This post is dedicated to who I used to be... and who I am now. I used to be one of "them". The pre-meds. The high (understatment of the year) anxiety, nervous breakdown before an exam, vomit after the MCAT, can't get a grip pre-meds. This, I believe, was due to several things.
1) I really really wanted to be a doctor and couldn't think of any other career that sounded more exciting than watching paint dry. I was terribly fearful that I would end up as a forever high school teacher, a nurse, or a state employee. All fine careers, but none for me. My personality is a little, say, unconventional. Almost no one agrees with my ideas... they usually just look at me like I'm from Mars, I am bored to the point of suicide in work meetings, and I need something new to do approximately every 40 minutes. Medicine changes constantly.... there is always something new to learn, a physician has a great deal of autonomy (depending where you work), and medicine is the most harmonic symbiosis of humanity and science. I knew it was perfect for me.
2) I was-dare I say-older than my peers. Damn if this didn't work I wasted a lot of time... and then what the hell would I do?
3) Uh, can you say debt? Let's just say that I have yet to meet another person with as much educational debt as I do. Here's a little breakdown for you. And NO my parents were not able to financially help me beyond saving my ass here and there with an occasional rent payment or electric bill.
So... (gulp) here goes... have I ever actually written this down before???
Undergrad approx $30,000.00 USD per year for tuition (I always worked for housing as an RA or whatever) times 4 years. Ouch
2 years Post-Bacc Pre-Med program (1 at Harvard ($35,000 USD and 1 at state school $12,000 USD)
1 Master's degree at a top tier University approx $65,000 USD
Total BEFORE medical school even starts??? Approximately $232,000 American dollars. Yup. damn right almost a quarter of a million dollars.
Now, it just so happens that although I applied to (many) cheap state schools, I was only accepted into one of the most expensive schools in the US. When you factor in housing costs, medical school will cost me $71,000.00 USD per year (x4)
So by the time I'm I physician, I'll be starting my career with $516,000.00 USD of educational debt. Over half a million dollars.
And thanks to President Bush's administration, residents in the US are no longer allowed to defer student loan payments accrued during medical school. The average resident gets about $43,000 salary per year... or about $3000.00 take home per month. My debt will be a payment of at least that. Clearly, I'm not the only one in this boat... so something has to give unless we are going to start issuing food stamps to physcians.
ANYWAY,
So the point of this posting as I originally alluded to but did not say... was to pass down my best advice for pre-med hopefuls. Here you go. In a nutshell.
1. Being a hard-charger is lame. You're wasting your young years. I was hard core for a while, but I'm so so glad I used my 20's to make damn sure I wanted to be a doctor. I lived in 5 cities, traveled, learned languages, had several other careers, got my Master's degree, dated, bought a house, and was very sure and ready when I applied to medical school.
2. Don't become a physician for the money. As you can see above, I am having to spend $500k to be a doctor. The road to becoming physician is too long and too difficult to do for money. If money is what you want, save yourself a lot of time and energy and spend 6 months getting your real estate license. You'll be a millionaire in no time.
3. Forget about trying to get to the best school. Go to your local state school, make the best out of it, study hard, and get good grades. Save the fancy institutions for med school. Nobody will care and you saved yourself a ton of money and stress. Plus, I think state universities build character. They are less homogenous... and the students have less of a sense of entitlement. I swear my education at a state school was just as strong as it was at Harvard. I do not however, think that the education at many (possibly most) junior and community colleges is appropriate for pre-med study. These colleges are great for somethings... but do your pre-med work at a University. I'm sure med ad-coms would agree with me.
4. Stay away from pre-med chat forums. Other hard-chargers just drag you down. I seriously felt like the biggest piece of crap everytime I allowed myself to even look at studentdoctor.net. Here's an example of the asinine things you could read "HELP! Please tell me what you think my chances are of getting into med school (as if studentdoctor.net was frequented by anyone other than other freaked out pre-meds)... I have a 3.95 GPA double major in immunology and anatomy, but my science GPA is only 3.92. I scored a 38S on the MCAT but I only got an 12 on the biology section. I single handedly coded the entire genome for the deer mouse (the white footed one only), and I speak eight languages (except my Mandarin is really lacking in written ability). Can anyone give me a SERIOUS evaluation of my application??? I'm so scared I won't get in to both Yale AND Cornell. I haven't made up my mind yet as to which one I prefer, so I'll just die if I don't get acceptances at both."
Nuff said.
In order to keep your eyes on the goal (which is difficult to do after bombing your O-chem exam), get involved in something (anything), that gives you that feeling. You know the feeling. The one that screams "THIS IS WHY YOU WANT TO BE A DOCTOR!!!" It might be volunteering in a hospital, it might be reading pre-med blogs (constructive ones like this one :)). Whatever it is... do it and do it all the time. Every time I would get disillusioned I would either volunteer on the mobile clinic or just wander the halls of whatever med school happened to be closest. It helps so much.
5. Figure out if you want to go to medical school, or if you want to be an MD. There are a lot of options and many paths to becoming a physician... and becoming an MD is only one of them. DO school is fabulous, and international schools have many perks too. Don't be limited by pompus American doctors who think that an MD is the only way. There are also Chiropractic schools, Naturopathic schools, and many other paths to becoming a healer. Check out the pro's and con's from people that are IN that field.
6. Spend a lot of time before medical school thinking about your own ethics and values. You'll change through medical school... but it's important to know yourself well before going into a homogeneous enviroment where many people largely think the same way. Figure out where you stand on things... why you feel that way... You don't want to lose sight of yourself and your priorities in a highly intense, competitive, political field such as medicine.
7. Don't let the MCAT win. No way around it, the MCAT sucks. It's basically a giant mind-fuck. Do it once, do it right. Once it's over you'll never have to look at that bullshit again.
8. Know in advance that every single person you know (except possibly your parents) will try to say as many bad things about medical school and being a doctor as they possibly can. I have never understood this. Maybe people think they are saving you from a life of doom, maybe they are repeating what they've heard, maybe they're just negative, maybe they think they're helping, or maybe there is some jealous component. I don't know, but it is really irritating and unhelpful. Ignore it.
9. Learn a second (or more) language. Communication is so key to being a great physician... and learning languages really broadens your horizons and makes you competitive for positions you didn't even know existed.
10. Learn how to study and show up. If you aren't doing well in your classes, chances are you either don't know how to properly study for your classes or you simply aren't present. Present in class, present for homework, present for practice sessions, present for exams. That whole thing about 90% of success is just about showing up? True dat.
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