Next semester

I'm registered for 9 credits next semester, which is a huge step down from the 19 I took in the fall. But even with only three classes, I just realized I'm going to be super busy with work, MCAT studying, and AMCAS application writing.

So I'm thinking of dropping one of my classes because it won't really change my GPA significantly any more but taking it might prevent me from keeping my sanity. In such a case, I would like to audit Biochem II because I heard the professor is a really hard grader, but given the fact that I got a B last semester in Biochem I, I don't think it would look good on my application. So that leaves me with dropping Biology of the Cancer Cell, which I've heard really good things about and kind of want to take. Hmm. Decisions, decisions.

In bullet-point form, one thing has got to give this semester out of the following:

• Work
• Three classes
• MCAT studying
• AMCAS application writing
• Rugby

And I really don't want it to be rugby. I tried that this semester and I was miserable. I need some sort of social interaction, but it would be the easiest to cut (again). The other option is to go back to racquetball instead, which is still physical exercise on a team with a much shorter commute but also a little less fun.

I think for now I've decided on sticking with my three classes for the first two weeks of the semester to feel them out and see how the course load will be for me, and make the decision then. If I do have to drop a class, then it'll have to be the Cancer Cell because it's the one I don't necessarily NEED, but would like to have to increase my GPA.

Oh, and even though I swear I'm over that B from biochem, I'm still kind of worried about not having straight As, considering my undergrad grades. But LizzyM somewhat allayed my fears with this comment:

Quote:

Originally Posted by p Hey LizzyM, thanks for doing this! If I'm shooting for a top-tier med school, how concerning would a B in biochem 1 look to an adcom when my overall GPA is a 3.80 and sGPA is a 3.75+ and I've earned A's in both genetics and cell biology? Will an A in biochem 2 make up for this?

It makes you look human. No worries.

Granted, I'm not even close to his GPA and I should be perfect from now on, but one B won't kill me. That, and there's nothing I can do about it now, so I need to STOP FRETTING!!!

MCAT studying

The MCAT and I have a love-hate relationship. On the one hand, I REALLY like doing problems about science, but on the other hand I don't like having to know something. So I look forward to doing physics passages in my free time (I'm a freak, I know) but if I have to do them then I procrastinate like whoa. It's a weird dynamic between me and the MCAT...

Also, I haven't taken or done physics since my freshman year of college over 8 years ago and I still remember a good chunk of it (helps to be physics/logical-minded). Although I appreciate remembering a lot of what I need to know about gravity, forces, projectiles, etc, I've found that MCAT prep will have to involve working through the entire physics textbook in the next three months. Ay ay ay! Every 4th day just a got a bit more busy. But really, I don't mind. I kind of liked physics anyway.

Reminder to write to LizzyM, and her response

On SDN (Student Doctor Network) there's a thread going around where LizzyM, an adcom at a top tier private university, is answering anyone and everyone's questions. Unfortunately, she's gone for the holidays just as I was about to ask her a question, so I'm posting it here so I don't forget to email her when she comes back.

In response to this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by h What is your opinion about applicants addressing weaknesses in their apps without being questioned during their interview?

If you address weaknesses in your application, you might not get an interview. You might get an interview and be asked about your weaknesses or you might not be asked about your weaknesses.

Frankly, I think that weaknesses are like zits. Almost everyone has one at one time or another. You can call attention to it or you can do something to take attention away from it. The reader/interviewer can see it and might be curious about it and might mention it or might look to see if it is addressed in your LOR.

I want to write this:

It seems like you stated that weaknesses shouldn't be addressed in the application because they are so common, but shouldn't a very spotty undergrad GPA that was somewhat fixed a few years later by an almost-perfect post-bacc be addressed since it's the elephant in the room? Should I not mention it in the app at all and explain myself in interviews if it comes up? If addressed, should that be in the personal statement or elsewhere? I have no good explanation for my bad grades except I wasn't mature enough to take school seriously and didn't consider my future at the time, choosing to live in the moment instead. No extenuating circumstances or anything. So addressing it would be limited to that comment.

And here is her response:

A small blemish is what I call a zit. Awhile back I got a PM from an applicant who had a college gpa <3.0 and post bac of 4.0 and MCAT >38. Here's what I wrote in response:

Your situation is not a zit, it is a scar that runs from your earlobe to your chin. The adcom will be begging to know what happened and how you survived.

The story is not so much how you got slashed but how you turned things around and came back against overwhelming odds and triumphed. It could be a great story and I hope you'll write it.

Congrats on the great performance on the MCAT and in the post-bac. Some post-bac schools will send great committee letters that will tell your story in a very sympathetic way (based on your interview with your advisor).

I recently got a nice thank you note from the applicant to tell me of great success this cycle.

While I no longer have the 4.0, I do expect to score about this high on the MCAT so I think I should be OK. I'm aiming for a 3.93 for the whole post-bacc experience, which is high enough according to another member of an admissions committee board (anything 3.8 or higher is awesome). Phew!

And the Bs start pouring in

Grades are starting to trickle in and I just broke my 4.0 from post-bacc classes. Sadness. I've been preparing myself for this for the past week so I'm not too upset about it, but I didn't expect a solid B in biochem. I had a pretty decent chance at the A, so I must've really bombed the final to drop myself all the way down to a B, even though I thought I had totally killed it. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now.

Since I'm pretty convinced I got the B in physio (grades aren't up yet so no proof), my post-bacc is going to go down to 3.88, which is dangerously close to not having a 3.8+ post-bacc GPA. And apparently that's the ultimate goal.

With Biochem II grading being harder and more intense than Biochem I, I'm kind of worried I will drop below that threshold. Ay, the stress!

But, what I have learned this semester is to keep up with the work and not leave it to the last minute. Duh, right? But I've managed to get by every other semester, and this time just bit me in the butt. So lesson learned.

Only way to go is up!

Edit: I caved and looked to see the breakdown of finals for all my classes. I managed to squeak by with an A in physiology (!), and did indeed bomb the biochem final (a whopping 68%). I have no idea how I did so poorly in biochem, as I came out of that exam feeling awesome. But since I know I studied my butt off and felt like I couldn't study any more than I already had, I'm ok with the B because I gave it my all. If I had gotten a B in physio or bio, I would've been pissed because the only reason for that grade would've been burnout and complete laziness. So although I'm still mourning the loss of my 4.0, I'm totally okay with it and will probably sleep better tonight knowing all my grades from this semester are finally decided.

Shadowing, Version 2.0

I'd been debating asking my knee surgeon if I could shadow him, because I already have shadowing history with a specialist (my hand guy from this summer), so it'd be kind of redundant with regards to my medical school app. I'm all for jumping through hoops to get into school but I'd like to minimize them because I don't have that much time between school, work, and now, MCAT studying. So if I'm going to shadow somebody out of necessity, it's either going to be a family practitioner or the pulmonologist.

But then I realized that not all of this is about off checking boxes and I'm truly interested in orthopedics, so why not? The hand guy shadowing was limited to his clinic and not the OR, so I figured I'd give the knee surgeon a shot and see what happens with this dude. If I decided I didn't want to do it after inquiring, then I could always not follow up and let it be. But this was my only chance to ask him in person, so I might as well take the opportunity while it presented itself.

So I mentioned to the PA that I wanted to speak to the doctor about shadowing him during my post-op visit, and as she was taking out my stitches she asked, "You mean the OR or the clinic?" I did the Barbara Walters "Wait, what?" face, because I couldn't believe my ears! Heck yeah, I want to shadow him in the OR!!!

Suddenly my meh-I-don't-feel-like-shadowing-an-orthopedist-again feelings went out the window. The PA talked to the office manager, who totally agreed, and the doc seemed very enthusiastic about it when I saw him at the end of my visit so I'm super stoked.

This whole surgery has been one heck of a good decision!

End of my mini vacation

Now that my mom's gone home and I'm not on a whole bunch of mind-altering pain meds, it's time to go back to the real world and get things done.

About a month ago, I had a mini breakdown about my life and how I won't get a rest until my med school app is submitted in June. Now working and studying don't seem like such a big deal. I have a HUGE meeting with my boss on Wednesday about all the work I'm supposed to have finished in November that I haven't even started (I took all of December off due to finals so it's not as bad as it sounds) but somehow I'm not stressing out about it at all. I'm supposed to start studying for the MCAT today and that's not really bothering me at all. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it. Because what else am I supposed to do with all this free time?

Surgery

My leg was fixed this past Wednesday in the best possible way. A tear in the meniscus was discovered, but it wasn't repairable so they just cut it out. So not only did my worry about having unneccessary surgery evaporate (diagnostic procedures are the worst!), I also got the result with the shortest recovery time. Pretty sweet, if you ask me.

For the past couple of days, I've been reliving the whole experience, trying to hang on to the few things I remember between the time my IV was put in to finally being discharged several hours later. This is the closest I've been to an OR since my last surgery in 2005, and not nearly as close as I was in high school when I got to observe a tumor removal from a man's pelvis.

Most of the experience is pretty fuzzy, understandably so, but the parts I do remember are pretty fascinating. It's like being able to shadow a surgeon from a very intimate perspective, and it's probably the most surgery shadowing I will get to see for another couple of years.

It's amazing how quickly the IV drugs kicked in, how nonchalant but efficient all the people in the OR were about getting me prepped for the procedure, and how professional and caring the nurses were when I finally woke up in post-op. It was also very interesting to see how a different hospital runs their outpatient surgery department as compared to the one I volunteer at every week. It's weird being on the receiving end of everything I tell people both as a volunteer and as an EMT on the ambulance company I worked at in college.

All in all, it's nice to be a patient and see what it's like for my future patients, so I can better understand what they will go through.

I sound like one of those pre-meds who gets excited about everything and anything medical they come in contact with, but seriously, this was pretty neat, mostly because I want exactly this to be my life and I just got a very intimate glimpse into what it may be like in the future, albeit from a very different perspective.

And I'm so stoked that it all turned out the way I had hoped it would. That's the best part!

My happy place

Last night's theme: Onesies

We won. Not just at life.

How I get through marathon studying days

Here is another quote that keeps me going, from a professional cyclist.

Levi Leipheimer
It’s a constant battle with yourself. You know, I just want to give ups and say “Screw it. I’m not going to be fourth or fifth in this Giro, that’s it, I’m cracked.”

But you don’t ever let up. You just have to keep tricking yourself like, “Okay, one more kilometer. Just one more kilometer, one more switchback.” You just trick yourself and trick yourself until you’re at the finish line.

And because as much as you’re hurting then, if you give up, that sticks with you much longer than the 30 or 40 minutes that you have to sit there and suffer.

Note regarding grade obsession

Before you judge my obsession with grades, you have to understand that my undergrad GPA was horrendous. I have every grade my undergraduate institution had to offer on my transcript, from A to F (including +s and -s) with a couple Ws thrown in for good measure.

So as someone on SDN said, "Take every test as if it will decide the rest of your life, because it will." And that's how I'm thinking. I need those As otherwise there's no point in paying for these classes and sacrificing time and money not to do well. If only I had listened to that advice at the beginning of this semester...

Obsessing over grades, and BROOMBALL!

The semester comes to an end tomorrow and I can't wait for that to happen! It's been a really long few months and I definitely feel like I've taken on too much. I don't know if that's because I didn't really have a summer due to organic chemistry or just the sheer number of credits and hours in class is wearing on me, but I am beyond burned out.

And I think I've come to terms with the fact that I'm about to lose my 4.0, which is oh so very sad. I have 31 credits of straight As, and I'll be very bummed to see that go because I was too tired and unwilling to put in the time and effort to go for that A. And time and effort are precisely the reasons I would not be getting an A. I've been slacking all week instead of studying and I'm kind of upset with myself for that.

The dates for the actual final exams are Wednesday and Thursday (instead of today and tomorrow), but I had to push them up because of my knee surgery. So that's also kind of wearing on me, because maybe if I had those extra two days, I would've done better. But I know myself well enough that I would just be procrastinating for two days instead of studying and would find myself in the same position as I am now, with the only difference being knee surgery pushed back to January, which would also suck.

I still have a pretty good chance of pulling it off, but I've given up I think, and have come to terms with my not-so-perfect semester. In the grand scheme of my overall GPA (because that's how I think these days), a few A-, B+ grades won't change much in terms of getting into med school. But not having that perfect 4.0 is going to hurt just a little bit.

I shouldn't be giving up all hope, honestly. To get solid As, here is the breakdown of what I need on the final, and some notes.

Molecular bio
What I need: 80% for a 91% in the class, which should be enough for a solid A since the prof said he doesn't give - or +
How I think I did: I'm not sure if I got it. I took the final today and I'm not sure if I answered enough things correctly to get that 80%, honestly. There is only one question I should've known the answer to if I had studied harder that was worth four points, so hopefully that doesn't drop me in the B category, because I will be mad.

Physiology
What I need: 79% for 90% in the class, which is a solid A, and means that I can get 10 out of 50 wrong.
What are my chances? I'm worried. This class asks you to order stuff so if you get one thing wrong in the order, you get many points off on the test since it's multiple choice (last time I messed up 1 thing and got 6% off). Since she said the final is going to integrate the whole body, I'm kind of concerned because there's a lot of minutiae that are not staying in my head right now. I studied a decent amount for one of the tests (about as much studying as I'm doing now) and got 80% so clearly this is not a buffer. I should've started studying for this earlier, but I didn't anticipate my brain to stop working the night before the test. Oops.

Biochemistry
What I need: 94 points or 84% on the final for 85% in the class, which is going to be a solid A.
What are my chances? Not good. My other exam scores have been 91.5, 97, and 91.5, so getting this 94 is going to be hard. There are a going to be a lot of mechanisms that I just can't remember how to do, even though organic chem was only a couple months ago, and I can't keep the glycolysis and citric acid cycle substrates and products straight in my head. Actually, nothing is sticking right now, and both this and the physio exams are tomorrow. This is worrisome.

So that's the breakdown. Because I'm pretty sure I'm going to be close to the cut-offs for all of my classes, I'm not going to look at the grade on my final exam, but instead wait til the final grades come out. This way, if I do get the B, I won't drive myself crazy thinking "what if". But if I do get the A, then I'm kind of curious to see the buffer with which I got it. Either way, checking grades is going to be nerve-wracking.

And now, back to studying, and hoping something will stay in my head for 24 more hours.

And by studying, I totally mean the season opener of my BROOMBALL! league. I'm so excited! Can't you tell?

Note: If you're wondering, I do have an Excel spreadsheet of all this, because I like to know how I'm doing and how well I have to do in the future. It helps calm my nerves around finals time (usually), but in situations like these it's kind of disconcerting.

Inexplicably at peace

My EMT final was last night and I only got 91.5% on it, which is not the 100% I needed. BUT, we have the opportunity to get 4% of extra credit just by showing up for the practicals of the other sections of the course, so I'll be skipping my last biochem lecture to get those points. And that will help me enough to get the A I so desperately need.

Overall, things are looking up over here for me. My vacation was pretty spectacular, even if I had to read my EMT book instead of a John Grisham novel with a margarita in hand. Either way, I got to sit on the beach and go snorkeling every day so it wasn't too shabby. I don't think all the studying helped considering my grade, but I don't know what I would've gotten if I hadn't studied so I'm not too upset about having my nose in my EMT book all week.

Even though I don't really have a break until June 1st per se, I feel a lot more relaxed right now. I'm sitting under a heat blanket on my couch staring out the window at the beautiful snow-covered trees and life seems a lot less complicated than it really is.

It turns out that I do need knee surgery after-all and I scheduled it for mid-December (less than two weeks away), which just so happens to be the day of two of my finals and the day before my third final. A lot of begging and pleading later, I was able to have all three professors agree to let me take their finals early, so that's all settled. Ever since I decided on the surgery, my knee has hurt more so I don't know if all the pain is in my head or what, and that makes me question the need to actually go under the knife. I don't want to deal with all this if it's not necessary. On the other hand, the inside of my knee is still hurting after almost two months and that worries me that I tore something there as well, which would have to be fixed and would give me a 6 month recovery time instead of 4-6 weeks. And that would mean no broomball, no rugby, nada. And that would make me very sad.

But I've pushed those thoughts of worry out of my mind because there's nothing I can do about it until the surgeon goes in there and checks, so no need to think about it anymore. I mean, the reason I've finally decided to have surgery is because the unknown is bothering me, so this should answer all those questions.

Other than that, life is good. My finals are now a couple days earlier than they were originally, and I'm super behind on my job, but for some reason I'm not exactly worried. I have a lot to review each day, but it seems so manageable that I'm content instead of stressed.

It's amazing what a week on a Caribbean beach will do for your mind.

I have reached my breaking point

This is going to be a depressing post. I am kind of hesitant to post it because it's so darn personal (and whiny), but all of my feelings are directly related to my path to medical school and so I shouldn't be hiding the bad stuff and posting only thoughts through rose-colored glasses.

In short, I hate my life. And I don't see it improving between now and June 1st, when AMCAS applications are due. You can stop reading now if you'd like. The rest will be whiny fluff that has been summarized in the first sentence of this paragraph.

And now onto the details. I screwed around a lot in undergrad. My GPA shows it. And since I stupidly decided to go to medical school, that GPA needs a lot of repair. The best way to accomplish that is by getting straight As in all my post-bacc classes. Even with those As in 49 additional credits, my cumulative GPA will only rise to about 3.15 and my BCMP will be just under 3.5, both of which are quite pathetic for medical school admissions. And that's assuming I get straight As; no A-s no B+s, just As. I've been doing really well about that thus far without too much stress and effort. I mean, I always freak out towards the end of the semester because I make it hard on myself, but it's never been this bad where I seriously worry about getting Bs. (I know, this is pretty pathetic...complaining about Bs, but I've already gotten my share of alphabet soup in a previous life and now need to make up for the fun with the misery of studying for As, and worrying about getting them.)

At this point, I've given up on my classes, and so I'm afraid my grades will suffer terribly. I don't care to study, and just want to hibernate until June. I keep thinking that everything will turn out great but it's not like an A will fall into my lap. I have to do the work, but I have no desire to do anything.

I think I'm sinking into the depression I felt in college, where my entire existence is class and home. I don't really interact with anyone outside of lecture, and I think that's the biggest problem with my psyche right now. I know I need to do something about that, but I just don't know what I can do. Seriously. Rugby season is over (not like I had any time for that this season) and that's my biggest source of people contact. My job involves staring at a computer screen and meeting with my boss once a week for an hour, so no contact there. And so I've run out of options. I play broomball in the winter and that's incredibly fun and amazing, but my knee is messed up and may require surgery (I find out tomorrow), meaning I may be out for that as well.

Even my upcoming AWESOME vacation to Mexico is bringing me down. You see, four days after I get back from break, I have a final in my EMT class, which will cover about 1600 pages of text. One kid in my class calculated out that between now and the test, we'd have to read 3 chapters a day. And I really don't want to do that during vacation. By the tone of this email, you can tell I just need to relax and do nothing. But alas, that's not going to be an option.

Normally, I would say "f*** that", do nothing during that week, and deal with the consequences later (sort of like what I did this weekend, which isn't turning out too well in the long run). But this class is worth 10.5 credits and doesn't give any +/- grades, so I either get an A or a B, with 94% being the cut-off for the A. I can't afford to get a B in this. Not only would it look pathetic to have a B in a community college EMT class (yes, I judge), but more importantly, it would screw up my attempt at bringing up my undergrad GPA.

So the one thing I've REALLY been looking forward to this entire semester (and counting down the days to...literally) just got a little raincloud over it. Ugh.

And so, I really have nothing to be happy about until June. No joke. Because after this there are finals then MCAT studying, then back to the grind of classes and life. I was planning on taking an IV class in the spring, but that is a definite no-go.

I've also recently realized that if I don't get into the state college med school here, I have less than a year and a half to live in the same city as my brother. And all of the work we've put into establishing a relationship between each other will go down the drain. We're not close enough to chat on the phone quite yet, and I doubt we'll get there in the next 12 months or so. And that's even more pressure to do the best I can to get into the school here, because not only is it my dream school, but it's a way to continue to build the relationship my brother and I never had.

To try to rectify this situation of suckage, I set my alarm early to go on a ride tomorrow. That usually kicks the funk out of me, which I could really use right now but it's 11:30 pm and that's not really an option. So instead, I'm writing this whiny post online in hopes of being able to fall asleep tonight. And what gets me the most right now is that I've wasted the last 3 hours pouting, instead of sleeping or studying for the test I have yet to crack the notes on for Thursday.

A breath of fresh air

Last week I went to a meeting/conference/information session put on by my local medical school for pre-med students. I wasn't too keen on waking up at 6 am on a Saturday morning instead of going sailing, but I figured since I'm applying there in a year it'd be stupid not to go. So I went. And boy, was I glad I did!

Ever since I moved to this land-locked state, I've been wanting to get out. I grew up on the water, and the mountains and puddles they call reservoirs just don't do it for me. But now that I have residency here, it doesn't make sense not to apply to the state school, since I have the best chances of getting in here out of anywhere else in the States, and I need all the help I can get. I had resigned myself to spending four more years in a place I didn't want to be and was somewhat becoming ok with it.

And then Pre-Med Day came around. Wow, it changed my perspective on everything! It got me out of the rut I'd been in for a while and, more importantly, got me super excited to apply to this medical school. Staying here no longer seemed like a punishment and had turned into "I hope they let me in!"

The Dean of Admissions is a very personable fellow, a young pulmonologist who has the public speaking skills of a Southern preacher. His speech on becoming a doctor was amazing and I didn't want him to stop talking. They had a 2nd year medical student talk as well, and he seemed somewhat intense and gunner-like, but gave some good advice on the application process. The resident was very honest about his experiences working here and having gone elsewhere for med school, and gave us a good perspective on life after school but also how to pick a school. All in all, the speeches were very informative.

But the best part was going to the small group session geared towards non-traditional students. This school is all about giving people second chances, whether it's for reapplicants or old people like me. The camaraderie between first and second years, and the general sense of chillness was so refreshing to see and it's exactly what I expected of a professional school in this part of the country. The second years had a monstrous exam in a couple of days and they still took the time to answer our questions for a good two hours. They didn't seem stressed or boastful about the amount of work they had to do, which is exactly how I'd grown up and is the polar opposite of my undergraduate experience, which I don't want to experience again.

There are aspects of this school that I don't particularly like, but they are minor compared to what is very so unique to here. Reading other people's reviews of interactions with med students from other schools after interviews, it seems like everyone is happy and cooperative and not that competitive with their classmates, which is not always the case when you actually start studying there. But I really do believe that this school is unique. It's so characteristic of the region and the kind of people this place attracts, and I love it!

The chill attitude is characteristic of everyone around here to the point that it seems like no one actually works. They do, and they work hard, but you know they have a good head on their shoulders and can create as good of a work-life balance as possible given their career. And that extends to medical students, apparently. Cool.

From my last post, you might be getting the impression that I'm not 100% committed to medicine and going through all the training to be a doctor. I know it's something that I could be very happy doing, but I have concerns about devoting my life to it, and that's where the doubts creep in. I think it's pretty normal to have these feelings, but they've been a lot more intense lately.

This session at the med school helped alleviate most, if not all, of my fears. I got that same burning passion and excitement when I heard people talking about their medical education as I had when I decided to go back to school to make this doctor thing a reality.

I think my feelings of doubt came from me being completely burned out from summer organic chemistry. But now that I was reminded of where I want to be in the next couple of years, the determination, fire, and energy are slowly creeping back.

In short, Pre-Med Day was exactly what I needed and getting up that early was totally worth it. AND I got to go sailing the next day. All in all, not too shabby of a weekend after-all.

My first shadowing experience

You would think that at this stage of the application process -- having finished my pre-reqs, preparing for the MCAT, writing my personal statement, and choosing possible med schools -- I would have already checked off the "Shadowing" box on my "Preparing for Medical School" Checklist. But no, I've been slacking on this end.

I thought that with my extensive EMS experience as well as doing idiotic things that required me to see many doctors for random things over the years (the most recent visit was for an extreme slip 'n' slide injury), I had a pretty good grasp of what medicine was all about and standing in the corner cluelessly following a doc around would be boring and lame.

But I wisened up, swallowed my pride, and decided this was a fairly easy hoop to jump through and I should give it a chance. And so I started with a specialty I'm very seriously considering: hand surgery. It didn't hurt that I was seeing my hand surgeon quite regularly at the time and he had a student shadowing him during my first visit. So I asked, and he accepted. Easy as pie.

In short, it was a very interesting experience. Surprisingly, I learned a lot about hands and elbows, but it wasn't anything I couldn't have read in a book on my own (only because my education during that day was so superficial, and not because orthopedic surgery is easy). I know I wasn't there to learn about hand surgery enough to be able to perform it next week, and this wasn't part of my medical education. So instead, I tried to focus on the clinic aspects of my doctor's day, as in how his day was structured, how he worked with others around him, and all that jazz. And that was pretty informative.

The following interaction kind of worried me and made me question my decision to go to medical school (again):

He had a perplexing case one day where he just couldn't figure out what was wrong with this man who had had wrist pain for a few years now. His MRI came back negative, and the doc even said to his colleague that he didn't expect that to be normal. He was thoroughly confused after yet another physical examination. So what does he do? He uses the medical equivalent of Google! It was so interesting to see how he tries to understand cases that just stump him, and that he's clearly still learning.

I asked him if he often gets these kinds of cases where he just doesn't know what's going on and he replied that they're few and far between.

That response somewhat concerned me because my biggest worry about going through with this medical thing (as it was when I considered it back in undergrad) is that I'll get bored with my specialty and I will have wasted all these years of education for nothing. I mean, if I'm going to be bored with my job regardless, I may as well choose one that doesn't require so much sacrifice, stress, etc.

My doctor's day could be summarized as seeing a bunch of patients, approximately one every 10-15 minutes, a lot presenting with similar diagnoses. It just seemed routine, with the exception of the case mentioned above. But since those don't come up that often, it seems like his day-to-day life is pretty routine.

But I guess that's where the passion for your work comes into play. If you love it, then it's not routine to you. I thought I loved EMS (and still kind of do) but even emergency situations got boring in that we did the same thing for each patient: figure out what's wrong in the same manner, have a plan to keep them alive, and drive like crazy if it was particularly bad.

I had the patient contact, the team environment, the use of medical knowledge (to a certain extent), and the need to use that knowledge to make critical decisions. But it still wasn't enough. As someone mentioned on a forum I was reading, maybe I was bored with EMS because it wasn't intellectually stimulating. Maybe that's the last thread that was missing. But if I pursue medicine in the hopes that being a physician will fill that gap and it doesn't, I will have wasted a lot of years and a lot of money being unhappy. And that's scary.

As you can tell, I'm starting to question this decision in the same way I was questioning it six years ago. Then I quit medicine and tried to find happiness and fulfillment elsewhere, to no avail. What do I do this time around?

So done

I've only been in class for a little over a week and I'm already over it. At first I thought my one week at camp and another at home would be enough to recuperate from a summer of organic chemistry. I now know that I need much longer vacations. Or at least more restful ones.

I don't know if it's just the classes that I'm taking are doing me in, or if honestly I'm just over school. Switching gears from chemistry to biology has been hard for me, since I'm a much better problem-solver than a memorizer and the latter is what this semester is going to be about. I don't think I'm going to enjoy my classes nearly as much as I liked general and organic chemistry, and that's been the major contributor to my being down.

Overall, It's weird to be back in class at a much slower pace as compared to summer classes. I only have two hours of lecture a day on average with no labs, and am out of school by 11 am at the latest. I don't have to study (or feel guilty about not studying) every day I get home, worrying about a monstrous test every week. We spent the entire first week of this semester going over the basics of biology and physiology, things you learn in middle school. The slow pace is nice but it's also boring me to tears. I know this will all change soon enough, but the fact that the one quiz I've already had to take has stressed me out more than I would like to be stressed doesn't bode well for the rest of the semester.

Now, when I don't want to study, I can't tell myself that I need to suck it up for another week or two and then it'll all be over like I could with organic chemistry, because the semester has just begun and the next break is in November. I'm finding it hard to motivate myself to give myself a schedule that doesn't include a lot of lounging on the couch and eating take-out.

In short, I need a vacation. But since one isn't coming anytime soon, I need to get out of this funk.

Being a bad doctor, or so they say

This is going to be a loaded post, so stay with me if you can. I've also seriously debated posting this thing at all, but I've felt this way enough times in the past eight years that it's a valid feeling and shouldn't be ignored. So here it goes.

Every close friend I have ever spoken with has said that I would be a bad doctor. If they had the choice, they wouldn't come see me. Normally, I don't care what people think, but in this case, when I'm already questioning my decisions, this doesn't help things.

I put on a tough exterior, and I pretend to be a hardass when talking about children and puppies so I can kind of see the point. A lot of the time when I describe my day, I sound mean, intolerant, and grumpy. But I do care about people, and I'm actually really awesome with people of all ages. I can relate to almost anyone from any background. I grew up going from the developed United States during the year to essentially third world Eastern Europe during my summers, so I know how to adapt and deal with all kinds of people.

I have empathy, or can at least fake it, even if I complain about the stupid decisions my EMS patients make. I feel like my friends only hear the bad part of my job and thus my judgmental side, and don't see my interactions with the people I see.

But their harsh words have been worrying me. I used to be pre-med in undergrad. Even though I was so over school then, I still put in 12+ hours a week at the ambulance company and loved every minute of it. But running 911 calls got old eventually. And that's what scared me away from medicine. EMS became a dreadful job and not something I looked forward to every day. It was still exciting, but I didn't get the kind of thrill I used to experience even 6 months earlier. So I quit the medical track and decided that I could be happy without the years of schooling and sleep-loss and stress that medicine required.

I'm not in it for the adrenaline rush. I genuinely love fixing people's problems. It fulfills me and is absolutely amazing. But I'm worried that medicine will not be worth it in the end. Maybe I can satisfy my need to make people happy by putting on a good event, for example, or something that doesn't require as much education and years of training. I don't know, and that scares me a lot.

I still get jealous of all the stories my med school friends tell me. It's not the gnarly things they describe that pique my interest, but rather their ability to do something to the human body that makes it work correctly again. But will that wear off once I realize that most things are actually routine?

I shadowed a hand surgeon a couple days ago and it was an experience. It seemed like a lot of his patients had the same thing going on in one way or another. There was lots of carpel tunnel and fractures and pins. All in all, though, it didn't seem like he was stumped all that much. There weren't any real "a-ha!" moments and it all just seemed like an office job that he had gotten good at after working there for so long. Except, he's not that old, considering he had finished his hand fellowship about a year earlier. But if it's something you're passionate about, then it's not routine. And as another young doc I've spoken with recently said, "When you're responsible for someone's life, it doesn't get boring." There you have it.

Maybe the answer is doing a normal specialty with trauma on the side, to get some unpredictable things once in a while. But if my EMS experience is any indication, even emergencies become routine. And routine is not what I want after a decade of stressing, studying, and busting my butt to become a doctor.

At this point, I honestly don't know. Should I really go into medicine?

A well-deserved vacation, and next semester's schedule

Last night I got back from Catalina Island after a week of volunteering at a Boy Scout camp I used to work at during the summers. It was awesome and completely exhausting. I slept 11 hours last night and still had trouble rolling out of bed this morning. During my whole time there, I was kind of lamenting the fact that the week was moving along so slowly. But when I thought about it some more, I became really glad that the one week out there felt more like three, which would extend my measly two week vacation into feeling like I had at least four weeks off between school sessions. I really need as much time off as possible after that summer of organic chemistry with lab. It totally wiped me out!

As for next semester, I have some decisions to make and soon. I've been debating taking an EMT class in the fall so I can work as an ED tech prior to applying to med school, and while waiting to get in and matriculate. Also, since I want to go abroad at some point before I go to med school and do something meaningful during that time, I figured having some sort of medical certification and experience would be a good thing. And I terribly miss doing medicine.

BUT, all this would mean I'd essentially have to choose between EMT class and rugby in the fall. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense to take the season off: my wrist is still not fully healed (argh!), I'm nowhere near rugby shape, and I don't want to drive to the next town over for EMT class when I can skip rugby and take it on the university campus a mile from my house. And if I decide to study for the January MCAT (that's still questionable), I'll actually have time to do that and have a life that would save my sanity.

So, the decision is made, and I just blew another grand on a class I've already taken and essentially shouldn't need to take again. If I had only realized I actually wanted to do medicine last May, I could've taken the EMT class over the summer and had something to do instead of mess around and wait for the fall to come around so I could start the pre-med thing. I could also go back to late 2009 and wish that I hadn't let my EMT cert expire thinking I was done with medicine forever. But all this anger with myself for wasting my money and time by making up for my past can really be traced back to undergrad. If I had done everything correctly back then, I would have started my residency a month ago instead of just now preparing for my MCAT.

But I love the path I've taken, and even though I often think that I should have done it differently, I know myself well enough to say that given the opportunity, I wouldn't have changed anything I've done in the past 8 years.

Update on my previous concerns

I'm currently sitting at the hospital, post hand appointment, killing some time before I have to catch the bus to the airport. My doctor's appointment went extremely well. The doc said that everything looks great on the MRI and so I have a really bad sprain.

He also mentioned that there's been some research with cadavers where they essentially throw arms at things to injure them the way I did (rotation of the wrist with the application of a large amount of force) and see what happens to the soft tissue. And my symptoms are identical to what they've found in the cadavers, which makes my injury super interesting to him. I then mumbled something stupid about it and we moved on.

My silence and lack of further questioning on this matter, though, may come in handy because it can be something I ask about WHEN I SHADOW HIM!!! Yup, you read that correctly. I asked the doc if I could shadow him sometime and he said he doesn't have a problem with it, but I would have to check with the hospital. We chatted and decided on me shadowing at his clinic in my laid-back town. He definitely said just the clinic, so I may have to edge my way into getting in on a surgery or two. We'll see about that. I'm really excited since hand surgery has intrigued me since I was in high school, and this seems like the perfect opportunity to see what it's really like.

As for the organic chem final. I got 100% on it. No biggie. All that stress for nothing.

Today has been awesome. Now I just need some sleep.

In denial

Summer session will end tomorrow. I have one more final to get through in the morning, and then I'm on my way to catch a flight to California for a much-needed vacation. But for some reason, I can't force myself to study. All week I've been in denial about this final and the one I had yesterday. I know I don't have everything memorized or learned as well as I'd like to. I definitely need to put in a lot more time than I have all week. And simply getting an A in the class is not going to be enough. I'm getting a letter of recommendation from this professor and he puts our rank in there. And I need glowing recommendations to have any hope of getting into medical school. Right now, I'm at the very, very top of the class, and I'd hate for my laziness to be the only thing that'll bring me down.

Yet, I still seem distracted. I'm too excited about this California trip and I'm also kind of stressing about my doctor's appointment tomorrow. You see, about six weeks ago I hurt my wrist pretty badly. I eventually went to see a hand specialist and he said it's probably just a really bad sprain based on the x-rays and the places my wrist was hurting. Ever since the injury, I've been going back and forth between thinking that's it's nothing and will heal slowly, and thoughts of something being torn and needing surgery.

I've scoured the internet, but there's really nothing on there that's helpful. I got an MRI yesterday and I'm going to see my guy again tomorrow to hear the results. At this point, I'm pretty convinced that it's just a sprain since it hasn't been hurting much since the MRI (and by that I mean, at all). And that's what makes me think all this pain is in my head. Like, when I convince myself I tore a ligament or cartilage, my wrist throbs all day. But when I think that it's all healed, I can function for the most part without my splint. I'm mostly concerned that I cried wolf, and got an MRI for no reason, and the hand surgeon was right a month ago when he said it's just a sprain, a bad one, but just a sprain nonetheless. I hate being "that girl" that insists on more imaging than is necessary. I just want this darn thing back to normal!

So yeah, those last two paragraphs are what has been going through my head on repeat all week instead of organic chemistry. And that's not good, since I am capable of doing really well on this final, if only I put some more hours into it today.

Oh, and this wrist injury has seriously made me consider going into ortho as a specialty. I've seen enough orthopedic surgeons in my lifetime that it's always been in the back of my mind, but hand surgery has always stuck out as one of the more interesting aspects of the specialty. Depending on how my appointment goes tomorrow (if it's my last one or if I have another follow-up), I think I'm going to ask my doctor if I can shadow him. The worst that can happen is he'll decline, and considering he had someone shadowing him during my first visit, I think he may be ok with it. Granted, that was a medical student and he may not have time for a lowly pre-med, but it really doesn't hurt to ask.

Lastly, here is a video of how I hurt my wrist. I'm the one coming down the middle screaming "Coming through!" While going down a slip-n-slide down a ski slope at full speed at a Tough Mudder event, I got my fingers caught in the tarp while my body kept going. Massive pain ensued.

The beginning

I've finally decided to start a blog about my journey towards med school. I already have another one that I've been keeping for a while, which is not really a blog but more of a compilation of information I've found about applying and getting into med school. It was easier to make a blog out of it with labels and tags and such than to keep it in a Word document so that's how that one came about.

This one has more selfish reasons. I would like to look back on this time period and read over my feelings and experiences with some perspective some day. It'll be nice to see how badly I wanted this when I'm frustrated and overwhelmed in medical school. Or it'll be a good way to vent about my experience of being a non-traditional applicant (non-trad in med-speak) trying to get over a horrendous GPA from undergrad. But hey, I had fun at the time. And that's all that matters, right?