My birthday is looming on the horizon. I'll be 30 in May. What I'd like to do for my birthday is go to Volt in Frederick and eat some of Bryan Voltaggio's delicious food. Table 21 would be even better but I'm pretty sure they are booked solid through like 2016. Thanks, Top Chef!
The entire process of being a non-traditional pre-med causes you to be more introspective than usual. I'm sure it helps you get into personal statement and essay writing mode when you can examine yourself, what your strengths and weaknesses are and what your motivation is for pursuing medicine. You have to figure out what motivates you, why are you doing what you're doing, and if it's worth it to you.
However, I think self-discovery is a little overrated by the time you're close to 30. By this time, you're pretty set in your ways. You can change small details here or there, but it's exceedingly difficult to make wholesale changes in your life, attitude, and lifestyle, if they are necessary. I don't think I'm being cynical - far from it. I just think I had a strong sense of self from early on. If you have to make changes, which will help you be more successful in your path, nontraditional premed, runner, or any other path, it's better to and easier to make small changes at first instead of trying to deliver a shock of changes that completely changes you or the way you live.
I'll give an example. I think I've previously mentioned I was never much of a runner. I guess you could argue I'm still not much of a runner depending on your perspective since I've run four marathons but none under four hours yet, or three and a half hours, or BQ'd (qualified for the Boston Marathon, which for my age group is a 3:10 marathon with :59 seconds of grace period added in). I played a lot of sports growing up: basketball, football, wrestling, baseball... never ran track. Running was either conditioning or punishment. I was a casual runner at times around the neighborhood, with the longest distance I had run prior to 2007 being probably three to three and a half miles. Prior to 2007, I guess I had lost the joy of running that you have when you're a child. When you're a child, running is exhilarating. You don't think about your own perceived flaws in your technique, your inefficient arm swing, your non-relaxed shoulders, the jarring oscillation of your bounding stride, whatever the case may be, you just let it rip, enjoy the wind through your hair and the grass beneath your feet and smile. Then, my mom passed from cancer.
I wanted to run a marathon before I was 30. I was 26 when my mom died. I figured four years is plenty of time, but I didn't try to shock my body and system into being a runner. When you try to make those wholesale changes, your body will protest vehemently, most likely by getting injured. I started out slowly, and gradually built up my stamina by increasing my mileage no more than 10% a week. But... I've also been the type of person who doesn't dip their toe in the pool to test the water; I get a good two or three step start and bust out the cannonball.
Pop Quiz: Knowing what you now know, before that first marathon in 2007 did I race:
A) a 3K
B) a 5K
C) a 10K
D) a half marathon
E) none of the above.
If you answered E), you are correct. I cannonballed the marathon. By the way, I wouldn't recommend that approach. The next logical progression as a runner was to start eating better. I'm still working on that one, but doing much better now than I was even a year ago, and a big reason is because I have the joy of running back, and I do a fair bit more cooking than I did in the past, when I tended to stick to things I could just toss together in a skillet or saucepan.
Bottom line: take small steps before you take bigger ones, get acclimated to the small changes that you need to make before you try to make the bigger ones. While I gave the example about my running, it's probably applicable to more than one area, even say study habits for the MCAT or your post-bacc classes. If things aren't going the way you had hoped, figure out why you're doing it, figure out how you're going to do it, and make it work.
Showing posts with label non-trad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label non-trad. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, September 21, 2009
Specialties?
I haven't given much thought to what specialty(ies?) I am most interested in at this point. I know some pre-meds, both traditional and non-traditional, are gung ho about a particular field. One of my lab partners in the second half of general chemistry last year was gung ho about obstetrics & gynecology. She talked a lot about shadowing in L&D and seeing some really bad lacs. I wonder if she told her boyfriend all about it. He probably loved hearing about it.
For me, I'd like to think I'm being open-minded about specialty choice. Besides, it's kind of a moot point until I am an actual medical student, and I start getting exposure to the specialties, especially in the clinical years. There are certain stereotypes for most of the specialties, but I am sure there are exceptions to them as well. I don't mean to say I don't care what kind of doctor I become, I do care. I am pretty interested in the different surgical specialties. However, the fact that I'm 29 now, but a "young" and unattached 29 (I have a lot of energy, stay fit and I'm not married & I have no kids) and most likely 31 or 32 when I matriculate if everything goes as planned, that the length of residency may be a factor as far as what specialty I pick to pursue in the match. If I graduate around 35 or 36, I don't know if I'm really going to want to do say five years of general surgery (and potentially fellowship on top of that), you know? That won't be the only deciding factor.. if not much changes at that point, the main things being my chronological age and my education of course, then I may still be looking at surgical specialties. If I'm married at that point, plans may change. It's good to have a plan but life often throws you curveballs. I think without a plan at all though, you're essentially like a ship without a sail and you drift to wherever the currents take you. So I have some semblance of a plan. :)
I know there is a 130-ish question test on the University of Virginia medical school's website somewhere that ranks the specialties based on your response to questions, like "I tend to ...." with the answers being "Agree" through to "Disagree" with "Neutral" in the middle on the scale (5 options to pick from total). I think I started taking it before but I didn't finish because something shiny distracted me. Maybe I'd be good in emergency medicine? Totally kidding. I read a lot of different blogs and there are definitely some ED attendings' blogs in there.
I dated an ob/gyn resident a year or so ago, and when I told her I was going to do the postbac thing, it became a game where she would guess what she saw as my specialty. I think the most common ones she guessed were emergency, ortho, and general surgery. She said I didn't "seem like" an internist. Whatever that means.
For me, I'd like to think I'm being open-minded about specialty choice. Besides, it's kind of a moot point until I am an actual medical student, and I start getting exposure to the specialties, especially in the clinical years. There are certain stereotypes for most of the specialties, but I am sure there are exceptions to them as well. I don't mean to say I don't care what kind of doctor I become, I do care. I am pretty interested in the different surgical specialties. However, the fact that I'm 29 now, but a "young" and unattached 29 (I have a lot of energy, stay fit and I'm not married & I have no kids) and most likely 31 or 32 when I matriculate if everything goes as planned, that the length of residency may be a factor as far as what specialty I pick to pursue in the match. If I graduate around 35 or 36, I don't know if I'm really going to want to do say five years of general surgery (and potentially fellowship on top of that), you know? That won't be the only deciding factor.. if not much changes at that point, the main things being my chronological age and my education of course, then I may still be looking at surgical specialties. If I'm married at that point, plans may change. It's good to have a plan but life often throws you curveballs. I think without a plan at all though, you're essentially like a ship without a sail and you drift to wherever the currents take you. So I have some semblance of a plan. :)
I know there is a 130-ish question test on the University of Virginia medical school's website somewhere that ranks the specialties based on your response to questions, like "I tend to ...." with the answers being "Agree" through to "Disagree" with "Neutral" in the middle on the scale (5 options to pick from total). I think I started taking it before but I didn't finish because something shiny distracted me. Maybe I'd be good in emergency medicine? Totally kidding. I read a lot of different blogs and there are definitely some ED attendings' blogs in there.
I dated an ob/gyn resident a year or so ago, and when I told her I was going to do the postbac thing, it became a game where she would guess what she saw as my specialty. I think the most common ones she guessed were emergency, ortho, and general surgery. She said I didn't "seem like" an internist. Whatever that means.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Appraisal
Well, my first week of classes is finished. Due to the inauguration, most of my labs were canceled, or didn't meet since Tuesday classes were canceled. Previously, I think I had mentioned that the classes I'm taking this semester are the second half of Anatomy & Physiology, General Chemistry II, Microbiology and Animal Biology. All of the lectures have met other than General Chemistry, but I am taking the same professor for it that I took for Gen Chem I, so there are no surprises there. I know what to expect when it comes to him.
My honest appraisal is that I like all of my professors and the one TA I have had so far. My animal biology lecturer is very straight-forward with his expectations, and very internet-savvy and connected. Responsiveness is always something that I appreciate from a professor. I know they may have 200 students per section of some courses, but I honestly like it more when they say "Don't call me, either e-mail me or stop by my office hours." Maybe that's just me?
The one lab I have that met was for animal biology, and the main thing we covered was taxonomy and getting reacquainted with microscopy... in this case it was microscopy of red blood cells of different animals. We did a blood count for leukocytes, which BTW was not a complete blood count or "CBC" by any means, we were told to count and classify the leukocytes until we hit 100 to make it easy to calculate the percentage present of each of the types, i.e. neutrophils, eosinophils, basophils, lymphocytes and monocytes. My method was just scanning the slide from left to right, top to bottom until I hit 100, and my percentage observed seemed to be pretty close to what's expected.. which is always good, I suppose. I definitely noticed that the majority of the leukocytes present were neutrophils, over 60%. We were also given about twenty animals and one plant to write down the complete nomenclature from kingdom to species, and then organize them in a chart.
One of the questions in the lab manual asked which two species were more similar - human and a particular bat or a particular fish and the great white shark. It turns out the human and the bat are more similar due to both being in the Mammalia class. One funny thing was that the lab I signed up for meets right after the lecture on Thursdays, so when our lab TA was asking us questions, we were all primed with the right answers from the lecture, i.e. she would ask something like "Who came up with the current system of nomenclature used to classify organisms?" and the 1/2 the lab section said "Linnaeus. Next!" Just kidding about the next.
The other interesting thing about my animal bio lab section is that at my lab bench, 3/4 of us already have our degrees and came back to school for something else. Next to me, is the 1/4 who is an undergrad pre-med biology major. Across from me are two pre-dents, one a woman with a degree in business, a husband and children, and the other with a degree in English. I guess my table is the non-trad friendly one, all though there is another non-trad in the section at a different bench, I guess she didn't sit with us because we were all filled up by the time she strolled in. This is kind of an aside, but it doesn't seem odd to me that we tend to seek each other out, especially in the labs I've been in. My lab partner for general chemistry last semester was a non-trad pre-med like me, with a master's in statistics and she was 30.
My microbiology class looks very interesting to me. The professor is a virologist by training. We didn't cover much other than the rules of the road in the first meeting on Wednesday, but on Friday we got into the methods of how microbiota are named, by their shape (coccus/cocci, etc.) and arrangement. I learned a fun fact, "staphylo" originally comes from the Greek and means a cluster of grapes, so now we know why Staphylococcus aureus gets its name, the organism is spherical and arranged in an irregular clump like a cluster of grapes. The only thing that sucked on Friday is "The Hills" sat in front of me - three girls that talked the entire time, like they were giving a running commentary and I wasn't eavesdropping but I could tell it had nothing to do with the class. I actually care about the lectures, I actually care about not being able to hear, I actually care for once. I want to do well. I don't want to feel like a grumpy old man, especially when I'm only 28. Did I say something? Yes. I could care less what they think. For all I know, they're probably pre-med too, or pre-dent or pre-pharmacy. Hope it works out, but they should think about saving the socializing for outside of class.
My anatomy & physiology class looks like more of the same. We talked about what we're going to cover this semester and got into "the special senses" a little bit - vision, balance, hearing and all that jazz. The professor said she really likes the second half of the class more so than the first half even though it's about equal as far as learning new vocabulary, but the first half is really bogged down at the cellular level and the second half is more of a systems approach, and after the special senses, we'll get into the immune and lymphatic systems, the cardiovascular system, the urinary and the reproductive systems, and I'm probably leaving something out. Oh well, time to hit the hay, or watch Burn Notice and try to. :D
My honest appraisal is that I like all of my professors and the one TA I have had so far. My animal biology lecturer is very straight-forward with his expectations, and very internet-savvy and connected. Responsiveness is always something that I appreciate from a professor. I know they may have 200 students per section of some courses, but I honestly like it more when they say "Don't call me, either e-mail me or stop by my office hours." Maybe that's just me?
The one lab I have that met was for animal biology, and the main thing we covered was taxonomy and getting reacquainted with microscopy... in this case it was microscopy of red blood cells of different animals. We did a blood count for leukocytes, which BTW was not a complete blood count or "CBC" by any means, we were told to count and classify the leukocytes until we hit 100 to make it easy to calculate the percentage present of each of the types, i.e. neutrophils, eosinophils, basophils, lymphocytes and monocytes. My method was just scanning the slide from left to right, top to bottom until I hit 100, and my percentage observed seemed to be pretty close to what's expected.. which is always good, I suppose. I definitely noticed that the majority of the leukocytes present were neutrophils, over 60%. We were also given about twenty animals and one plant to write down the complete nomenclature from kingdom to species, and then organize them in a chart.
One of the questions in the lab manual asked which two species were more similar - human and a particular bat or a particular fish and the great white shark. It turns out the human and the bat are more similar due to both being in the Mammalia class. One funny thing was that the lab I signed up for meets right after the lecture on Thursdays, so when our lab TA was asking us questions, we were all primed with the right answers from the lecture, i.e. she would ask something like "Who came up with the current system of nomenclature used to classify organisms?" and the 1/2 the lab section said "Linnaeus. Next!" Just kidding about the next.
The other interesting thing about my animal bio lab section is that at my lab bench, 3/4 of us already have our degrees and came back to school for something else. Next to me, is the 1/4 who is an undergrad pre-med biology major. Across from me are two pre-dents, one a woman with a degree in business, a husband and children, and the other with a degree in English. I guess my table is the non-trad friendly one, all though there is another non-trad in the section at a different bench, I guess she didn't sit with us because we were all filled up by the time she strolled in. This is kind of an aside, but it doesn't seem odd to me that we tend to seek each other out, especially in the labs I've been in. My lab partner for general chemistry last semester was a non-trad pre-med like me, with a master's in statistics and she was 30.
My microbiology class looks very interesting to me. The professor is a virologist by training. We didn't cover much other than the rules of the road in the first meeting on Wednesday, but on Friday we got into the methods of how microbiota are named, by their shape (coccus/cocci, etc.) and arrangement. I learned a fun fact, "staphylo" originally comes from the Greek and means a cluster of grapes, so now we know why Staphylococcus aureus gets its name, the organism is spherical and arranged in an irregular clump like a cluster of grapes. The only thing that sucked on Friday is "The Hills" sat in front of me - three girls that talked the entire time, like they were giving a running commentary and I wasn't eavesdropping but I could tell it had nothing to do with the class. I actually care about the lectures, I actually care about not being able to hear, I actually care for once. I want to do well. I don't want to feel like a grumpy old man, especially when I'm only 28. Did I say something? Yes. I could care less what they think. For all I know, they're probably pre-med too, or pre-dent or pre-pharmacy. Hope it works out, but they should think about saving the socializing for outside of class.
My anatomy & physiology class looks like more of the same. We talked about what we're going to cover this semester and got into "the special senses" a little bit - vision, balance, hearing and all that jazz. The professor said she really likes the second half of the class more so than the first half even though it's about equal as far as learning new vocabulary, but the first half is really bogged down at the cellular level and the second half is more of a systems approach, and after the special senses, we'll get into the immune and lymphatic systems, the cardiovascular system, the urinary and the reproductive systems, and I'm probably leaving something out. Oh well, time to hit the hay, or watch Burn Notice and try to. :D
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