- but he passed the three classes with above-average test scores...
For full article: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=friend_tom&page=drgasol-100806
...Interesting how so many 7-footers wear basketball uniforms. But when Pau Gasol was 11 years old and 5-foot-nothing, he was thinking about another line of work.
In November 1991, at his Barcelona grade school, Gasol learned that one of his idols, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, had HIV. He remembers feeling flushed and wanting to be alone. Magic, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan were all his heroes, and he was convinced he would now have to subtract one.
"I thought, 'He's going to die,'" Gasol says. "At that time, HIV … AIDS equaled death. I was wandering around school, just thinking about it, just wow. There was a lot of speculation on how you can catch it. You were afraid of sipping on somebody's bottle of Coke or eating off the same plate. Things like that or saliva. Is it transmitted by blood only? As an 11-year-old, it's a lot to take. It had an impact."
At home, he went looking for answers. His mother, Marisa, was a physician, and his father, Agusti, was a nurse, and he asked them if Johnson would be alive in the 21st century. They couldn't guarantee it.
He decided, at that very moment, to fix the problem. He decided, right then, to become a doctor.
"I wanted to find the cure," Gasol says. "I wanted to be able to find the cure for major sicknesses. I wanted to find the cure for cancer. I was an 11-year-old dreaming at the time.
"When they'd ask me what I wanted to be, I'd say doctor. I wanted to be a scientist. That was my answer. I always enjoyed biology, science -- math even. The dream I had was that it would be nice to cure lives and save people's lives. I didn't know how ... but it was something I pictured."
He focused on his studies, but as the years passed, he grew to 6-feet-nothing and then 6-foot-something. The sport of basketball had always been in the equation, but now that he was pushing 7 feet, now that he towered over most everyone in Barcelona, he would have a decision to make soon.
He tried balancing both basketball and medicine at first -- and, the truth is, he wasn't the better for it. By day, he was an 18-year-old, first-year med student at the University of Barcelona; by night, he was a pivot man on the FC Barcelona club team. It might've worked if he had owned a car, but he was forced to take public transportation from school to basketball practice -- either that or hail a ride from his parents -- and that took a major toll on him.
"Taking a bus is always tough because you always have to be ducking," the 7-footer says. "But it also made me grow up in many ways because I didn't have any personal life at that time -- I was only committed to basketball and medicine. Most of my friends were hanging, and my basketball teammates were playing basketball and hanging out, and the guys at med school -- they were studying. I was doing both."
During that exhausting first year, he cut corners wherever he could. In his first semester, he had full-squad basketball practices in the morning, three medical courses in the late morning/early afternoon and then basketball drill-work in the late afternoon. The only un-stressful days were game nights. He had to get creative -- wearing basketball shorts under his dress pants -- but he passed the three classes with above-average test scores...