This post is part 3 of a 3 part post about the medical school interview process. [link to part 1: the day before; and part 2: the interview day]
This was the most exhausted I remember feeling since my wedding five months ago. [a post about it] Other than that.. I can’t ever remember feeling this tired. Not running a marathon. Not the MCATs, a five hour long med school admissions test. I could feel my body disintegrating like alka seltzer tabs sizzling in distilled water. So when I got back to my hotel room, I promptly passed out.
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The next morning we had one last informal event, a tour of Charleston.
We took a horse lead carriage tour of historic downtown Charleston, and we wandered along the shore. One by one, people took cab rides to catch their flights home. Before we knew it, there was four of us. Chris, Josh, Kristin, and I. The four originals that toured Forever 21 that first night, like it was a sign.
In an unexpected fashion, we had formed something of a bond. Even though we had met just 48 hours ago, we understood each other in a way that even our brothers or wives wouldn’t understand. We had helped each other through some last minute adventures like lost baggage, we had distracted each other from the nerves of the night before, and now we were keeping each other company through the daze after the big day.
Of course, even though we hadn’t met, we had met versions of each other. In fact, the four of us probably had similar stories. We had all spent the bulk of our adult lives, years seventeen to twenty four, making sacrifices so we could deserve to be where we are today. Staying up late to wrap up experiments in the lab, waking up early to volunteer at the clinic on the weekends, obsessing over the single question: will I ever get into med school? And the answer was finally within our grasp. We had arrived at the last circle of hell togeth..
I snapped out of my internal monologue when Josh asked:
“Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if we all came here?”
We immediately broke out in smiles and laughter.
That would be cool.
I slipped back into internal monologue mode..
It’s so easy to get lost along the interview trail.
The friends I’d made on this trail had schedules like mine, six to eight trips. We were all foregoing restful weekends to sleep in uncomfortable hotel beds. We were spending our precious vacation time giving the same spiel over and over, trying to convince interviewers why we were so great.
But that one comment, that the four of us could end up here as classmates, put me into a moment. One of those moments when you stand on your porch watching the night sky with a beer, and you think to yourself, this is a pretty good life. I live for those moments.
It reminded me that this would all be worth it. This fall, or perhaps a following year, I will undergo the white coat ceremony, a ritual celebrated by first year medical students to signify that we are officially on the path to earn those white coats and become healers, physicians, doctors.
Not only that, I would meet more friends along the way that I would bond with through these battles. I can just see us now, sitting around at a 24 hour hospital cafeteria, “Dude, remember that time you showed up to a residency interview in flip-flops?”
See you on the other side,
from ken
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