The REAL reason I want to go to med school

One of the many place I pretended to care about people.

I have several friends going through the med school admissions process this year. Just having finished it, I am extremely worried for their mental health.


The process is a lot of acting. There’s a vague template that med schools want, and there’s unbelievable pressure to dress in suits and say cookie cutter snipits to please the all-powerful admissions committees. 


In order to appease such bureaucracy, I wrote a post last year [link to med school personal statement here] that evolved into my med school personal statement. To summarize: I want to be a doctor because I had been privileged and given the opportunity to flourish, so I wanted to lead a life where I could give other people that same chance. Medicine seemed perfect – I could turn people’s lives around. 


The personal statement is part of the reason I want to be a doctor, but it’s also the “best sounding” reason. Now that the powers-that-be have signed my acceptance letter, I can give you the top 3 REAL reasons why I chose med school: 


#3) The results are tangible. In the lab, I constantly struggle to sustain intrinsic motivation through countless failures. SO MANY long days are meaningless.  The clinic provides a lot more extrinsic motivation – patients come in, you try to help them, rinse, repeat.  

#2) My favorite show growing up: Scrubs. I'm hoping if I become a doctor I will become JD from Scrubs – over-the-top introspective, selfishly cares too much about other people, slowly develops as alpha male. So far it's working. I seriously debated for at least seven minutes the pro/cons of putting this as #1. 


Sidenote – Sandeep Jauhar wrote one of my favorite medical memoirs, Intern. Jauhar used to be a physics PhD student, but decided there wasn’t enough meaning in PhD research so he changed tracks to med school. The book is about his intern year, the first year of training after medical school. It’s infamous as the hardest year of medical training, and Jauhar writes a hilarious and honest record of the year. 


He describes one scene when he and the fellow interns are burnt out and giving all the wrong answers on rounds. The attending physician walks them over to the window, and points to the river, at a guy looking up at the hospital. He says: 

“That guy in the boat, looking at the hospital, do you know what that guy is thinking? I should have been a doctor.” 

#1) The scene struck a cord with me because the #1 reason I want to be a doctor is that I need my life to have meaning - I never want to be the guy in that boat. My life is a never-ending balance of comfort and meaning. Whenever life gets too easy I always question if my life is meaningless, and whenever my life is involved in too much stuff I feel like I'm teetering on the edge of sanity. 


Sacrificing time and mental sanity sucks, but I would rather struggle with burnout than meaninglessness. 


Sidenote – this desire to have a meaningful life is the #2 reason why I got married, but that’s a whole different post. 


See you on the other side, 


from ken 


Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

I’m going to take my talents to South Carolina

Eight months ago, I spent weeks editing and re-editing my med school personal statement, and days filling out the endless AMCAS forms. When I finally finished on June 3rd and hit submit, I felt a huge sense of relief. 

It turned out I was far from the end. That day was followed by a good two months of chiseling away at secondary applications, then about five months of flying across the country to interview at various schools, and then a month of obsessively checking my email and praying for an acceptance somewhere. 

Whenever I met other people along the interview trail, or I talked to my friends also applying this year, we’d complain about how the process was draining our relationships, sapping our sanity, and chopping years off our life. It’s not any one day or one moment that’s especially hard, like taking exams, but it’s a drawn out process with a lot of helplessness and a whole lot of waiting. 

But the other week, I finally reached an end when I was accepted at two schools. I was accepted to an MD/PhD program at St. Louis University, and the Medical University of South Carolina. 

Sidenote - How MD/PhD programs works: 

2 years of medical school in a classroom 

2 – 5 years of working in a lab and writing a PhD thesis 

2 years of medical school in a hospital 

It's a total of 6 to 9 years, but the program has free tuition and a living stipend, so it’s a great deal. 

Sidenote within a sidenote - My theory is that biomedical research will be a different landscape in twenty years or so. As we move towards more emphasis on the clinical relevance of basic science research, MD/PhD’s will be far outcompeting PhD’s for jobs. 

Anyways, I decided to take my talents to the Medical University of South Carolina for several reasons. For one, I liked it enough to write a three-part post about it: 

Part 1: Forever 21

Part 2: Black Suits Coming

Part 3: Reflections   

Most importantly, it’s been one of my long standing dreams to live near the beach, and somewhere I could wear shorts and flip flops all year. 

Sidenote - It's one of my theories that everyone has an ideal self they imagine themself as.  Say a brilliant undiscovered writer, or a hardcore cyclist.  In reality, people are nowhere close to these ideal selves.  This doesn't stop me from maintaining that my ideal self would be some hybrid of Chris Paul/Jack Johnson/Paul Farmer/Bill Simmons. 

In addition, MUSC felt like an academic environment that would help me succeed. I’ve endlessly debated the merits of a cutthroat environment like a Harvard against a supportive student-oriented world like a Kenyon [here's a post: "Which pond?"]. 

But as usual, the decision was made for me, and I got into two schools I considered on the supportive/student-oriented end of the spectrum. My competitive side still wants to tangle with the students at the Harvard’s of the world, but maybe the cards aren’t quite in place for me yet. 

So anyways, my wife and I will be launching are life together for the next six to nine years in Charleston, South Carolina.  Hopefully we'll come out with more kids than debt. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

MUSC Trip Day 3 of 3: Reflections Along the Med School Interview Trail

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. 

-- 

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 

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

MUSC Trip Day 2 of 3: Black Suits Coming

This post is part 2 of a 3 part post about the medical school interview process. Link to part 1.

Maybe I should count sheep. 

No.. that won’t work. 

I wonder if I should research MUSC more. 

A quick glance at the clock read 11:23 PM. I couldn’t fall asleep. I had to be up at 6 AM, which is 3 AM PT. 

Maybe I’ll go back to the sheep. 

BZZZZ BZZZZ BZZZZZZZ 

I dove at my phone. “Hello?” 

“Hi, this is Sandy from the Southwest at Charleston airport?” 

“Oh, uh, do you guys have my bag?” 

“Yes! Would you like to have it delivered? Or pick it up at the airport for a $50 travel voucher?” 

I’ve spent more than a few paychecks on plane tickets, so I took the $50 voucher. 

Finally, relief. 

One sheep.. 

Two sheep… 

.. 

In the morning I put on my carefully tailored suit. It’s dark grey with pin stripes. From an outlet. Man, I look good. 

I’m not sure why we need to wear suits to these interviews. All it does is make us stick out like sore thumbs. The only other thing I can think of – ties lightly choke you, and make you tense, as if you’d make fewer mistakes if you’re tense. 

Still unsure, but looking sharp, I head down to the lobby to meet a crowd of nine other well-dressed young people. I participated in the obligatory nervous chit chat with some of the other applicants. They already knew me as the guy who lost his luggage. For that guy, I didn’t look half bad. Thank you Forever 21, and smart phones. 

We crammed into a shuttle that ushered us to the bright and sunny campus. We were less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean. I could get used to this. As our anxious chatter wound down, we arrived at the campus and filed in to begin our days. 

-- 

“So Ken, is it? Tell me what you know about a transpositon of the great arteries.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“You shadowed in a cardiac intensive care unit right? You should know this.” 

“Yeah, uh, I can tell you how it made me feel to see those sick kids.” 

“Yeah, yeah, but what about medically? Tell me what was interesting medically.” 

“I guess it was interesting to see the power that modern medicine has to treat these kids that would otherwise be left to die. I watched a surgeon literally cut open a baby’s heart. It was the size of a pea!” 

“Hm, ok.” 

Shit. 

I walked out of that one feeling stupid. I would have spiraled into self pity except I was almost late for my next appointment. I checked my schedule to make sure. 

-- 

8:00 AM: Breakfast with the Director of the Medical Scientist Training Program 

9:30 AM: Interview with a Pediatrician 

10:15 AM: Interview with student member of admissions committee 

11:00 AM: Interview with the Chair of the Department of Biostatistics 

12:00 PM: Lunch with students 

12:45 PM: Campus Tour with students 

1:45 PM: Interview with the Director of Proteomics 

2:30 PM: Interview with potential PhD mentor 

3:15 PM: Interview with another potential PhD mentor 

4:00 PM: Wrapup with Director of the Medical Scientist Training Program 

6:30 PM: Dinner with students 

-- 

As I scrambled across the unfamiliar campus to my next appointment, I recalled my past interviews. 

At every school there’s one or two interviewers that you have to forget about. Some guys want to grill you, others are just disinterested. But on the whole, the professors are approachable and encourage a dialogue. And as expected, the day eased up from there. 

I’m a firm believer that attitude reflects leadership, so I tried to key in on anyone who had a leadership position to get a read on the heartbeat of MUSC. The best thing I heard – my department is like my family. 

Before I knew it, I was barreling down the home stretch. Zoning out in a conference room listening to one last sales pitch from the director of the program. 

“So before you leave, does anyone have any last questions?” 

The only one on my head: 

Can we loosen our ties now? 

See you on the other side, 

from ken 

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

We might lose

It was winter 1998. The NBA conference finals had the five-time champion Chicago Bulls pitted against the underdog Indiana Pacers. Michael Jordan and his Bulls were in a bind, forced all the way to a game 7. 

In a tight must-win situation like this, what would you expect a coach to tell his team? 

“You’ll come through.” 

“If you play this game ten times, you might lose nine, but not this one.” 

Instead, the legendary zen Bulls coach, Phil Jackson, told his team: 

“We might lose.” 

-- 

This past week I went for an interview at Washington University in St. Louis, one of the best medical schools in the country. I thought I was a pretty good applicant, but I wasn’t really expecting to be given a shot at such a prestigious school. Just by the numbers, I would land in the lower 10-20% of their entering class. Numbers aren’t everything, but it means something. 

The first day was a casual day for the nine of us being interviewed that day to meet students and see the facilities. While eating lunch, we chatted about where we were coming from, etc. Everyone else was from Harvard or the NIH or Penn, top cut institutions. I guess I should have known that these are the kids that come to interview at a top 5 med school, but I was still caught off guard. 

I came from a small school in Ohio, and since getting out of college, I’ve gotten used to the casual attitude of Portland. I guess in those five years, I forgot about all the eliteness, and it definitely threw me off. I spent a few hours after that being intimidated as we took a tour of the facilities – shiny and expensive. 

The second day was the real test, a lineup of seven or eight faculty interviews, including a 20 minute panel interview with thirteen faculty members. I didn’t do my best, but I walked away feeling like I tried my best. I had good conversations, made some friends, and communicated at least to a couple faculty members what I was about. There’s not much more to life than feeling like you’ve given it your best. 

But walking away that day, the realization on my head was that I might not be going to medical school next fall. I always thought since I was a good candidate I would get in somewhere, but I realized the pool of candidates is overflowing with qualified candidates. 

If you’ve tried to find a job in the past couple years, I’m sure you know all about this. 

--

Phil Jackson showed some serious swagger to acknowledge that the Bulls, despite having an unmatched history, could still lose. Jackson didn't want a pity party, but he just wanted to lay down the simple straightforward reality. In sports, one team wins, and another team loses. And it is always important to know the reality. 

Nobody ever wants to talk about losing or making mistakes, but it doesn't have to be a negative part of the reality, and it should be ok to talk about it. 

Of course, the 1998 Chicago Bulls won the NBA championship. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

Med Student Onslaught

It was a normal Wednesday morning, lab meeting scheduled for 9. I was getting a couple experiments going at work beforehand, and at 8:50 my labmate Ken and I left the insulated confines of the lab to make some tea. And it hit us like a wall of bricks. Buzzing and chattering was exploding through the outer hallway. We looked around for the source, and downstairs was about a hundred new med students who were here for orientation week.

You may have friends that are med students. You may aspire to be a med student. You may even be a med student. Perhaps you know a thing or two about med students. Being a 22 year old that hasn’t been to med school, I know all about med students. Let me give you my two cents.

1) Med students always good-looking

Inevitably, if you walk into a crowd of med students they will be the best looking group you see that day. Their hair will be just right, clothes will be clean cut but hip, and their faces will be beautifully symmetric.

I’ve heard that law students are nerdy, while business students are bro-y. In the middle lie med students, a weird mix of nerdy and bro-y. I would guess this yields tremendously good-looking students because you have the clean cut and serious look from the nerdy side blended with the style and the awareness of trying to look good from the bro-y side. And of course this inevitably leads to med student power couples.

Which leads me to my next observation:

2) Percentage of med students who will be divorced: 80%

I think the average divorce rate is something around 50%. I would think doctors have a higher rate because they stressful jobs with long hours. Doctoring is also a job that has high social standing, which leads to lots of money and abusable power, and those are never good for anyone. Money and power are probably the two things that can get to someone's head faster than anything else in the world, and med students can expect plenty of both.

Of course, that 80% divorce rate isn’t helped by the inevitable third observation:

3) Percentage of med students that are douchy: 110%

The other day, I was at my friend’s twentieth anniversary party where they showed a beautiful power point presentation of the adventures they had shared. Everyone loved seeing the pictures and hearing all about their trips.

Later, I learned why the presentation had worked out so well. My friends were panicking because they couldn’t get the computer set up, until an unassuming guest offered to help. The man wasn’t family or even a close friend, he was the husband of a casual friend, and I thought to myself, that is a man of character. The crucial underrated guy that actually did all the work but didn’t get any of the credit for it.

You may chance upon a man of character in circles of med students, but more likely you’ll find someone interested in themselves. Med school admissions is so competitive and cut-throat that it breaks the heart out of nice people.

The admissions process gets you to help people, but only in ways that make you stand out. You can’t spend your free afternoons helping your neighbors move, or baking cookies for your friend’s birthday party because you’ll be left in the dust by all the young punks that are padding their resumes with research internships at Harvard.

It’s not the fault of med students that 110% of them are douchy, they’re just forced into a broken system. When I hear healthcare debates about single-payer health care, or drug companies giving up valuable patents to increase the range of healthcare, all I can think about is how you just need to start by building better men and women of character.

You need people who are smart, but there is more. You need people who will sacrifice their time to care for patients when they won’t get any credit. You need people who will stay after their shift without getting paid to mentor a young resident. You need people who can form strong relationships and families to have a life outside of the hospital. Really, you just need people who aren’t douchy.

from ken

Please comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.