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.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
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?
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?
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