I'm Alive, I Swear!

Between finals, my belt test in karate (Shaolin Kempo, in case you are curious) and moving and selling furniture I have been incredibly busy.

I hope to come back soon with new material. But something occurred to me today.

I started this blog because I did not see any med school hopefuls (or students, for that matter) discussing their experiences trying to get into school or their experiences in school. And I feel like I have basically lost sight of that.

So what I am going to try to do is keep on top on new developments in medicine and various other things that I think are important to me as someone beginning a medical career.

A good place to start is the health care bill and new hours for residents. From there I will see what I come up with. As a member of the American Medical Student Association I get access to forums and newsletters, so I want to start talking about things that I think are important.

Part of doing this is finding my own voice. I think that I should try and reclaim that.

Sneaking

Real life snuck up on me something fierce, what with homework, applications, orientations, and dear friends having their baby. It has been an interesting week, let me tell you.

I am about 5 days away from launching into more midterms. Physiology and physics. I'm pulling a reasonable grade in both but I could do better. There is a fair bit of pressure on me here to perform well because I'm basically between grades at this point.

I was accepted into a clinical research internship at San Francisco General Hospital, sponsored by UCSF. I am really excited about this. Basically my job consists of approaching patients in the emergency department that fit specific profiles and asking them to consent to participate in various studies. The two that hold my interest the most involve blunt trauma and HIV testing.

Because of the confidentiality agreements that I made, I'm not permitted to talk about specific patients. What I can do, however, is discuss my experiences working around an ER (obviously I'm not a doctor, so I am not trained to assist in an emergency or anything like that) and what I see on a daily basis. I can't wait to get started. I spent quite a bit of time in a veterinary ER, and I have a feeling that I will adjust rather well.

I also have been doing rather well at chipping away at my applications. I got three done, and am working on the last two. I was thrilled when I got a secondary application invitation from Stanford, which is my first choice.

Applications are an odd duck. Sometimes they give you an enormous amount of room to finish what really can be summed up in a sentence or two. Sometimes the questions are so unlike everything that I have answered before that I am just taken aback and really need to consider my response. The more I do the easier it gets, but I doubt it will ever really be easy.

On a slightly different note, I am gathering my materials and letters and preparing for application to grad school. 3 local universities have my interest: Stanford, UCSF and SFSU. I was considering USF but they are really expensive. I have to investigate their biology programs, because I still really want to apply for grad studies in neuroendocrine physiology. The deadline for SFSU is the earliest one, being in February, and unlike med school they aren't rolling admissions. This means that in February they begin to sift through applications. I am pretty confident that I will get in to SFSU, since I have made so many contacts in the department.

Well, I'm off to school. Hopefully I will be able to finish complement and have a physiology post by Friday.

Application Process

Much like the difficult school curriculum, the grueling MCATs, and the competition, the application process involved in getting into medical school is probably designed to weed out those that don't REALLY want to do it. There is, I think, a certain level of dedication that is required to deal with a primary application, secondary applications, interviews, and then the nail-biting tension of waiting to see if you got in.

In the spirit of weeding out the wafflers (because if it meant being closer to their dream of going to med school no one would really mind, right?) the application designers want everything just so. This meant tedious hours of entering in each and every course taken over one's entire post-secondary academic career, logging and tagging them and filing them just so. Many were the times I sighed as I was about to begin a new entry and wonder why they couldn't just read the transcripts.

The tagging process, I know, is useful to them as they determine the science, non-science and total GPA. It saves them work, and probably me money, as otherwise I would have to pay for the average time it took to calculate all of that.

The essays were interesting studies in composing. I wrote and edited and re-wrote and edited some more, in search of the elusive goal known as the perfect essay. Because I am me, I went with a science-centered approach. Compassion for my patients is not even a question (I worked veterinary for quite a while. If that doesn't develop compassion in a person nothing will) so I chose to talk about my dedication to and my understanding of the role of science in medicine.

Once my application was submitted I had to wrangle my professors and advisors to write me letters. Herding cats, I tell you. The last of my letters was submitted today, if that is any indication. It can be tough as deadlines approach to keep the calm, polite tone one really should use when addressing professors that are doing you a favor instead of screaming hysterically because if they are a day late you will have an aneurism.

But I'm better now.

Ahh, supplementary applications. Delightful. They are rather similar to the original, except that each school has a specific format and set of questions for you to answer. I am trying to put my very best foot forward (partially because I'm certain that good reviewers can smell bullshit a mile away) and answer the best I possibly can.

I was invited to submit 4 supplemental applications. I'm waiting to hear back from the schools that are in processing, so this isn't half bad.

Grad school is a whole other ball of wax. The more I study the more interested I am in research. I did not apply to MD PhD programs this year, mainly because I don't have a lot of experience in the research field. There is a part of me that wonders if maybe I shouldn't go to grad school even if I do get into an MD program. It might be foolish of me to do so, but I am really excited at the potential for learning.

If I don't get into med school, I will probably get into grad school at State, because besides my grades and my letters, I have contacts in the biology department with professors that I think will be interested in sponsoring me.

And so in the meantime I am finishing up everything that I can do with my supplemental applications and keeping a close eye on my application status. There's that whole school thing, too, but that's a given, I think.