My path medicine has never been in really straightforward. The only straight forward thing about my path is my desire to pursue medicine. At a young age I always knew I wanted to become a doctor. You know, I’m not even really sure how or when exactly I got that idea in my head but it’s something that I’ve always worked towards pursuing. I mean a lot of children say they want to be a doctor, lawyer, or singer when they grow up. Feel like the American society in my opinion puts a lot of pressure on little kids to know what they want to do or at least be able to formulate some idea about their future. I will say that luckily my parents never really put that pressure on me and so I really think it helped me formulate my own idea and I eventually just stuck with it.
My path to medicine – High school
I went to a Catholic school and you had to take a test to get accepted to the school. Most of the students that I also went to high school with had been in Catholic school their whole entire lives. However I had not I just went to regular public school prior to high school.
The one big difference about Catholic school that I noticed from my prior public school experience was that at least at this school it was cool to be smart. All of the popular kids or at least most of them were in the honors or AP classes. I’ll save my Catholic high school story experience for another day but let’s just say it was an interesting ride.
But overall in high school I was just your average student I tried my best, I made honor roll, but I was never in any honors or AP classes due to the structure of my school.
My path to medicine –College prep
Preparing for college you meet with your high school counselor for college preparation. I had my hopes high on attending Elon University, running track, and majoring in biology/premed.
I’ll never really forget that meeting with my advisor, that day; she told me I should go to an HBCU (Historically black college/universities) instead of trying to get into the colleges that I planned on applying to. There’s nothing wrong with HBCUs after all my mom went to college and grad school at HBCUs. But instead of helping me to reach my goals my advisor couldn’t see past the color of my skin and lack of honors/AP classes.
My path to medicine – College
A year later I found myself attending Elon University majoring in Biology and competing in division 1 track and field. Funny how life works, isn’t it? Everything that my advisor told me I shouldn’t or couldn’t due I was able to achieve.
I thank God I come from a strong family, specifically a mother who always believed in all of my academic goals. A father who was at every track meet of mine since the age of 5. I’ll never forget the day my parents dropped me off at Elon, I remember looking at their faces and seeing how proud they were of me. At that point I knew it was my turn to put in the work so that I could do the same thing for my future children.
While at Elon, I was the only student in the biology department that also participated in sports full-time. Some of my college professors and department leaders frowned upon this. But I met two advisor’s whose attitudes were completely different from the rest. They believed in my goals/dreams and supported them. We’re actually still really close to this day.
My path to medicine -How do you balance it all?
A question that I routinely got and still get asked now that I’m in residency married with a young child at home. My answer’s pretty much always the same, I don’t balance it all, I try my best, utilize help when I can, and take one day at a time. I think a whole other blog post needs to be dedicated to this topic specifically so I won’t go into a lot of detail here.
My path to medicine – College continued
In college I stayed up late to study and finish my homework. Often times I would be up into the wee hours of the night 1-2am. Had to wake up every morning for my 8:00am classes and right after class I reported to track practice for 3:30pm every day. I was in track practice for a minimum for 2 hours and if it was a lifting day you could call it a wrap. I wouldn’t be done to until close to 7:00pm.
And at this point I was starving I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch! So of course I had to eat dinner, go home take a shower, and by that time it was almost 8:30pm. So as you can see on my longer days my studying didn’t even get started until 8:30 PM. Can’t tell you how many countless hours and long nights I spent studying in college while the rest of my roommates were sleeping.
Overview
Wanted to make both of my dreams work and this was just something that I had to do. I also joined a sorority at the end of my freshman year Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated. This came with its own responsibilities. So then I was balancing three major things in college being a sorority member, student, and an athlete.
During my sophomore year I met my college mentor who at that time I didn’t know would ultimately continue to serve as a sounding board and mentor throughout my journey to medicine. She was amazed at all the things I was balancing and held me to very high standards when it came to taking her particular classes. Remember receiving an email from her asking me why I had an A-in her class and that I definitely had the potential to have a higher grade.
I never had a teacher reach out to me and push me in this way. Knew she was doing it to help me reach the next level. Throughout the rest of college I worked hard, I missed out on a lot of social events on the weekends (football games, probates, parties, etc). I knew I couldn’t do everything everyone else was doing. I needed those free weekends when there were no track meets to catch up on studying.
specific example
Halloween night of my senior year in college we had a huge comparative anatomy exam the next day. I had been studying for a while now but I knew I needed this night to solidify concepts. Comparative anatomy was definitely by far the hardest class that I’ve ever taken in college. And the average grade for this class in past years was a C+ according to the professor and my mentor. I knew my GPA couldn’t afford a C+.
Unfortunately along the way taking premed classes I didn’t always get A’s and B’s, I got two C+’s in classes that I really struggled with. So I knew deep down in my heart I needed to stay in to solidify my foundation of knowledge.
I am mentioning this story to you because if anybody’s in a similar circumstance I completely understand the frustrations with trying to enjoy college (which I did I still had a lot of fun in college) but also working towards a greater goal. It can be frustrating having to make a lot of sacrifices along the way. Trust me you’ll be sad and feeling FOMO in the moment but you’re just building resilience for yourself for the future.
My path to medicine-Not getting accepted to medical school
During my senior year of college I applied to medical school. A few months after I submitted the applications I slowly received all rejection letters. I was devastated. I knew that my MCAT score was low, applied anyway, and that’s what probably lead to my rejections. Soon after I came to the harsh realization that I didn’t have anything to do after college graduation. Wanted to still pursue medicine but had no idea what other paths I could take to get there. I remember googling “How to make yourself a stronger medical school applicant” doing hours of research. I came across Master’s programs that specialized in that exact thing! Soon after I applied to a few of these Master’s programs and to my surprise I got accepted into my top program!
My path to medicine-Grad school
The summer after college I started my Master’s at Boston University School of Medicine. Little did I know that those two years would be some of the hardest I would experience. I studied harder, made amazing friends, and gained more life experience in those two years than all of college. Grad school really made me grow not only as a student but as a person too.
My path to medicine-Applying for Med school a second time
During my second year of grad school I reapplied for medical school. I knew my academics were strong since I worked hard and graciously had done well during grad school. But I knew I needed to dedicate time outside of school to study for the MCAT. So instead of going straight to Med school after grad school I chose to take a gap year. This gave me the time I needed to focus on the MCAT and gain some work experience.
My path to medicine-Med school
During my gap year I took a nannying job and worked tirelessly on my med school application. I remember sitting in my kitchen the day I got my first interview invitation, I was ecstatic! Last time I had applied I didn’t even make it this far. I did research and prepared for my medical school interviews. If you’re interested in how I did that let me know in the comments, I can write a whole blog post about that. I interviewed across the country mainly on the East coast and in the mid-West. Remember only applying to Indiana University because they didn’t have a secondary application. I had no connections to Indiana besides going there for the final round of Junior Olympics one year haha. Fast forward a year later and many interviews later, I ended up choosing to attend Indiana University. Life has a funny way of working.
My path to medicine–Residency
Similar to College or Grad school during your final year of med school it was time to work on, finalize, and submit residency applications. Once again the interview trail began; this time I embarked on the trail will a mini companion, (I was pregnant) so that made things a little more interesting to say the least. But overall I really enjoyed traveling for interviews.
I remember making my rank list and going back and forth between my top two choices. Ultimately I didn’t match at my number 1 chose, I matched at my number 2 chose (Read my blog post on this). Looking back I realize that my number 2 was a much better fit for me and I can say in hindsight I’m content with the way everything worked out.
Overall, as you can see my path to medicine was definitely not straight forward. I wanted to write this post so people can see that all doctors don’t come from families made of physicians, money, or without any hardship on their journey to medicine. I hope this post motivates someone. IF you really want this, just believe in yourself, surround yourself with the best resources. You can and you will achieve this. Comment below if you have more questions or topics of discussion!
TheActiveMedic