Day 2409: What a day.

Today, I interviewed applicants for my medical school. That was in the afternoon. While trying to come up with questions to ask and figure out how I wanted these interviews to go, I was feeling a bit blah about going in to my psych rotation that day. My attending was gone for a conference and I was basically following people around like a puppy for the past few days. However, while working with a bit of a terse, no-nonsense attending (who sassed me and made me feel like an idiot...on psych of all things), I had the opportunity to sit in on a family session...which everyone but the patient knew was going to be an intervention.

Have you ever seen that show, "Intervention"? I haven't. After telling people what I sat in (which I will tell you about in one precious moment), apparently, what I experienced was just like the show. So what happened? I was sitting in with a heroin addict and his family, and what transpired was this...each family member read this beautiful, touching, heartfelt letters to their addict family member. "This is to my younger sibling, who I built forts with as a child, not the monster called addiction who has taken my sibling from me." Things like this. And then more. All beautiful. All from the heart. All so personal. And all heartbreaking. All I could think was, what am I doing here??? I felt like I was intruding on something so important and life-altering and moving and..wow. What a way to end the week.

Then, I had to interview 4 applicants in the afternoon. I am a person, as you all know, ready to crush dreams and, surprisingly, I liked 3 out of the 4 applicants. I ended up accepting all 4 of them because my interviewing partner (an MD or PhD) was really wowed by this blah-applicant's academic credentials. To be honest, I wasn't all that impressed with this applicant as a person. I didn't think s/he would be a huge asset to the school. S/He could have gone anywhere and been perfectly plain at whatever school s/he went to, you know?

All in all, it was a pretty exciting day. Intervention, check. Fulfilling dreams, check. I can't say it enough but third year is 85 million times better than my first two years of med school.

Day 893: The Milwaukee 411

Hola todos!

Once again, I am on a plane, heading home from an interview. This interview was at a school in Milwaukee, which I surprisingly liked. I think being lucky enough to be choosy made this already no-stress interview even less stressful. As a fellow applicant stated so well, "now you [the school] have to impress me."

There were a lot of organizational/communications issues on the school's part early on in my stay, which set the Milwaukee experience off to a so-so start. Luckily, the student body, facilities, and academic structure of their curriculum made up for the disorganization.

I think coming in to the interview with a very open mind helped me see that the school actually has a ton of pros. This is the only medical school in the area so there's no competition with other students (undergrads, dental students, etc) for research positions, volunteering opportunities, etc. They offer a pseudo-extracurricular-but-essentially-required-scholarly-project in an area of medicine that interests you--and luckily one of them is global health, which I am über-passionate about. They have the same grading structure as San Antonio, which is, you earn the grade you get. No curves. There are other pros, but I won't bore you with them.

The moral of this post is to state that I would not be averse to attending this school. What most excites me about their admissions process is the fact that my interview was yesterday (Friday) and they will send out, via snail mail, their decision next Friday. That's a one week turnaround time! I'm still waiting to hear from San Antonio, my first interview way back when in August!

Anyhoo, I'll keep you all apprised.

Day 889: Another interview in the midst

It is midst right? Not mist? Mist would be silly. Things in mist. I think they make scary films with that premise.

Anyway, I digress. I leave Thursday for an interview in Milwaukee (brrrr). I think it's good to keep my options open, even given the current circumstances. I've been waffling a lot the past few days, deciding whether or not I should go. I tried calling tons of people to get their insight, but shocker, everyone was busier than Santa's elves during the hoildays and couldn't take my call. Such is life. Sometimes you have to make the big decisions on your own.

Granted, this decision isn't all that big. But still, a decision that stressed me out. The stress has gone and the decision has been made. Off to Milwaukee I go!

Day 868: The aftermath of the New Orleans drama

I am here to tell you all about my latest interview in New Orleans. Rather than bore you all with gobs of text, I shall do my best to utilize my broadcast journalism skills and tell you the utmost necessary information about my trip to NoLa.

I flew in Friday where my friend picked me up. I got really sick on my flight there. My throat killed. It became unbearably difficult to swallow (my own saliva, much less any fluid that wasn't scalding hot) and when I deplaned, I was achey and slightly light-headed. We went to dinner (the food did me some good) and then went back to his place where I slept on his gosh-awful couch.

Saturday, we both wake up late and head out to breakfast in the French Quarter. Cafe du Monde is packed beyond belief so we walk to another place down the block and have a good ol' breakfast. He leaves to study and I explore the French Quarter.

He calls me at 4:30 to see if I'm all right only to inform me he took a nap and was just beginning to study. I am sick and dehydrated and just want to go back so I tell him I'm heading back and he can study once he lets me in. We don't go out to eat that night and I end up eating the random crap he has in his refrigerator (cold cuts, cold bread, cold cheese -- all excellent for my throat). I sleep on the floor that night (better than his couch).

Sunday, he wakes up at noon, drops me off at Audubon Park and I don't see him again until 5:30.

Long story short, I don't have money to ride the streetcar so I end up walking 2 miles to the bakery I wanted check out (without passing out even though I'm dehydrated beyond belief). He and the girl he's dating pick me up from there and she is the worst. She's a naive recent college graduate who smokes (in her car no less). He acts like a bumbling, giggling teenager around her and I wanted to smack the crap out of both of them. We eat some po'boys for dinner and they leave to study. I sleep on the floor again tonight.

Finally! The interview! Having had a craptastic time in New Orleans thusfar, the school is actually quite nice. I mean, it's nothing new and shiny like the Philly school, but this school offers a Tropical Medicine degree, which is something that would truly benefit my future career with Doctors Without Borders. The students are nice and the three interviews I had (two faculty, one student) went as follows:

1. Male PhD. A fine interview. Nothing too great. He didn't have any of my info so it was just him asking questions.
2. Female PhD. She's German and adorable and tall! We ended up talking for almost 50 minutes (instead of the typical 30). She said near the end of the interview that she could see me at their medical school (which I hope is a good sign, fingers crossed!)
3. Female, second year. She was sweet. A little nerdy, but super cute. We just chitted and chatted and ate some not-very-good food.

I forget to mention that the morning of my interview, my hands and feet have broken out with these things:

They hurt like blisters especially when I open-and-close my hands and when I walk on my feet. Another way to describe it is like my hands and feet are constantly asleep so the blood rushing back to them hurts like hell in a handbasket. But I'm overexaggerating. It's just uncomfortable.

Edited to Add: My best friend diagnosed me as having Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. For which all I have to say is this: I hate all of you dirty people of New Orleans who infected me with this crap!

So, all in all, New Orleans has infected me with who-knows-what, I am no longer friends with the guy I visited, and I am 10 days away from receiving decisions (hopefully) from medical schools. I think I'm going to start freaking out soon.

Day 860: Sometimes I amaze even myself...

...with how stupid I can be.

For those that have heard this story before, thank you (for the umpteenth time) for allowing me to freak out.

I am interviewing at a medical school in New Orleans next Monday (yay!). I received the invite two weeks ago while I was at my Philly interview. I needed to reschedule my NoLa interview so I called them whilst on a break from my Philly interview. The woman on the phone said, "All right Jessica, you're all set for October 4th. I await your return email." Well, being me, in all the hullabaloo of rescheduling my NoLa interview and being at my Philly interview and flying home (it sounds like I'm making excuses, which I am), I completely and utterly forgot to email the NoLa school back. Everything's fine, right? Sure, sure. Except for the tiny detail where it states explicitly in my interview invitation, "you must email us within five days of the receipt of this email or your spot will not be guaranteed." %*$@!

I realize this fact on Saturday (a little under two weeks after I receive this email, I reiterate %*$@!) and am so lucky (note the sarcasm) to get 36 full hours to flip the heck out. I don't think you understand how much I drained myself emotionally. After this realization, I went swimming with my friend, came home and literally forced myself to sleep at 7:30/8pm. I didn't want to deal with my parents' disappointment (and further reminders of what a seriously dumb piece of crap I am) so I went to sleep. I just needed Monday to get here so I could speak to someone at the Admissions office and see if I needed to shoot myself in the foot in order to move on with my life.

Luckily, I called the Admissions office today and everything is okay. The same woman said again, "okay Jessica, no problem, we'll see you October 4th." And that's that.

I tried really hard this weekend to talk myself down from my freak out, knowing full well I had done everything I possibly could until Monday. Nevertheless, it was brutal. I haven't felt so worthless and hopeless in a long time. It's nice to know those feelings are like riding a bicycle. They just come back and you ride them out as if you were an emo teenager yesterday.

Day 847: Philadelphia

I am attempting to be better about setting realistic goals for myself so let’s see if I can get one entry a week in here okay? I mean, let’s just hope for this to be true.

I am currently en route to Denver from Philadelphia where I was for an interview. The city of Philadelphia was not very loving to me when I first arrived Thursday night, but I can say with great pleasure that the school where I interviewed significantly made up for it.

The students were enthusiastic about their school and each other. Granted, they were nowhere near as enthusiastic or supportive of each other as the San Antonio medical students. However, that isn’t a bad thing. It was just to a lesser degree than I was accustomed to (since San Antonio was my first interview).

Right now, I think I like this school better than I do San Antonio. The facilities are newer, which never hurts. I didn’t think facilities really mattered to me because as long as you learn, that’s what matters. However, after seeing the new shiny and pretty facilities at this Philly school, I was pretty impressed with what I saw. Now, facilities matter more than they did before. The faculty also sound very approachable and supportive, which is always a plus.

The biggest issue for me now is cost…and getting in. So I suppose it’s two things. This Philly school has an out-of-state tuition reaching the $54,000 mark. The San Antonio school has an out-of-state tuition just over $26,000. Uhhh, holy crap! Not until I wrote those numbers did I realize what a huge freaking difference that is! I would be literally be paying double every year for my medical education. Damn. The Philly school seemed really helpful about financial aid, but, seriously. Damn. How sad is it that education, very often, comes down to the numbers? (Very sad.)

Let’s get back to problem number two, getting in. The earliest I could hear from these schools is October 15^th. Luckily that’s only a month away and I will have things, like football and more interviews and personal pet projects, to keep me busy but still.

To be honest, I’m not that nerve-wracked for some reason. I think that’s because I’m too focused on getting out to my next two interviews (I have two! Eep! :D) that these are now out of my control I was my awesome self at each and we’ll have to hope that they liked me enough to want to offer me a spot in their class. Fingers crossed!

Until the next entry my dears!

Day 823: Lots of things (for once!)

Hey everyone. I know I've been MIA for most of August, but I assure you it was  not due to laziness (which is usually the case). Saturday August 7th was the day my best friend married her true love. Gross, I know :p but honestly, I was co-maid of honor and it was a true pleasure to be apart of something so magical and treasured and beautiful.

Sunday August 8th, I flew out to Milwaukee to see my beautiful friend Nicki. I hung out with her and her friends (all of whom are completely awesome) and got to see a (")big(") city in the Midwest. Nicki's uncle got us some killer seats to a Brewers game and I forgot how fun a baseball game live can be! I flew out to Mil-Town (as Nicki occasionally calls it) to see it, but it was mainly to help my lovely friend drive out to sunny California. She got into a PhD program out here (I could go on and on about how intelligent and bright she is) and I helped her move her life out here. It was a fabulous drive and we had gobs of fun hanging out and seeing the lack of sights along 80. (Pictures to follow in a separate post)

After returning from our road trip, I left for MDA (Muscular Dystrophy Association) camp. It was my first time at sleep away camp and I had a blast! I was not fortunate enough to have a camper (since most of these children are wheelchair-bound, the camp is great about maintaining a 1:1 camper:counselor ratio) but my role as an "Activities leader" was better suited for me. I helped set up stuff for the numerous events happening and helped relieve counselors when they needed it. I got to see how the camp was run, help the nurse and doctor with medical things, and meet a ton of campers. It was perfect. There are so many things I experienced and took away from camp that I think I'll make a separate post about it.

And now, on August 22nd, I am en route to San Antonio, Texas where I have the great privilege of interviewing at a medical school out there! I know! I can't believe it either! All my hard work and effort is slowly paying off. This is the key moment--showing them my commitment to people and health. I'm doing gobs of research today about healthcare and the school to be as prepared as I can be. The first- and second-year medical students are putting on a little meet-and-greet for interviewees tonight and I plan on attending to get a better feel for the class and a firsthand account of what the med school has to offer. Fingers crossed I like what I see!

Okay, this post has probably bored you to pieces :p we'll be in touch!