Last preparations before the MCAT

This stupid MCAT is happening on Saturday (in two days) and I have mixed feelings about my preparedness. I had tried studying yesterday and did a practice Verbal Reasoning test after a leisurely morning. But I gave up on all of it after I got 80% of the questions wrong. I'm not joking. It was bad.

I got a bit depressed after that, thinking that I'd passed my peak and that I'd be screwed for the real thing. Maybe I should've taken it last weekend like I had originally planned. Maybe I shouldn't have left most of the studying for the week before the exam, and spread it out instead. So many maybes.

In true college fashion, I grabbed a beer to ease the pain of failure and decided to get some real work done. You know, the kind I get paid to do. It's overrated, I tell you!

Anywhos, one beer turned into two and my work turned into the 2-hour season finale of "Criminal Minds", followed by Tuesday night's 2-hour "NCIS: LA" season finale. Some sushi rice and many beers later, it was time to go to bed because after-all, I had an important test to take soon.

I woke up at 7 am this morning (on my own, might I add) bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to take on the world. I sat down for that last practice test, praying that the verbal would go better than yesterday and hoping that I hadn't forgotten too much basic science after cramming minutiae into my brain for finals last week.

And this was my score:

To say I was surprised by this result is a gross understatement. It's the highest score I've received on any of the practice tests and a welcome surprise. Hopefully the real thing goes just as well.

Moral of the story: To get a good score, take 7 beers to the face the night before an 8 AM MCAT.

Glass half full?

Five years after I graduated from my first undergrad, I've completed my second undergrad in the form of post-baccalaureate classes for pre-med requirements. For the last two semesters, I've second-guessed my choice to take classes beyond those required by medical schools. And in the fall, I really questioned the decision to blow a grand on an EMT class that I didn't think I would ever need or use again.

But now that it's all over, I'm really happy with the way I went about fulfilling my requirements. Good things have come out of all this. Or maybe I've turned into an optimist in my old age choosing to find the positive in everything.

Regardless, I'm feeling very content with my life and my decisions. The extra classes have helped with my MCAT studying and are supposedly useful for at least some parts of medical school. And I definitely wouldn't be going on my awesome international Navy adventure without the EMT course.

So all in all, this wasn't in vain.

And since I need to brag to someone about this and neither Facebook nor SDN are appropriate places, here is what I have to show for my blood, sweat, and tears:

Choosing medical schools

It's that time when I need to decide to which schools I'm applying. With over 100 to choose from, this decision is kind of a big deal. And since my overall stats are not competitive at 75% of the medical schools in the U.S. due to having way too much fun in undergrad, I can't just pull out the MSAR (an awesome resource with admissions statistics for all the medical schools) and see where I stand. It's a bit more complicated than that. And I'm really bad at making decisions for myself.

So I went to see the pre-med advisor for some guidance. Out of the three available in the office, I met with the one (Ms. D) who is great at crushing my dreams. That may be a bit harsh, but I always feel a little more hopeless after meeting with her. This is compared to the "I'm awesome!" feeling I get from the other advisor (Ms. E), who just happened to be one of my committee letter interviewers. Boy, I lucked out with that one!

Anywhos, Ms. D gave me a list of schools at which I might be a good fit, and also gave me a lot to think about. I've been pretty dead-set on the local med school and if you had asked me yesterday how I would feel if I didn't get in there, I'd probably tell you I'd cry. And I'm not a crying type of person. At all.

Everything about the local medical school (LMS) is right up my alley. It's got great weather, the student body is very laid back, there is an atmosphere of making others look good instead of gruesome competition, and it loves non-traditional students. That, and I have a good life here that I'm just not ready to leave. The chances of someone in my position being accepted are ~20%. It was (and still is) my *DREAM* school and I was pretty certain that I'd get in there. And then I met with my advisor.

With Ms. D's not-so-enthusiastic opinion on my chances of getting in, I began to reconsider my options and also stopped thinking of LMS as my be all end all. The way she went about suggesting medical schools for me made me start looking at schools in a different light, one in which I could present a case of what I could offer them instead of what they could do for me.

I don't know why it took a pre-med meeting to see things that way, because I've been in the real world long enough to realize that that's how things work in life, and have tailored my applications and approaches at meetings to reflect such a position. In fact, it's probably the major reason I got the Navy gig I'm leaving for in 10 days. I know to emphasize the right things to get what I want, and so far I've been rather successful at that.

But after reading numerous threads on SDN (now I see where I went wrong), I've become more self-centered to the point of thinking that I am God's gift to medical school. Well, maybe not quite that good but good enough that my concern with fit is the only one that matters. Trying to find a school that matched my experience became a search for a city in which I could be happy living, instead of focusing on where my experience went along with the type of student the admissions committee was looking for.

I don't believe too much in "fit" in the traditional sense. For me, a good fit would be a school located somewhere with enough sunshine to prevent me from staying in bed most of the year and also with a cooperative and generally not-so-intense student body. My only pseudo-requirement for curriculum is that there is a block system, but even that is negotiable. It would be nice to have some patient contact early in the non-clinical years, but even if it's not an official part of the curriculum, I'll be able to find it on my own.

So really, I'm not that picky. Research, primary care focus, PBL v. lecture preferences really don't concern me. I can adapt to all that and get whatever I desire out of med school. Now you see where the SDN cockiness and ignorance has reared its ugly head.

But Ms. D made me realize that I have had it all wrong. A good fit for a med school is not limited to where I could see myself living for 4 years, but more importantly, a place where my past experiences and activities go along with the mission of the school and the type of doctors it is hoping to shape.

Yes, I can be research-focused at a primary care oriented school, or get enough clinical experience at a huge research institution. But, that's not how the admissions committees see things. And that's not how I should see things, either. I can adapt, but I shouldn't have to.

There is enough variety in the nation's medical schools to find one that is in line with my past experiences and interests and also is in a city that has sun, water, and laid back people. Those things are not mutually exclusive. I just need to do a little more digging to find them.

P.S. Two posts in one week? Clearly I don't want to do what I should be doing. But don't get used to it. :)

Resentment

These last few weeks have been rough, school- and stress-wise. I have a lot to do and my future is riding on how I perform on these finals and the MCAT. As such, I've been physically and mentally holed up in my room or in the office trying to be productive so I can be awesome, while everyone around me seemingly doesn't have a care in the world.

Take Cinco de Mayo, for example. I had a biochemistry final at 7:30pm that night, so I was trying to cram in the last details of random mechanisms and regulatory pathways before the exam.

What were my neighbors doing?

This:

That is indeed a living room in the yard, complete with a showing of "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" on one TV and a Super Nintendo console with Super Mario on the other.

I, too, am in this photo taking a study break, but I just couldn't bring myself to enjoy the "holiday" as it should be celebrated. It's hard to have that kind of fun with an exam looming over my head in a couple of hours.

(Side note: What is it with finals/exams on major rugby holidays? An evening final on Cinco de Mayo and another evening exam on St. Patrick's Day? Blasphemy!)

I know that the path towards medicine isn't the easiest one to take and there will be plenty more times when I just can't live as carefree a life as the people around me. This was a major reason for dropping the pre-med thing in undergrad and pursuing a different career. But in going back to school for pre-med prerequisites, I realized I'd much rather work hard in medicine than work a little less hard at a job that doesn't ignite the same passion in me as medicine does. That was (and is) my choice and I think it's definitely the right one for me.

This also isn't to say that medicine is the only profession where one has to sacrifice some things for a successful career. My friends bust their butts during the week to make this sort of relaxing Saturday a possibility, and they are often out of town on weekends for work. So it's not all unicorns and rainbows for them either.

But, that doesn't mean I can't feel a little resentment and jealousy once in a while.

But what's on the exam?

As much as I dislike my exams this semester, I pretty much know what to expect every time. This wasn't the case for a particular class I took in undergrad many moons ago.

Here is the conversation in class the day before a midterm:

Prof G: "The midterm will have 4 or 5, questions. S, how many questions did we decide on?"

Prof S: "Four."

G: "Right, there will be 4 questions. What did we decide, S? Can they bring the book?"

S: "Yeah, they can bring the book, but it won't do them any good."

G: "So you can bring your book. You won't need your calculator. You won't need a table of units. You'll have to rely on reasoning."

Student: "How should we study for this? Should we study the notes or the book?"

G: "I'd say, both."

Different student: "What will the questions be like? Will they be kind of like the problem sets or from the book?"

G: "Both."

Me: "Quantitative or more conceptual?"

G: "Both."

Student: "Can we get a previous year's exam."

G: "Well, we've never given a midterm before in this class, so that's not really possible. Sorry."

Student: "But can you give us an example of a midterm question?"

G: "I suppose. Hmm. Well, you have this reservoir of a certain height. You need to build a dam. How would you build a dam to get what you need? S, any other examples?"

S: "Nope."

G: "Tara?"

TA Tara: "Nope."

G: "Alright, then. See you all on Thursday."

Burned out

I am 100% checked out of school right now. I just don't have it in me to study anymore. I have a biochemistry final tomorrow and I literally need to talk myself into opening my notes, otherwise it's just not going to get done.

And it's not that feeling of "I know it all and am bored with having to go over it again." I wish that was the case.

Instead, I'm overwhelmed by the volume of material covered on this exam and I have no desire to even attempt to learn it. That, and I don't believe my grade on the final will make any significant difference in my final letter grade. As long as I know the stuff well enough and don't completely bomb the final, I will keep the grade I currently have. So there goes that motivation.

I don't know what it is about this class that makes me feel so done. The whole biochem series has been incredibly frustrating for me, mostly because my grades haven't really reflected the degree to which I understand and know the material. I'm not blaming anyone but myself for this mess that is my grade, which makes the feeling even worse. I just have to keep telling myself that 2 Bs are not going to sink my medical school application. (Here is my justification for being so neurotic these days, because I didn't used to be this way.)

I am so done that at this point I'd much rather be studying for the MCAT or filling out my AMCAS. I am that much over school.

(Yes, this post is whiny. That's what happens when I get grumpy.)

It hasn't sunk in yet

In 25 days, I will be somewhere above the Pacific on a flight headed to Southeast Asia to volunteer aboard a Navy hospital ship and serve as part of an international medical relief mission. Even though my plane tickets are bought, my immunizations are scheduled, and I have a packing list in my head, it still hasn't sunk in that this is happening so soon, or even at all.

I have yet to accept the fact that I will be spending six weeks working...

1. as a medical team member,
2. on a boat, and
3. in a foreign country.

I am not exaggerating when I say that this is a dream come true.

And because it has been my dream for so long, I just can't believe that it's happening so soon in my medical "career". It just seems way too good to be true.

Two years ago I re-began the journey towards being a doctor by signing up for a few pre-med prerequisites. At the time, applying to medical school seemed so far away and I couldn't wait to be done with all of it. I just wanted to be in medical school then and not wait the years it would take me to finish up everything.

Instead of the expected long, hard slog, these last two years have flown by and I'm much closer to my goal of being a doctor. Even with all the work I've already put in, I still have a lot to do before I leave.

But when I get on that plane on May 22nd, my MCAT will have been taken, my medical school application will be finished, and I will have decided on which schools to apply to. That is a very scary thought.

Postponing the MCAT (again)

Ever since I saw that all the seats for the May 19th MCAT were filled, I've been obsessively checking the rescheduling website to see if anything has opened up. Eventually I resigned myself to taking the MCAT on the 12th and stopped checking the site. On a whim, I opened up the AAMC website today and lo and behold, May 19th was open!

So after much thought (and I really mean a lot of phone calls and discussions), I gave another $70 to AAMC to move my test date by one week.

You'd think this would be an easy decision to get another seven days of studying, but 1) I suck at making decisions for myself, and 2) I leave the country at 6:19 am on May 22nd for two months. So a May 19th MCAT puts me in a bit of time crunch with regards to getting all my things in order before the trip.

With this move, I have now had 7 confirmed and pseudo-confirmed (in my head) test dates, but really only 1 actual change (my wallet thanks me!). Luckily for my sanity, this is the last possible date I can take the MCAT without putting in a super late application for medical school.

So no more changing for me! D-Day is officially 5/19/12.

But, if I change my mind again and really want to go back to the May 12th test date, I'm sure I won't have a problem getting my spot back, as not many people are going to be pushing up their MCAT exams. The chances of that happening are slim to none.

My first practice MCAT

Even though I'm about a week behind on studying for the MCAT according to my schedule and technically still need to review a whole bunch of chapters, I decided to begin taking the practice tests now because my real test is only 5 weeks away. That doesn't seem like very long considering all the things I have to learn and do between now and May 12th. It's very overwhelming, actually.

As it stands, I've finished all the content review and just have to re-read chapters and review my answers. So it's not a bad time to get a general idea of my weak points so I can focus on those instead of feeling the need to memorize everything.

And...drum roll please...I scored a 33, with the breakdown being 11, 11, 11. While it's not a score that I'm happy with (I'm shooting for 36+), the 11 in Verbal Reasoning is incredibly reassuring.

When I first started doing Verbal passages, I was consistently scoring 7 and I was absolutely terrified because that is not something you can just cram for like you can for the other two sections. Lately, though, my scores have risen to 9 and then 11 on the last two sets of practice passages I've taken, so this "official" MCAT score lends credence to my thinking that I'm getting better.

Also, my timing is amazing on these tests to the point that I have 10 minutes left on each section to go over any answers that I'm unsure about. And the Biological Sciences section is a lot easier than my practice passages, while physics is not nearly as emphasized in Physical Sciences as I thought it would be. And that's very good because I haven't taken physics in eight years.

All in all, I think that if I had had a bit more confidence and read a bit more carefully, I could have scored at least 12 on both Biological and Physical Sciences because I missed at least a few questions in each section due to careless mistakes.

But since I have 7 more tests to take and whole bunch of passages still to do, I think I can improve in both of those areas.

Shadowing in the OR

This week I shadowed an orthopedic surgeon in the operating room and watched him do two cases. At first, I was a bit grossed out by seeing the surgical fellow pull on stuff inside the dude's knee, mostly because I was imagining how much it would hurt to have my tendons stretched like that. But then I remembered the patient had a nerve block, was under general anesthesia, and was prescribed some serious pain killers for recovery, and the feeling of empathetic pain went away.

For the first procedure, I had some decent questions to ask the surgeon because I have a bit of background with that injury and knew generally what to ask. So it wasn't so awkward. But the second procedure consisted of me standing quietly in the corner not saying a word, until the surgeon mentioned he had lived in Italy and I inquired where because I, too, had lived in Italy recently. Other than that, I kept my mouth shut, which is not the way to go apparently.

My interactions didn't get any better after that, and instead I managed to communicate the fact that my undergrad GPA was crap and that I don't like evening classes, which resulted in the surgeon chuckling a bit under his breath. Oops. Way to make a good impression. Not! I should just learn to keep my mouth shut.

One of the biggest issues I had with shadowing was not knowing when it was ok to ask questions. The surgeon also had a fellow doing most of the work so he was teaching a fair amount of the time, and I didn't want to interrupt that. He was also doing a lot of shop talk with the biomedical sales reps so that didn't seem like a good time to interject with a question. But there was also a lot of silence, so I can't use all that as an excuse.

My other problems included not being prepared for the second procedure, and being too afraid to ask "stupid" questions. The thing is, as a pre-med, I'm not expected to know anything so unless I'm asking things like "What the heck is a shoulder?", my questions most likely aren't perceived as idiotic.

I'm generally a very curious person, so why do I have such difficulty being around doctors? Why am I so quiet and insecure about medicine? These are the questions to answer.

And since this was supposed to be a learning opportunity, here are some lessons learned:

1. Being prepared is always a good thing.
   I should have looked up the second procedure before I observed one because then maybe I could've asked some decently intelligent questions.
2. I don't have to come off as awesome all the time.
   I need to stop being afraid to ask seemingly stupid questions. Usually, they're not stupid and I have a right not to know the answer.
3. Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
   I need to learn to paint myself in the best possible light and stay away from the self-deprecating talk. I shouldn't lay out my flaws for everyone to see.
4. Doctors usually like teaching.
   This especially applies to those at teaching hospitals and those who take on fellows, so I should not be too intimidated to ask questions. They are most likely more than happy to answer them. At least that has been my experience with all the doctors I've encountered. They've been pretty awesome.

I may ask to shadow this same surgeon again over the summer to see a joint replacement. The two procedures I had yesterday were mostly arthroscopic so replacements would be a nice change. And it would give me a shot at redemption.

Mostly, I want a re-do because if I get into the local medical school, I will most likely be asking to do research with this surgeon. So I need to make a better impression of preparedness than I did this time.

Oh, I almost forgot to add...I posted a thread about this to SDN and this was one of the replies:

Physicians will know that a college student won't know much medicine/surgery, so don't be afraid to ask basic questions. It would be strange to NOT ask questions at your stage.

I guess I was the strange kid in the corner then. Oops.

The good part was that I was fairly animated outside of the operating room, except by that point, I had verbal diarrhea. Here I go with the self-deprecation again. It's a vicious cycle, I tell ya!