What Do You Have to Offer?

It was around 1996 and the specter of the Clinton Health Plan was scaring US doctors and medical students alike. A lot of programs in specialties like Anesthesiology and Internal Medicine, couldn’t find residents to fill the needed slots. So several top US programs got together and headed to Europe to find young doctors.
I had finished medical school in Germany two years earlier and after my internship, couldn’t find a job. No one wanted to hire an African! Returning to Ghana was not yet an option as I wanted to finish residency.

One winter night, as I left the Genetics lab where I was working on a project, I saw a flyer. It offered the chance to doctors to go work in the US if one had passed the USMLEs. There was a meeting scheduled for the next evening in an auditorium in the building where the lab was. I made it to the meeting. I met the head of the agency who was organizing the search by the top US programs for residents in Europe. I registered for the interview.

Sometime in the summer of 1996, I headed to Munich for the interview. It was an overnight trip from Berlin. I changed into my only suit in a restroom stall at the train station when I got to Munich. I headed to the venue.
I entered a large hall with lots of people. Each program had it’s table. I registered again, got my name badge and headed to the first table.
For the last two years, I had traveled over Germany begging and groveling for a job. Somehow, my transcript from medical school was just not enough. Somehow what I had to offer was not good enough.
I stood there at the first table, hopeless and expecting disappointment. The words I heard changed everything.
“Dr Ghansah, what do you have to offer our program? Sell yourself!”, the gentleman behind the table said.
I was dumbstruck!
Me? What did I have to offer? Me? A poor African doctor no one wanted but who had a thousand dreams? I was dumbstruck!
“Dr Ghansah, we are waiting!”
Right then, I knew the US was different. Right there, I got hopeful.

I’ve been thinking of this a lot lately as I listen to two very distinct depictions of this country. One is dark and cynical. The other is bright and hopeful.
This country is different. The US hasn’t always done right by all, but man, is this an amazing experiment!
It is a given that there are many for whom life is a daily struggle. It is a given that there are many who are shut out from reaping the opportunities this country has to offer. It cannot be denied that racial bias is still an impediment to some.
In spite of all that, I’ll go with the vision of hope then no other country offers it in spades like the US does. I’ll go with hope because cynicism and darkness never helped anyone.

As an immigrant, I am always grateful for what this country has given me and I can say that about all the immigrants I know. Like me, they all heard that question:
“What do you have to offer?”
That day in Munich, my answer was: “Hard work”.
That is the answer of all immigrants – Hard work. You see, when you offer hope and opportunity, you get a lot back. Hard work, perseverance, creativity, new businesses, entrepreneurs, artists and on and on.

Maybe Americans born and bred here in the US do not see what I see. Maybe they expect more. Maybe their standards are higher. That is fine. However, if you would indulge me, I would like to ask a few questions:
“What does cynicism and darkness get you?
What do they have to offer?”