Multiple Countdowns

The time separating myself from my masochistic medical fantasies is growing slimmer. I am excited. Being out of school for the past two years, I crave the ability to release all responsibilities outside of learning. The first semester of the program I will be subjecting myself to is supposedly quite brutal. While the frustration, self-doubt, and general dismay this may cause will likely exact a toll, what else am I going to med school for? I understand that this profession which I have chosen will present enormous obstacles and daily challenges. I am prepared to make these challenges in order to be able to truly serve and use my life to progress this human world.

Alright, enough of the squishy stuff. A couple of my friends recently got off waitlists and our shared excitement for the profession has made me a bit spunky. I am going to have to hold on to these feelings when the times aren't so easy. On top of the countdown to med school, I am counting down the days to finishing at work and taking some time off. It's a bit like getting married (not that I'm married): while you are happy to have found something to spend your life doing, you want to jam in all the other experiences you can beforehand. Hopefully I'll have some success and others can follow along to see how to truly live out the final premed days.

Besides Medical School...

This afternoon, I was titillated to receive my ticket to a certain music festival that will feature the above, My Morning Jacket, among others. The neck mashing mahem is quite admirable, I believe. Thinking on my festival plans (including some plans I won't share with my mother or you) I realized how socially normal or even above average I consider myself and nearly all of my premed friends to be. Is this an aberation? I had been told for years that medicine and science were reserved for those willing to sacrifice personhood. Outside of medical TV dramas, phycisians are often seen as pale, single minded gunners who speak a different language.

Maybe we've gotten a bad rap from PhDs slaving away in the lab. Maybe there is a stigma towards those who do well in the classroom. I mean those people must be losers, right? Maybe actually getting into the clinics will drag out any socially relevant mores straight out of my little brain. There's probably a mixture of all of these influencing opinions.

I must say that fellow applicants at interviews, students I met, and future classmates at revisit blew me away. I know there is the prospect of being crushed by the system, but at this point the people who I will call my peers are absolutely superb, and not simply from a medicine point of view.

There is precedent for phycisians breaking the mold. Howard Dean and Stephen Joseph Bergman (aka Samuel Shem) are a couple of phsicians with expanded interests and influence. With the current shit shoot that is American health care and the ethical quandries in research, global health, distribution of wealth, ect., physicians should take a stronger role in areas outside the clinic.

I think med students are cool. I think we need to keep after activities beyond the biomedicine sphere. I am going to be doing my part by getting my hippy on...

Matters with the MCAT, if it matters, that is

Since I offered up a complaint filled entry about the nonsensical interview/acceptance phenomena, I should add to the application thoughts with a few opinions on the MCAT. Besides, I’m not actually a med student yet, so I have very little frame of reference from which to give medicine related advice. Your confidence in my ability to dole out solutions in clinical care should be akin to your confidence in a C student from Connecticut who claims to be a cowboy from Texas and scrapes by on his father’s name doling out solutions in American policy. I’m one of the few people who will advocate the use of the MCAT. I know the MCAT brings about dread and distaste. Premeds feel they have no control (you do), that a few points will cost them their hopes and dreams (they won’t), or that a bad score means you are unintelligent and incapable (it doesn’t).

2 out of the 3 major MCAT sections (I won’t talk about the writing section because it is just stupid) are directly related to how much and how well you study. The MCAT is measuring your ability to learn the information and synthesize it under different pressures against everyone else. If you aren’t putting forth the level of effort others are, you shouldn’t complain about a low score and its affect on applications. I truly believe that 90% of student can attain ~30 with good study habits and effort. This type of score paired with an average premed GPA (~3.5) will get you into school as long as you show some genuine interest in what you are doing outside of the classroom. The other 10% who have difficulties with the MCAT (and probably standardized tests in generally) have an obstacle to overcome—nothing more and nothing less. If you fall in this category, fight through the despair. Explain you test taking issues in an eloquent way in your application and on interviews. In your ECs, go out of your way to show depth of intellectual efforts in research or by impressing qualified mentors who can write a letter. Remember, the MCAT is a major portion of the application, but it is only 1 of 5 major portions. Make sure your other 4 sections, GPA, LORs, PS, ECs, are in top shape and YOU WILL FIND A SPOT.

As far as needing to score a huge number to get into the top schools, yes and no. For every 40 at a top school there is a 30. Top schools are looking for big time potential. High GPA and MCAT shows high ability for assimilating information, but this has to be complimented by showing the facility to get things done. It is much more frequent that an average MCAT with great accomplishments gets into the elite schools than a great MCAT and little else does.

Alright, I need to organize and finish this. Get after the MCAT: study, take a class if needed, study, do tons of practice question, study. Do everything you can! If you are still not satisfied with the result, step back from the ledge. Throw yourself on the things you can control, these things are just as important and often times more important than the dreaded test.

Application Epiphanies

I am finishing up my one and only (very gratefully) med school application cycle. The process is brutal at times. And by brutal I mean colossal-stepping-in-shit-cluster-fuck (visual interpretation at top). For myself, the entire process was inundated with anxious email and mail box checking. Where I got interviews and acceptances vs. where I didn't seemed paradoxical at times. A great interview complete with my interviewer allowing 20 minutes of shadowing time led to a waitlist. Awkward interviews filled with trivial ethics questions led to swift acceptances. If there was a pattern, I certainly didn't discern it. Various analogies can be made, including my personal favorite: comparing the application process to carrying out multiple hectic relationships. I think it works on several levels. All of us hope to find that one perfect match and hope that the object of this affection reciprocates, we go after several targets and try to spend time with each, we are attracted to superficial attributes, we get dumped and do some dumping, at various points we just want to do all of them at the same time in a strange med school orgy, at the end we hope to not have made a huge mistake, and a few of us actually may find a perfect match.

There is light at the end of the tunnel and even some opportunities for attaining skills in the application process. Answering the "Why our school?" or "What is your greatest weakness?" questions can lead to a hideous, trite BS festival. On the other hand, actually putting thought to why you are applying and what issues you will have to overcome can be good prep work. Secondaries were the overall most excruciating obligation of applying for me. Completing nearly 20 of them put a hatchet in my social life. Developing the skills of self acclamation, however, will probably be valuable at some point. Also, forcing applicants to do at least some minimal research on the schools they have applied to probably leads to better matches. Other issues seem antiquated. This is illustrated by the insistence of some schools on using paper mail. Really? Supposedly cutting edge, elite medical institutions can't use the internet? I have to read on SDN that someone living nearer to a school has received a letter and now I'm panicking every time I check the mail. It also seems that the process could be shortened. I know it is difficult putting together a class without overfilling, but an entire year from primary app completion to decisions is excessive. My hope is that the med school application process will not be static, that new ideas will continue to be fused in with existing protocols to create a better system. Let us be progressive in establishing the best possible system in identifying future physicians and training them.

I find it difficult to give advice to those applying as individual circumstances change the process. I will state that setting your heart on one place is often a road to disappointment, especially if it is a school with very competitive applicants. The fact is that there are a ton of amazing candidates applying for limited spots. There are also quite a few amazing places to study medicine. Being part of a society with the greatest accumulation of wealth in mankind's history has its benefits. One of these is that virtually every major city claims it own world class training hospital. Of the 18 or so school I applied to, I honestly believe I would have been happy at any of them. I could probably make up an applicant with the best stats/ECs who will randomly fail to make it to a few schools; that's just the nature of med school applications. Apply early, put effort into the writing, and be passionate. We need more physicians with passion. It is cliché but true that in the end where you went to med school doesn't matter. What you are doing to progress medical science and care for patients matters. Bragging about a big name school isn't going to improve the outcomes of any community. This isn't to say attending a school with a big time reputation is evil, I'm just saying that attending a big time school or any dream school isn't the point.

The application monster can be tamed. Identify the qualities that make you unique and the life experiences which have led you where you are. Organize these factors into a concise, enjoyable story that will allow others to understand your commitment to being part of the medical profession. There are infinite ways to do this. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean it is easy. There are also infinite ways to write or paint; but relatively few great works of art. This process is an art. Don't be afraid to immerse yourself in it and make the best application you can. Good luck...it's so much easier looking at it from this end.

Que pasa

The readership of this blog will likely be nil, but I think the cathartic effects of writing things down may be selfishly worthwhile. I fancied myself a writer at various points in my life until realizing I had very little talent for it. This blog will help scratch that itch. Be warned that my practices in using language are similar to my eating habits: I'll try anything and a little bit of spice livens up a meal. I am also a bit sick today and fighting off any thoughts of productivity at work, so writing a blog allows for sitting and vomiting ideas rather than pippetting in a cold room. My posts will likely be sporadic and my thoughts nearly always unorganized, but perhaps others crawling through the medical maze will scrape a valuable idea from this mess or learn from my experience.

I am 24 and will be matriculating in the fall of 2008, where this matriculation will occur is still somewhat up in the air. For those wanting the nitty-gritty, I'm sure there will be more posts. I consider myself to be a person of broad interests. While biological science has been my focus, literature and the social sciences have diverted me at several points. I carry a mixed bag of experiences as a multi-racial/multi-cultural person who has lived in quite divergent areas. I believe these characteristics to be valuable; the biomedical world could use more people with diversified interests. Where my medical path will lead is still very much an open question. Medical research has played an enormous role for me, but there are so many avenues I have not pursued. I look forward to rolling up my sleeves and mucking around in the disparate fields that physicians have open to them. As you read on, you will find that I am a very idealistic person. While my naivety may sometimes be obvious, I believe idealism to be to the core human value that leads to changes for the better. This vein of idealism will be evident throughout my blogs as I air out general ideas about the medical community, social structures, and human societies. If this isn't appealing to you, get out now. I tend to be insufferable (whiny) to people with set ideals. Those wanting a diary of events may also be disappointed at times, but I will undoubtedly use this blog to talk about personal experience as well. Having established these parameters, I hope you will read along. I'm not all business and I'm hoping there will be some fun in the blog along the way. I wanted to get this initial post in to let anyone reading know a tiny bit about me. Enjoy...