Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
The Ups and Downs of Applying for Medical School
Today is a special occasion, because we have a guest post. P.L. has written about his hurdles with what is the main theme of the day on my blog, 24/7/356. Please be kind, constructive and critical - leave comments, so he might write again... (remark by premedc)
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I’m sure most of you have heard the expression “Being a doctor isn’t easy”. Doctors not only have to work crazy hours, not only are they responsible for the lives of their patients, but they have to do all of this and at the same time manage their time effectively so that they can have time with their family and friends. Easy right? Well I’m sure the fact that the divorce rate for physicians is 10-20% higher than the general population is a testament to exactly how difficult it really is. But the purpose of this post is not to dissuade you from wanting to be a physician or to tell you about the hardships that physicians have to face, because the reality is that you are not physicians yet. Instead I’m going to talk to you about the application process to medical school and how some future physicians learn how hard their job is before even being accepted to medical school. I will be talking to you about my own experiences applying to medical school and maybe you can learn something worthwhile from my wild roller coaster ride.
How and why I got into medical school
To paraphrase the famous expression "You don't know what you got, until it's gone" more appropriately for this post - "You don't know what you'll have until it's yours".
While I was still in the premed camp, I used to dream about the time these life-changing words would be addressed to me - "Congratulations, you have been selected..." and dreading yet another "Dear candidate, despite your excellent dossier, you were not selected..." (I have received more than a couple of those). For years, I used to speak in the conditional "If I become I doctor...". It sort of became a reflex, a second nature of mine. And during those years I thought of the moment of getting my acceptance as a sharp 90 degree turn you sometimes encounter on the country side or Canadian urban centres. When you see it ahead, you have to slow down and make sure you stay in your lane. In the same way I thought I would change my life trajectory when the new and better stretch of my life appeared in front of me. Many exciting events in mind were tied to Being Accepted. "I will do this... I will try that...". But all ended with "if only I was accepted" - although I was never superstitious, the grandeur of the subject made me almost religious when discussing it. Which, by the way, shows just how feeble the whole thing was. As the list of things to do or to try grew, so did the weight and the importance of the aftermath. It became harder and harder for me to bear the possibility of rejection, with so much value attached to this one event, not even entirely under my control. Also, as I put on hold many if not all of the things I really wanted to do, I became less and less happy. But I did not notice this, I was too preoccupied with my thoughts.
This was then.
While I was still in the premed camp, I used to dream about the time these life-changing words would be addressed to me - "Congratulations, you have been selected..." and dreading yet another "Dear candidate, despite your excellent dossier, you were not selected..." (I have received more than a couple of those). For years, I used to speak in the conditional "If I become I doctor...". It sort of became a reflex, a second nature of mine. And during those years I thought of the moment of getting my acceptance as a sharp 90 degree turn you sometimes encounter on the country side or Canadian urban centres. When you see it ahead, you have to slow down and make sure you stay in your lane. In the same way I thought I would change my life trajectory when the new and better stretch of my life appeared in front of me. Many exciting events in mind were tied to Being Accepted. "I will do this... I will try that...". But all ended with "if only I was accepted" - although I was never superstitious, the grandeur of the subject made me almost religious when discussing it. Which, by the way, shows just how feeble the whole thing was. As the list of things to do or to try grew, so did the weight and the importance of the aftermath. It became harder and harder for me to bear the possibility of rejection, with so much value attached to this one event, not even entirely under my control. Also, as I put on hold many if not all of the things I really wanted to do, I became less and less happy. But I did not notice this, I was too preoccupied with my thoughts.
This was then.
off-topic ramblings
I had taken the MCAT this past Saturday.
Deep breath. Another one. Yet another one.
"How did you do, friend" - you'd ask me. You will surely be the 100th to do that, as well. It is hard for me to judge my performance on such rare events as the MCAT. I find that my brain retains all questions that puzzled me more, and quickly discards the easier ones I tackled easily. In any case, my mean scores on the practice AAMC tests were 32-35 and so I only can hope to have them closely reflect my actual score.
2 major things I'd like to say to you, my reader:
- I will be back with my university series. Moreover, I hope to finish it before this Christmas.
- I will start a mini-series on the MCAT and unorthodox ways of preparation (and as time [October 7th, to be specific] will show, success).
