Becoming a physician...and other stuff.

2012-01-10T19:53:00.000-08:00

So I was cleaning a box out and found this piece of paper with a link on it and realized it was this blog. I tried it out and lo! Here I am, apparently. I am just over 4 months away from graduating from med school.

2009-09-18T08:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday in between studying I finished John Grisham's The Associate. I thought it was good in a fast and easy reading kind of way. When I was younger I would not have liked the dangled endings, not at all. I liked my books tidily cleaned up at the end - resolution was important to me back then. These days, I don't mind it at all. I think it might be because of several reasons. One, life rarely has tidy endings. Being more maturer than I used to be, I can allow that untidiness to follow me into my entertainment and I don't get bothered by it so much. Secondly, I have a much stronger sense of participation in the creative process that the author shares in writing his or her story. By that I mean that if the main character gets dangled at the end I can come up with and settle upon a more agreeable resolution in my own mind and accept it. So maybe in the end I'm not so much un-bothered by it as much as I am simply extending the writer's idea and ending it on my own terms. If I care to think about it much at all.

I am studying neuropharmacology today, along with how to conduct a GI-focused history and exam. I'll have an opportunity for a practical test on the latter in about a week and I'll need to practice for it. Neuropharm is interesting, today's topics include antidepressants, sedatives and anxiolytics. I'm going to also delve into cardiology, too. Hopefully. I'm shooting for about 10 hours of study today. I've stopped going to classes except for when it's required.

Right now my goal is simply to stay current with the lectures from the day before (always trying to catch up to yesterday) and then catching up on Friday's lectures on Saturday, with time left over every day for review. Time to study...

2009-09-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

Wow! I just finished Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I had to skim the last hundred pages or so because I am kind of running out of time, what with 3 exams coming up but I couldn't put it down. After such a long and detailed run up to the end, the end felt rushed. I supposed that, as the author points out through one of his characters, that is a defining characteristic of 'emergent' situations and maybe that's all well and good. Well, it may have had something to do with my skimming. I enjoyed this book of his much more than any of the others I have tried to read. They've all been entertaining but this was much better, sort of a maturer version of his writing. After this I am tempted to check out the baroque cycle, but not for awhile.

I have a GI (gastrointestinal) test on Friday, a Surgical skills assessment (must get 90%!) on Friday and a pharmacology test a week from today, so I'd better get to work.

2nd year med school is much harder than 1st year but it is a lot more fun. Er...enjoyable...or...something. I think it is that the material is more about what I will do when I get into the clinics rather than leading up to that material, which is what 1st year is about.

I found out that I love tying knots. It's very therapeutic. You should try it!!

2009-08-31T11:07:00.000-07:00

Wow! Long time no post!

I dropped into to look at NaNoWriMo and saw this blog was attached to my profile there and thought I'd better log into my blog and...blog...something.

Here it is!

I'm now a 2nd year med student and would love to hang around and write a much longer, more detailed post. But! I can't! I still have 5 lectures to summarize and review before the test tomorrow morning! And I am behind in pharmacology and OMM! I must hurry!

Maybe I'll post more some later time...

2007-06-06T06:20:00.000-07:00

I have decided to go to Des Moines University. There are a lot of advantages to staying here in Des Moines. We'll keep our house (well, we'll keep it until we are too poor...), the kids get to keep their friends and my wife and I will be able to keep our friends, too. Des Moines is a pretty good place. Most of all, I am really thrilled to have the opportunity to go to school. Only 61 days left!

Because we've decided to stay, we have figured that it would be a good idea to try and finish the basement. I mentioned this to a 2nd year med student I know and he said he'd spent two years working as a framer and that he'd like to help. So he came over on Saturday and last night and now more than half of the work is done. I hope to finish the framing by Saturday night so I can start the electrical work on Monday. I think the electrical will take me about a week. Caulking and sealing, redistributing the insulation we have and the insulation we still need to buy will take another week. Then sheetrock will take, I'm guessing here, 4 weeks. Taping and mudding will take another 2 weeks, then we just have to hang doors, paint and trim and have some cheap carpet installed. I still don't know if we will have enough money for it all. I had to buy a framing nailer on Monday, since my first nailer bit the dust. It sure is fun, though, seeing it all go up.

2007-03-28T21:18:00.000-07:00

Bad news this week! EVMS indicated in a letter that they would not be accepting me as a medical student. No matter that I knew I had a very small chance if getting in there, it was still disappointing.

Today I called the Wayne State admissions office for an update on my application and the woman I spoke with said that I was still on the wait list. I expect that I will be on the wait list for a long time and then maybe I will squeak in, towards when school starts, and maybe not. Meanwhile, we have decided to assume, for the time being, that we will be going to DMU. I am sort of relieved that the decision is made. I don't have to stress about whether I will get in here or there or whatever - I just have to get ready for school.

If we go to DMU, we will try to make arrangements to stay in our house, and maybe even put in an extra bathroom and two extra bedrooms. We'll have to wait and see, either way.

2007-03-06T06:39:00.000-08:00

I called Wayne State University last week and was told I am still on the waitlist.

Last weekend I was in Virginia Beach and Norfolk for an interview at EVMS. It's the best school I have been interviewed at, yet. I expect to hear from them in another couple of weeks. My chances there are very, very slim, I think. But hope springs eternal!

The good thing, the very best thing...is that I am accepted at a school. It's a great school. I have a lot of friends who go there and one really good friend that graduated from there, it's just not my first choice. No matter what else happens, I will be going to medical school this fall.

Now I have to begin packing and getting the house ready to sell!

2007-02-01T03:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the day that I should call into the Wayne State University School of Medicine admissions office and find out the decision on my application. Earlier in the day I talked with my wife and told her I didn't have a good feeling about the process. So when I called it was not actually a big shock that I found out that I'd been wait listed. When you have a bad feeling about calling in to find out if you've gotten into medical school or not, being wait listed is much, much better than out and out rejection.

So I should wait until February 28 to call in to the special decision number again. If I am still wait listed at that point, I will have to call in March at the end of the month. If still wait listed in March, I should call at the end of April. If that still does not work out then I can wait throughout the summer for the possibility of being let in.

Meanwhile, I am still waiting to hear from DMU. They emailed me last week and said that the director was out of town and since he reviews all of the applications (or offers for admission?), I (and presumably any others still waiting) will have to wait until he has reviewed them and approved or decided on them. When I called yesterday Danessa (I think that was her name, she is very nice) said I should wait at least until Friday or Monday before following up. I probably should wait until Monday but maybe I will call tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I haven't heard from any other schools regarding interviews. I would have thought I would have had at least a few more interview offers. I did get some rejection letters.

The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Medical College of Wisconsin
MSU College of Human Medicine (rejection email)

I can't remember for sure but I think there are something like 14 schools left, to hear from. I would expect to get outright rejections from most of them. Even so, I am quite certain that I will get into a medical school somewhere.

2007-01-09T04:34:00.000-08:00

On Friday I have an interview at the local osteopathic school. I am not too nervous about it. A lot of my friends are students there or have already gone through the program and they have uniformly agreed that the interviews at this school are pretty laid back. Even so, I am going to spend some time this evening studying students' comments and reactions to this school's interviews at studentdoctor.net tonight and tomorrow night.
My wife and I took a look at my suits and decided to look at getting a new one. I have a blue pinstripe one and a green one and we kind of don't think green is a good idea. The pinstripe one is getting worn here and there. If we get a suit this week it probably won't be in time for Friday's interview, but I will have it for the big interview in Detroit, January 22nd.

2006-10-28T18:14:00.000-07:00

I just finished the secondary for Yeshiva University Albert Einstein College of Medicine. It wasn't too bad. Still, they want to know what I did when I wasn't in school and they wanted to know if (and presumably why) I had gottent any grades of 'F'. So I had to write 2 pages of reasons. Overall, it isn't a bad application. They require $100, which is on the pricier side for an application fee.

2006-10-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

Rejection Always Stings...At Least A Little bit...

I finally submitted the secondary application for The Medical College of Wisconsin last night. Yesterday I spoke with one of my letter writers and confirmed that she is getting them done, I think her letters will be at the schools next week by Friday, maybe earlier. The ochem professor's letters should go out this week. The bio instructor's letters got out about 2 weeks ago, so next week I should be having fully completed secondaries at 5 or 6 schools.

When I talked to my ochem instructor about my MCAT score he sounded surprised that it was as high as it is. He thought that I would have a good chance of getting into my School of Choice.

Wake Forest emailed me with an attached PDF saying that they did indeed evaluate my application but because of the competitiveness of the current bunch of students, they could not accept my application this year. Hmm. The MSAR book says their median MCAT last year was 30, 1 less than the national average. Of course the GPA is way up there, about average for a med school but much higher than mine. Wake Forest's average incoming med student had a science GPA of 3.68. Good, but not stellar. I would have liked to find out exactly which criteria I was failed on and what numbers they were looking for. Well, on the bright side, that's $55 less to shell out for a secondary app fee and less time needed to fill out the app. Still and all, rejection is not fun.

2006-10-25T05:31:00.000-07:00

MCAT Scores!

I got my MCAT scores back a week and a half ago. Here are the results:

part	score	percentile range
Verbal Reasoning	12	94.2-97.9
Physical Sciences	11	80.9-89
Biological Sciences	09	43.1-61.4
Writing Sample	Q	70.2-88.3
Total Score	32Q	83.4-87.2

I am really grateful that I was able to do so well. The Kaplan course, the summer physics course, both helped immensely. Most of all, my wife helped by taking care of all the rest of the household stuff so that I could have more time to study.

Late Monday evening I discovered that the Creighton app requires a digital photopraph so I convinced myself and my lovely wife that I needed a digital camera right away. I drove out to WalMart at 11:30 PM and bought a fantastic little camera from Canon - a PowerShot A540. With a case and a 1 gig SD memory card it was a little over $260. I think I took nearly 100 pictures with it in the first 24 hours I had it. I had trouble getting the camera to connect to my laptop so the next morning I emailed Canon about the problem. By the end of the day they had replied with exact directions, concerning turning a couple of services on, now it works just fine. I love great customer service and the camera is great.

Ah hah! I just switched to the new Blogger beta...and...it seems pretty similar, which is a good thing, I think. And there are labels. Google is nothing without labels, I tell ya! It seems to publish faster too. That's just my feel for it, it's not like I am sitting here with a stop watch.

2006-07-11T04:12:00.000-07:00

Saturday I took the first of five full length practice MCATs administered by Kaplan during their course. I thought I'd done badly. I was surprised to find out I scored 9 on each section for a total of 27. That is 2 higher than the diagnostic. This is heartening, especially since the critical thinking/testing strategy instructor has said that typically the 1st full length score will actually be lower than the diagnostic, for many students. We spent an hour last night reviewing 3 physical science passages. Then the critical thinking instructor took over and she lectured on test taking strategies for an hour then we talked about the essays we wrote on Saturday. After reading 6 sample essays we passed our own essays to other students and we graded them. I got 5's for the 1st essay and a four for the second one. I did not give out such good scores.

Yesterday was also the first day of physics. The professor told us that if there was any other way we could possibly take it on the regular schedule, we should. Only repeaters and geniuses should take the summer course. He opined that it would be the toughest course we would take, ever. I don't think so. If I hadn't been to boot camp I would say that ochem was the toughest course I have ever taken. Second semester physics in 5 weeks? I say, Bring it on!!

2006-07-06T06:15:00.000-07:00

The other day I was up at the local medical school for a Kaplan MCAT course and noticed there were several life sciences books on a table outside the (closed) bookstore. One of them, Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry and its study guide had been there since the last time I went to class up there. So the next morning I called the bookstore and asked about them, then went and picked them up. I got the biochem books, a cell biology book, a genetics book and something about microbiology. For free!! I promised my wife I would think about throwing them out once we got set to move....right!!

I am slowly making headway against the backlog of busy work on the Kaplan homework checklist. It isn't useless busy work. I call it busy work because it's keeping me too busy. I have even given up my daily running to try and catch up. And physics starts next week. Good times!!

2006-06-09T23:19:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile since I posted an update. Part of that is because one of my brothers opened up a data center and gave me an account on it. So I put a couple of posts out there, fully intending to shift my blog activites over to my brother's data center. However, I have found that the server is not running all the time. One of these days I will gather those two posts and lovingly include them here.

As for ochem - I got B's in lab and lecture. Did well on the ACS final, I should say. I got 70% correct - the average for 2004 was 56%.

2006-04-29T15:56:00.000-07:00

The other day I was up at the Drake University library. It's small for a University but it has a lot of character. I was wandering from shelf to shelf, hunting a place to park myself for the afternoon to study. All those books. It was very ponderous. I came across a shelf that had the collected writings of some famous American politician - I don't remember the name of the guy. His collected writings were in about 24 volumes spread across almost 2 shelves. That is a lot of writing. How much is it? On my LDS mission I averaged a page a day of hand written pages, I think at the end I had something like 750 pages for the two years. I should get back into that. Not here on the Internet, of course. None of my personal journal writing would go on the Internet. I would only want "my writings" to become generally available if I became famous. And before I let them go I would cleanse them. Yep, that's right: I would clean out all the stuff that I wouldn't want others to read. I believe in that, yessiree! So - supposing that the average "my writings" book would contain 350 pages and if my writing is not as compact as that - suppose I would be able to use 1.5 pages of my writing for a page of "my writings", then my mission writings would be one book - I would imagine I would cull probably 150 pages out. So - suppose I am capable of somewhat coherent writing until I am 75, roughly 40 years from now, including the 2 years from my mission, I would have 21 books to contain "my writings." Of course, I would be able to write much more than that, I think, typing. I can write a page of text (single spaced) in a few minutes of concentrated work. That would mean that I could have about 365 pages - or one volume - every single year. That would be 41 volumes! Ha! Ponder that, you dead famous American politician! Of course, if that fellow had had the same tools that I have to hand, maybe he would have turned out 200 volumes. You have to respect the working ethic of any person who can handwrite 24 volumes of text during their life, all with goose quills or whatever they had. Good grief! And no doubt the fellow was mostly writing business and government stuff. I wouldn't be doing either - in fact, I plan on making up most of what I write. Yep - I am a fiction writer. Unpublished, of course. And with no particular ambitions to become published. I had them when I was younger. No longer for me, those ambitions. I like to write but I won't pine over unpublished work, becoming bitter with the rejections that would only hurt if that was my main concern. My feeling about that is that I will write what I write and if by chance it captures some editor's attention and by chance it becomes profitable, well and good. Triple well and good! But that pursuit would only be in the interest of a hobby. Some hobbies pay off in monetary ways, most do not. I harbor no illusions, I think. I believe I am a good writer - not great - but I know that there are thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands of good and better writers. I suppose that would be another reason to write a lot, and keep track of it. I would think that a person who wrote a volume of "my writings" per year would eventually become a better writer. Even so good as to catch the eye of the popular press. Don't get me wrong, harboring no illusions does not mean blinding oneself to eventual and possible success.

2006-04-29T15:43:00.000-07:00

Almost forgot my password!

I am studying for the ACS Organic Chemistry final. It will be very difficult. I have purchased the study guide - paid extra in order to have it sooner, the more day with which to study it.
I put away my game. I found that I was playing too much.

Sometimes I have my doubts. If I do not get a B in Organic Chemistry I have a difficult time believing that I will succeed in getting into a medical school, regardless of my MCAT score. The best I can do is keep plugging away. Maybe I will need to take it again next year. Wouldn't that be a treat!! Bomi would not be pleased. Then again, maybe she would be. That would be another year to pay off debt and work on the basement, I suppose. I would be pretty disappointed. I do not believe that I would be happy giving up.

Back to work!

2006-02-28T05:40:00.000-08:00

Only 3 schools are left. I found out that one of the schools I decided to not put in a secondary application in has a post-baccalaureate program for underserved and educationally disadvantaged applicants. Apparently, having to work your way through college qualifies one to be considered "educationally disadvantaged." It is for the 2006-2007 school year, with the understanding, I think, that I would make up any deficiencies during that first year and then enter medical school in the Fall of 2007. I think there is also a $10,000 per year stipend that is available.

The other two schools are Harvard and Des Moines University. I suppose that by the end of March I should know if I will be going to medical school this fall, or not. I hope that I will.

2006-01-24T19:13:00.000-08:00

Ohio state has also sent me a letter saying that they will not be considering my application any further. And a few days ago I got an email from VCU saying that my file was going to be closed without further action if I did not complete my application before the deadline on the 25th of January. So I called them up and asked 'Kenny' what was going on. He said that I was missing all three of my recommendation letters. I thought that was weird. So I asked for an extension and he said it couldn't be done. I called my wife up and she pointedly reminded me that I had mentioned during the application process that it was very odd that they didn't require any letters - because when I filled the application out online there no instructions about letters. Kenny assured me that those letters were indeed required and my application would no be considered without them. So after my wife reminded me of this I called them back and spoke with a different individual who didn't give her name. I explained my dilemma and she said she would look the relevant instructions up and send me a copy of them via email and then call me back to tell me that she had done it. She never did. Both times I called I got the feeling that I was dialing in to the call center of a credit card company. I don't think I will re-apply there.

Who is left?

2006-01-06T09:36:00.000-08:00

Grades have been in at Drake for some time - I don't know how long. I have been accustomed to having my grades mailed to me and furthermore I knew what I was going to get so I did not bother to check. Now that I am filing for tuition reimbursment, however, it matters. I went to Drake's web site and grabbed the bill for Fall 2005 and my grades. It's official: A in lab, B in lecture. Overall I got a 3.25 gpa for the semester.

Nothing much has happened on the medical school front – no letters or emails from anybody. Probably I should check as many of the websites as I can to see if there are updates there. I wish someone would hurry up and accept me into their medical school.

Organic chemistry is starting in a week and a half and I still haven't finished the chapter we are going to start with. It is on benzene rings and it is long and complicated. Every time I sit down to work on it I get really sleepy and can't get anywhere on it.

2005-12-20T15:36:00.000-08:00

I got an email from DMU saying that my application status had changed to hold. It means, apparently, that the reserve the right to possibly interview me later but right now they have too many competitive candidates. Although I am not completely out of the running for a spot at DMU, I wouldn't hold my breath that I will get in there.

Meanwhile I made the difficult decision to drop 3 schools - Drexel, Creighton and the D.O. school south of here – Kirksville. The secondary application fees are high and we have simply run out of money. I will finish the Saint Louis secondary application when we get back from our Christmas vacation. They have a really slick application web site, the nicest one I have seen so far. Also, they have a survey that asks what I thought of the application site. That was a nice touch. Their secondary requires $100 and a picture of me. I will arrange to get a jpeg of me when I am on vacation, one of my close relatives has a digital camera.

I emailed my ochem professor on Monday morning, asking for my Final Exam grade. He replied that I had gotten 36 out of 50, for 68%. It brought my end grade down to 75.73%, I think. Then he went on to say that because I was always asking good questions, worked hard and stayed on top of things, he would be reporting a B for my final grade. Magnificent! I am very glad I have this particular professor - he has been great. I am already looking forward to taking chem 108 next semester with him.

I have not heard from any of the other schools except Iowa. They have emailed me to say that my application was complete and I should here next from them by mail. Nothing else.

Because DMU has put my application on hold I am not very confident that I will be able to get into an M.D. school, either. I was a bit downcast at first, when I found out. I called my wife and told her the bad news – she did not sound very happy either. DMU was our fall back school and despite my low MCAT score I felt that I would at least be able to get in there. My wife called me back a few minutes later and told me that she had gotten a great feeling of reassurance when she thought of our situation – not an assurance that anything specific would turn out for us but that we would be taken care of nonetheless. This was nice for me to hear.

I have now begun considering the possibility of needing to take the MCAT again and re-apply to our schools in the summer. There are a lot of advantages to this approach so if I do not get accepted to medical school this year then it will not be completely a bad thing.

2005-12-13T22:13:00.000-08:00

I took the ochem final on Tuesday. 52 multiple choice questions. 156 points possible out of a 150 total - theoretically I could pull my entire grade up by one percent simply by acing the final. My chances of that were slim and none, not necessarily in that order.

By Saturday evening my goal is to finish the remainder of the secondary applications and send off the remaining letters.

I won't be able to find out my final exam grade until Monday or so. With that I can calculate my final grade and figure out where I stand.

Next semester I will be able to spend a little more time and I will have improved my study habits, too. Hopefully I will get a grade closer to an A, if not an A.

2005-12-11T05:27:00.000-08:00

Today being the Sabbath I don't normally study. Today I will make an exception because the final is coming up and I am worried that I will not do well enough.

I may also finish the two remaining letter packets so I can send them on their way.

2005-12-10T22:02:00.000-08:00

I thought I might be able to enter a post on any given date and had planned on entering one for Friday. I don't, however, see any buttons or options to back date a post. I suppose then that this post will go in on Sunday, December 11.

I am still wondering if it wouldn't be better to publish my blog on our family server, the one that one of my siblings oversees.

Last night I went to the hospital to volunteer. I took cookies, they were quite a hit. It was a more interesting night than usual, though I could not say why. Privacy laws being what they are these days, it is very important to never share anything with anybody about what you see or here in a medical setting. On the one hand I think this is very commendable. Everyone has a right to privacy. On the other hand, everything is so very interesting. Really, people are the most fascinating of all subjects. Why has realizing this taken so long? I am really excited about the opportunity to go to medical school.

I hope that I get to go to an allopathic school. However, if the only school that accepts me is an osteopathic school then I will still go. I want to be a sugeon more than I care about the exact designation that I get to add to my name when I am done.

I have a final exam in organic chemistry on Tuesday, I need to get back to studying for it. I did well enough on my lab final (85%) that I think I will be getting an A in that, hopefully. I will need at least 83% on the lecture final to get a B in that class. The final will be multiple choice.

Back to studying!

2005-12-08T18:58:00.000-08:00

Today I read a report that the terrorists that had kidnapped Ronald Schulz had killed him and it suddenly occurred to me that one of the hallmarks of a righteous cause is that it will not force an unwilling sacrifice. The cowardly murderers posing as insurgents have caused that another man should sacrifice for their cause and this makes their cause no cause at all but bloody and tragic stupidity.

What else is there today, after that? I noted to myself that yesterday was the anniversary of Pearl Harbor day. No one really mentioned to me.

Ronald Schulz was a Marine.

Although as yet unverifiable, after reading of death, much of anything else I could write would be very trivial.

2005-12-07T18:45:00.000-08:00

We had a lab exam today. It consisted of two parts. The first covered methods, reactions and analysis in the lab. The 2^nd part asked questions about what we wrote in our lab books prior to and during each of the labs.

I got my test back from Monday: 65 out of 100. According to my calculations I need 100% on the final homework and about 83% on the final in order to pull a B out of the class. If I do well on the lab final then I will get an A in there. I would not be content with a B in the class but neither would I be really unhappy.

The final is on Tuesday late afternoon so I have awhile to work on it. Tonight I was going to watch a movie but it doesn't seem like a good idea after I have given it some thought. Need to study, instead.

If I can get enough studying done then I will be able to run for a ½ hour or so, and maybe do some writing.

2005-12-06T09:19:00.000-08:00

Finally received confirmation from Harvard that my secondary application is complete. The email I got from Harvard explained that if I was selected to interview there they would notify me by the third week of January.

DMU has also notified me that my secondary application is complete.

I have several other applications to complete and three more letter packets to send out.

Tomorrow I have a lab final and next week I have the lecture final, for organic chemistry. Lot of pressure. I am holding up just fine!!

I am off to study for my ochem lab final. Good thing I have lots of Mountain Dew® on hand!