MCAT vs. GRE

About a month ago, in making backup plans for myself for next year (still waiting to hear back from that last med school…fingers crossed I get in!), I came upon a somewhat distressing revelation: in the event that I go to graduate school immediately out of undergrad instead of medical school, I will most probably need to take the GRE. Some programs will accept MCAT scores in the place of this exam, but several won’t. Cue the #MCATPTSD (term coined by my twitter friend and fellow coffee/beer/Girl Scout cookie enthusiast, @masterofsleep).

The months of feverish worry and incessant studying and panic-induced frustration and fear of failure and late-night caffeine binges (I could keep going with these…) in preparation for the MCAT are common experiences among all premeds who have survived through undergrad and made it to the medical school application process. While I was thrilled with my score after it was all said and done, the process was anything but enjoyable. I can’t fathom doing it more than once (to all of y’all who have studied for and taken the MCAT more than once: you are stronger than I. I salute you).

Even though the GRE isn’t remotely the same test as the MCAT, the thought of taking it has still managed to invoke a tiny wave of panic or two. So, like any completely rational human being, I took a practice GRE and immediately scheduled the real test for two weeks later. That “two weeks later” is coming up in about three days…so there’s that.

The bell curve that is the GRE; the exam is scored in two sections (verbal & math), each with scores ranging 130-170.

The bad part: none of the math in the GRE’s quantitative reasoning section is hard, but the majority of it consists of topics I haven’t even thought about entertaining since high school algebra. Anyone made significant use of permutations and combinations recently? No? I figured as much. This is slightly frustrating. It seems review of some obscure algebra topics is in my extremely near future.

The good part: having already studied for, and conquered, the MCAT has proven invaluable in preparing for this test, especially the verbal section. What probably would have been overwhelming to me eight months ago is now commonplace, run-of-the-mill standardized testing, and I was surprisingly relaxed during the first practice exam. So, fellow pre-meds, here I am, saying what I never thought I would say in all my remaining days on God’s green earth: “THANK YOU, MCAT!”

The bottom line: not to seem like I’m touting a sense of superiority or anything, because I’m not at all, but the MCAT has effectively made the GRE seem…well…”easy.” I’m not foolish enough to be flippant with my remaining preparations for this test, but the stakes were so. damn. high on the MCAT (y’all either already know this or will know soon enough) that it’s pretty hard to go uphill from there.

So, accompanied by several pots’ worth of coffee/caffeine delivery and absolutely no clue as to what my next couple of years will hold, I am taking the GRE in three days. Here goes nothing!

Science Joke Saturday: “Gallbladder’s Last Day”

Yup. Science Joke Saturday is a thing now. And, for the inaugural post, here’s this gem of a cartoon that showed up on the Awkard Yeti recently. If you hadn’t seen it yet, you’re welcome (gotta love a little med humor).

22 Things About Me: Part 1

Every year, St. Patrick’s Day falls exactly 6 months after my previous birthday and 6 months before my next. This coincidence makes it highly convenient for convincing at least one friend to provide me with a free drink because, “It’s my half-birthday!” (Does that make me terrible and the tiniest bit manipulative? Probably, though I prefer to think of it as resourceful.)

GREEN BEER!

Anyway, St. Patrick’s Day is this coming Monday, meaning I’ll already be halfway through Year 22 of my bumbling around on earth pretending to know what I’m doing. I’m not sure how I got to 22.5 so quickly, but it’s freaky, and it’s getting frighteningly close to the “mid-20s” label that always seemed so far off on the horizon. So, partially in order to commemorate Year 22 before I blink and it’s gone, and partially to let y’all get to know me a bit better, I wanted to share 22 things about myself that I may not have mentioned before on here. Here are the first 11!

1. I am fluent in sarcasm. If it were a language designation on applications, I would check that box with the greatest enthusiasm. I might even fracture the pen in doing so. I would be bilingual. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The world does not yet recognize me as bilingual.
2. In lieu of sarcasm as a second language, I have attempted to learn others. I have somewhere around a kindergarten-level proficiency auf Deutsch & en Español. Additionally, I studied four years of Latin, which, to my chagrin, is also not a recognized language designation on applications. I have never had the time to further myself significantly in either of these languages, which is highly regrettable, because I love languages.
3. I am capable of neither acquiring nor maintaining a tan. As such, I remain the same shade of pale all the year round. I have no doubt that my decision to wear shorts in the springtime has been directly involved in the impairment of more than one person’s vision. I can only assume this will pay off in 20 years when my face hopefully does not look like it’s been haphazardly crafted out of leather bags.
4. I sing opera for fun. My voice type is a full-lyric soprano, meaning I can sing the high notes but with a richer timbre than some other soprano voice types. I started college as a voice major, and it has since grown into my hobby/stress reliever/artsy fun thing that I love doing. (FUN FACT: I have a 3-octave range!)
5. In relation to point 4: I was born into a musical family, and everyone has an instrument of choice: my father plays the French horn; my mother, piano; and my brother, tenor drums (he’s actually awesome. Here is a video from his most recent summer in DCI; he’s 2nd from the far right).
6. Long-term career goal is to be a doctor (obviously). Short-term career goal is to be a bartender (TIP$).
7. I like to consider myself selectively obsessive-compulsive. My room is terribly, horribly, woefully disorganized, and that does not bother me in the slightest. Get one thing in my school supplies out of order, though, and you’ll have one distraught young woman on your hands.
8. I love makeup. LOVE it. Eye shadows, eyeliners, lipsticks, you name it. Not because I have anything about my face to “hide,” per se, but because I think of it as an art form with my face as a canvas (plus, the colors are pretty). I frequently embody “all dressed up with nowhere to go.”
9. I despise working out, but I do it anyway. It is a necessary evil because I have the metabolic speed of about half a turtle. I am fairly certain my body is capable of gaining weight by smelling food, much less eating it, though I’m still waiting on science to affirm this hypothesis for me.
10. I am the friend with the cooking skills. My spice cabinet is a force to be reckoned with. My friends buy the ingredients and I cook them. This system works out well, because I get to make dinner taste the way I want and everyone else gets to eat it without cooking. True Story: a drunk kid once stumbled into my garage and offered the $7 in his wallet for me to make him macaroni & cheese. It happened.
11. In the event of a particularly awkward situation, I attempt to diffuse the tension by offering people coffee. This probably is not the most direct or effective strategy for interpersonal conflict resolution, but its failure rate is less than 100%. I will take it.

I’ve Been MIA…

…and I apologize for that. WHOOPS. I haven’t posted in about a month and that’s highly unfortunate. So here I am!

I am in the middle of my last spring break of undergrad, and it’s a bittersweet feeling (I’m ready to graduate, but I sure will miss these intermittent weeks off!). I did not go on a crazy, exotic, adventurous trip because AMCAS and secondaries stole the majority of my $$$ (true story). However, it’s been a peaceful week to catch up on sleep, catch up with old friends I haven’t caught up with in far too long, and re-focus myself to optimize my final two months of college.

Main three goals from now until May:

BLOG MORE. All of you who bother following my blog are awesome, and it’s such a comfort to know just how many other people there are going through a similar process as I am. So thank you! 🙂 As such, I definitely plan to post on here more often, even if there’s nothing big to talk about at all.

GRADUATE CUM LAUDE. I am so so so close to having a 3.5 GPA. Like, 0.02 away. Unfortunately, it’s somewhat difficult to increase with having 125ish credit hours to my name. So I guess this is my oath to hit the books extra hard for the next couple of months.

DO MORE EXPLORING OFF CAMPUS. I have the privilege of going to school in the Triangle, which, if you’ve never been down here, is home to an incredible conglomeration of research universities, biotech companies (think RTP), awesome basketball, and just the right amount of Deep South. People are ridiculously smart and ambitious here, but that won’t stop them from throwing out a smile and a “Morning, y’all” to anyone passing by on their way to get coffee or lead a team meeting or head into classes. The Triangle has all kinds of hidden gems, especially in terms of food (and more food), coffee, and breweries (my personal fave!), and I want to explore as many of those as possible before potentially leaving the area!

Baby French press at one of my favorite coffee shops

The “F” Word

It is a demoralizing feeling to fail. All the stress, small successes, tears, determination, and borderline caffeine ODs added up, but at the end of the day, I just didn’t make the cut.

I received the rejection letter from my favorite medical school on Friday evening, bringing a whole new level of meaning to the phrase, “Valentine’s Day rejection” (bad joke, I know, but it had to be made). Given this turn of events, I have one more shot to get into medical school this cycle. My 2nd and final interview is at the end of the week. As optimistic as I try to remain on a normal basis, my (slightly more practical) inner monologue has accepted that my chances of acceptance for this coming fall are slim at best.

In light of all that, here is my attempt to delineate, with as much wisdom as a 22-year-old with a bruised ego and confused immediate future can muster, a procedure for dealing with such potential large-scale failure as this.

1. Choose immediate reaction to failure: This part is critical, especially if you are in a room full of other people when you receive news of said failure (I was. It was awkward). You can blow a gasket/scream/cry/throw things/aggressively show your frustration/etc., or you can remain composed. I suggest the latter.* I was slightly surprised at my lack of an external reaction, but it worked wonders for relieving the social tension in the room.
2. Begin to process said failure: walk into kitchen, realize there is no wine, grab car keys and acquire wine, open wine, drink. I do not recommend skipping this step. It is a very good step to have.
   

   Self-explanatory.

3. Host the inevitable pity party: mine happened the next morning, once I re-opened the envelope and the full weight of that rejection hit me. IMPORTANT NOTE! Get through this step quickly for the sake of your mental and emotional health. I prefer to have a power-hour-style pity party and permanently eject those thoughts from my mind once I emerge on the other side of the hour. No use spending any more time and energy uselessly berating yourself for what is most likely 20/20 hindsight (which, in my case, it is).
4. Self-reflect, but without the pity party this time: what do you do if your ideal plan didn’t work out? Sitting around, twiddling your thumbs and waiting for the next chance at that one plan is probably not the best strategy. Analyze the process; there is probably a reason hiding somewhere for why you failed, yes? If you can, try and find it on your own. If you can’t seem to find it, ask someone else who might know. Take all of the constructive criticism you can absorb. Identify some ways you can work towards improving that aspect (or aspects) of yourself so that you will be more likely to succeed when you do decide to re-tackle Plan A.
5. Brainstorm a Plan B and get to work: whatever you identified as potentially needing improvement in step 4, find a Plan B that will help you make that improvement. Not a competitive enough GPA? Find a master’s or post-bacc program that will allow you to start fresh and have a stronger GPA to show for it. MCAT score not that awesome? Give those old lecture notes a dusting-off and get back on the study grind. Not enough medical exposure? Find a job/internship/volunteering position/something that will allow you to gain that exposure. So on and so forth. This step is what I am currently working with, and for me, the most likely problem I’ve identified is my GPA (it’s actually quite good, especially compared to the average science major GPA at my undergrad institution, but it’s not incredible, and that doesn’t always cut it compared to medical school averages…sigh).
6. DO NOT GIVE UP! This is by far the most important step; for me, I know that I am meant to become a doctor, whether I get to start that journey in this application cycle or not. So, whatever helps me get there eventually will ultimately be a step in the right direction; I’m choosing to refer to it as the “scenic route” to medical school. Pick your own scenic route and get to work! Surround yourself with friends and/or family who will encourage you throughout this process. If praying is your thing, do it all the time; if it’s not, find some other form of meditation or self-relaxation or counseling or something that will keep your head straight on your shoulders. DO NOT compare yourself to others who may have gotten to where you want to be faster. Their successes do not imply your failures.

Hopefully some of that made sense. I’m kind of a word-vomit machine this morning, so I apologize if that was overly wordy or nonsensical.

* Unless you are not in a room full of people. Carry out the former option to your heart’s content.

A ghost heart?

On this Valentine’s Day, while much of the world is busy with overpriced flower bouquets from Walmart, half-eaten boxes of heart-shaped chocolate, and social media updates of lovey-dovey togetherness, I can think of something much more interesting: DECELLULARIZED PIG HEARTS. I spotted this gem on the TED Blog and it was so awesome I had to share it. It’s an incredible idea, and has the potential to save so many people with sick hearts. Also, here’s another article from Biomedical Materials about ghost organs: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-605X/8/1/014106

Read up, my friends!

That One Time in the Pathology Lab

Advance Warning: if you don’t like descriptions or mental images of internal human anatomy, you probably shouldn’t read this.

Otherwise, continue onward!

I used to volunteer in my university’s hospital system at the Surgical Pathology Department. I only spent one semester there, because I was starved for human interaction (Fun Fact: this was the same semester in which I fully decided 100% that I wanted to become a doctor rather than a pharmacist. Too little human interaction back there for my tastes, sorry guys), but I learned SO MUCH about human anatomy in that time. My duties consisted mostly of organizing patient slides, maintaining patient records, and sorting through incoming biopsy requests from other neighboring hospitals, but I was also allowed to shadow in the pathology laboratory during my time there. Let me tell y’all, that experience was eye-opening. The first day I was allowed in there is seared into my brain so clearly.

I walked back to the lab, still not completely sure of where I was headed, until the attending pathologist barked out at me: “Hey, you. Volunteer. Grab an apron.” Just like that. No introductions, no stupid ice-breakers, no small-talk, no transition time. I got there, and I was immediately immersed. Not even five minutes later, I found myself shadowing a pathologist’s assistant (I sorely wish I remembered her name, because she was awesome, but she and I were never on the same shift again after that first visit; we’ll call her Sarah) who was talking me through the procedure of dissecting the results of a double mastectomy for cytology samples. I held a human breast in my hands. I felt the difference in density between the normal breast tissue and the tumor, and I was elated when I was able to successfully tell Sarah where the tumor started and ended. My elation was mixed with a sickeningly dead feeling in my stomach when I thought about the fact that this was not a model like the ones in my undergrad anatomy lab; only a matter of hours prior, it had been a live and functioning organ, and it had been attached to a real woman somewhere in that hospital, and she was fighting breast cancer while also having to become accustomed to the angry, sutured wounds in the place of her breasts. It was simultaneously the strangest, most somber, and most incredible moment of my medical experience to date.

Internal anatomy of human breast

Sarah moved right on, though, and the next thing I knew, we were dissecting a uterus/bladder/assortment of abdominal lymph nodes from an older woman who had presented with metastatic uterine cancer. I had no previous frame of reference with which to compare the size of these organs, but it was fascinating to see her pea-sized lymph nodes and feel their slightly grainy texture upon being sliced. Her uterus was tiny, and the fimbriae were all completely intact, their tiny fringe-like projections still reaching out towards nothing.

After that came a placenta from a recently delivered set of twins. I’m sorry, I’m sure experiencing the Miracle of Life is great and all, but I can muster no amount of reverence for the placenta like I did for the breast tissue or the hysterectomy samples. Placentas are gross.

Reaction upon observing the placental dissection.

Moving on, my final experience of the day was a foot-long segment of colon that had been decimated by Crohn’s disease. I got to identify the sigmoid colon, but much of the sample’s gross anatomy had been stretched and distorted by the disease. I got to palpate the internal wall of the colon, and it was so strange to touch and experience the fuzzy texture that the uneven topography of the microscopic colon crypts produced. My roommate for three out of my four years of college has been living with Crohn’s for a couple of years now, and I couldn’t help thinking about how she might end up as a result of this disease; would her colon end up looking like this person’s, diseased and tired and stretched out on a pathologist’s dissection table? Maybe I overthought it, but maybe I didn’t. That day was a massive growing experience, and every time I think about it is a reminder of why I want to do what I want to do.

“Biochem is Fun” and Other Things I Never Thought I’d Say

1. “I should be a chemistry major.” Going into college, I hated chemistry. HATED IT. Granted, the extent of my experience with it had been one semester of high school honors chemistry with an exceptionally mediocre teacher, and the reasoning behind my taking any chemistry at all in college began with it being required for my biology major. While they may have come during the toughest year yet of my academic career, my two semesters with organic chemistry tricked me into liking it. I didn’t plan it, and I realized as I finished orgo, which was my final chem requirement for biology, that I wasn’t quite ready to be done. The rest is history.
2. “Family medicine would be an awesome specialty.” While I have recognized the importance of the specialty on an intellectual plane for a long time, it never occurred to me during high school (or most of college) that I would be interested in pursuing it for myself. That outlook began to change when I worked in a plasma donation center over the summer. The most frequent donors were almost exclusively of low socioeconomic status, with insufficient income for new clothes or a nice dinner, much less for something as pricey as comprehensive healthcare coverage. The center has certain health requirements that must be met (and periodically checked) in order to donate blood plasma, and my heart broke on the day I realized that donation was the only outlet through which many of them could afford a physical exam. I don’t want anyone to have to struggle to find basic care for themselves like that on my watch.
3. “The stuff I learned in physics class is useful outside of physics class.” Similar story as with the chemistry stuff in number 1. I hated physics before, during, and after I took my required classes in the subject. I did not realize until MCAT studying that maybe it might not be so unnecessary after all. What convinced me further were all of the applications I found myself making in my research that involved concepts I learned in physics. The final straw in my path to acceptance of physics as a non-evil entity was watching my younger brother study it. He’s a sophomore, and he’s a physics major, and despite how much he still has to learn in the way of managing a college course load and studying and putting in sufficient effort to get a good grade, I’ll be damned if he isn’t passionate about the stuff. Occasionally, he tries to explain to me some foreign concept he learned in lecture, and it is as alien of a language to me as I’m sure organic chem reactions are to him. As much as I hate to admit it when I’m wrong, I was wrong. Physics is useful and I am wholly capable of appreciating it.
4. “When, not if. I WILL get into medical school.” I’ve always kind of had this mentality floating in the back of my head that, even though I have this insatiable passion for medicine, I may not make it all the way to becoming a physician. This is not due to any real lack in my own qualifications; rather, it stems from a combination of chronic awareness of the magnitude of the things I don’t know and a recurring realization of just how competitive of a process it is to succeed in this endeavor. The fact that the majority of applicants each year are rejected is horrifying to me (and, frankly, does not do much to instill confidence). Even more so than horrifying, though, it isn’t fair, and I hate that. I hate the fact that everyone who wants to dedicate their lives to saving people’s bodies and minds and souls can’t do it because they just “didn’t make the cut, sorry, try again next time.” Lord knows this world needs all of them and then some. Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that, whether I am accepted this year or not, I will be accepted. I know I will. I am willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen. Medicine is where I am supposed to be, plain and simple. People are not going to stop getting sick and I am not going to stop wanting to help them.
5. “It’s okay to take a break.” Whether it’s a 5-minute break for social media checking, a 15-minute power nap, a 30-minute break to go buy coffee and meander through campus, or a full weekend of nothing but relaxation, breaks are awesome. Our brains can only concentrate for so long before they legitimately require a break. Taking a break does not equal lazy. Breaks are good, and I am slowly getting better at them. Hell, if I look at my break-taking abilities now compared to my freshman year of college, I’ve come a looooooooong way. That’s something, at least.

“Thanks for reading this blog!” Blogging is great. While I’m a generally extroverted person, I have typically tended to keep my thoughts to myself, especially when the internet is involved. I now realize what an opportunity I’ve been missing these past few years. Thanks to any of y’all who have bothered to keep up with my attempts at keeping a blog. And a huge thanks to all of you pre-med/medical student/doctor people on here who have offered kind words and encouragement over the past few months. I’m a converted blog-lover and it’s awesome. Keep doing what you’re doing!

Final Countdown

(Sorry I’m not sorry for the cheesy title. I had to.)

Last week, I started my 8th and final semester as an undergrad. It is a surreal feeling to know that I’ve already spent three and a half years of my life on this campus. When I think back to being accepted to college and experiencing my first semester as a freshman, it feels like yesterday and forever ago at the same time. I have grown so much intellectually, emotionally, and personally in my character that it is sometimes mind-boggling to believe I am the same girl who walked into her first lecture in 2010.

To say I am ready to graduate is a gross understatement. Though I don’t have the slightest idea yet what this year will hold for me after May, I know there’s something. I’m about as ready as I’ll ever be to throw my clueless self out there, keep learning, and hope I can stay afloat.

Can’t wait to be a part of this crowd in May!!!

I can’t tell yet how this semester is going to be for me academically; if it becomes difficult, it probably will not be because of the difficulty of the material itself. I am taking an odd mix of chemistry, research, vocal performance, and gen. ed. courses, and while I enjoy the diversity of this learning material, it can be a bit overwhelming for my monstrous case of senioritis to switch back and forth between such different subjects.

A few of the things I’m looking forward to:

1. In one of my recent posts, I mentioned that I’m taking a class on Metabolic Chemistry this semester, and I am loving it so far. Granted, the book is so much more massive than I know what to do with (Voet & Voet. Undoubtedly the largest textbook I’ve seen as an undergrad. There is so much crap in there and ALL OF IT is pertinent), but I learn so much in every lecture.
2. Senior Voice Recital! I study vocal performance as my fun thing/passion outside of medical pursuits/stress release, and as a music minor, I have the opportunity to present a recital consisting of some of the repertoire I’ve been working on for the past few years. So, next month, I get to put on a fancy dress and invite all my friends and family to come hear me sing some operatic things for an hour. I’ve been to so many of my peers’ recitals that I can barely contain the excitement I have now for my own!
3. INTERVIEW #2. My interview with UNC is coming up in a few short weeks, and as it is one of my top two choices, I am getting slightly nervous/excited/anticipatory. I have yet to hear from ECU, which is the previous school with which I interviewed/my other top choice, so the stakes are still set pretty high. If you pray, a prayer or two would mean more than you know. If you don’t pray, your well-wishes and positive thoughts would mean just as much.
4. Blowing things up in lab. My final required class for the chemistry major is a synthetic chemistry lab, and I don’t know much about it yet outside of the fact that many of our reagents will explode if they come into contact with oxygen and/or water. Presents a slight challenge, considering there’s kind of this thing called “air” that gets everywhere really easily. Armed with a lab coat, goggles, and some Erlenmeyers, I will make pretty colors out of some fairly dauntingly named chemicals. What could possibly go wrong?

Ooooh acetylferrocene crystals!

The Waiting Game

Angsty Component of Today’s Post: I’ve never wanted anything worse in my life than to be a doctor. And right now, that manifests itself in the desire to be admitted to med school. I have never wanted anything more than this, here, right now. It is so close that I can taste it. After the interview, the only thing to do is send in occasional update letters and check in with the admissions offices and wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. WAIT. I’m truly terrible at waiting. It’s an exercise in patience that I woefully lack. The radio silence means I’m still being considered, and that I’ve at least made it farther than some of my fellow applicants, but still manages to be increasingly discouraging the longer it lasts.

Angsty Component, Part 2: Rejection emails suck. I got two of those in the past couple of weeks, but luckily, neither of them were from schools to which I’ve received interviews. Even still, seeing a medical school in the sender line and feeling your heart jump into your throat, only to feel it deflate all the way down into your stomach after the first line of the email, is thoroughly disempowering.

Positive Component: I started my final semester of college today! May 2014, and my diploma, are looming ever nearer. While I’m constantly reminding myself to cherish and enjoy this last bit of time here, I can’t help but be impatient (noticing a theme with me here?) to start the next phase of my education.

Happy January, everyone! The Polar Vortex/Impending Demise of North America/Other Dramatic Term for “Cold Weather” is making it fairly miserable here today, so if you’re suffering along with me somewhere, here’s a picture of my dog to reduce said suffering:

His name is Colbee and he’s a 25-pound ball of adorable, white, fluffy goodness.