Moving, Exploding Toilets, Pushing Cars, and More…

Well, it’s official. After 2,100+ miles, nine states, and thousands (ok, not really…) of heavy boxes and infernally heavy entertainment centers, my wife and I officially reside in the Chicago area. We managed to find a rental house reasonably close to the school – with a washer and a dryer, which is a huge plus, and quite rare for the area, I might add. Now we’re just unpacking some of the last few boxes, and our house is finally starting to feel like a home.

So far, the house has been great, with a few minor exceptions and one not-so-minor exception. The latter occurred late at night a few days ago – I had just finished taking a shower when I stepped out into a puddle of water on the bathroom floor. My first thought was, “Dummy, you didn’t close the curtain all the way.” I began to mop up the water with a towel, but started to notice that, gee, there was a lot. And it kept coming. There was no obvious flow from any one area, but after checking the tub and sink with no obvious findings, I narrowed the source down to underneath the toilet. We had noticed earlier that the toilet seemed a bit unsteady, and I thought that perhaps the wax ring was old and had finally failed. So, I turned off the water to the toilet and began trying to drain it of water, first by flushing it. This, unfortunately, didn’t work, as the toilet seemed to be backed up. Darn.

I went back to mopping up some of the water for the time being, just to get it up off of the floor. I was running out of towels, though, and figured I would eventually need some more. I didn’t want to grab any towels I wasn’t supposed to use to mop up toilet water. I went into our bedroom to check with my wife, but she had already fallen asleep – it had been a long day of unpacking already. I didn’t want to wake her if I didn’t have to, so I went back to mopping. Eventually, though, I really needed more towels. So, I wandered back into the room and tried gently shaking her. She was out – totally in REM sleep. I tried shaking her again and speaking softly – I didn’t want to startle her awake (i.e. “We have an EMERGENCY!!! Get up now!!!), so I started with, “Well, it looks like we have the first problem in our new house; our toilet seems to be leaking water.” After a bit, she slowly awoke, looked up at me dreamily, and sighed, “I looove you…” and started to drift off again.

Well, this wasn’t working.

I gently shook her again and repeated myself. She began to awake again, looked up at me (obviously only half-awake), and this time mumbled cheerily, “Why do you say silly stuff like that?”

Sigh…

On the third try, she finally registered what I had said and got up to help me get some towels. Unfortunately, water was still seeping out from under the toilet. So, since the toilet couldn’t flush, I used a coffee mug to scoop water out of the toilet and the tank. I couldn’t get it all, though, and what was left would eventually end up on the floor. The toilet had to come off. So, I unscrewed the bolts on the floor and lifted it into the tub. Now, I could see that the wax ring was indeed shot but that there was also a plug somewhere down the line – water was backed up to the point where it was level with the floor.

It was slowly draining, which was good – that meant this could wait until morning. So I asked my wife for a hand towel that she never wanted to see again and stuffed it down the drain to keep the sewer smell out of the house.

In the morning, the landlord called the plumber. After the plumber spent some time rodding the pipes out through the opening for the toilet, he walked out of the bathroom mumbling, “This is a problem…” That was reassuring…

He went and grabbed his handy-dandy pipe video camera – essentially an endoscope for drains. It was pretty cool to see the inside of our pipework, actually, and he was able to localize the problem: a small clump of fine roots had grown into the drain, creating a catch for things like toilet paper and…other things... eventually leading to a clog. Over time, this reached the “clogging threshold,” which in turn created enough pressure in the pipes to cause the wax ring under the toilet to fail, which resulted in the seeping toilet water I stepped into when I finished showering.

Yuck.

Anyhow, he rodded it out as best as he could, and recommended copper sulfate to send down the hatch occasionally to kill the root buildups. If we could avoid digging up the pipes, that would be best for all parties involved. We’re crossing our fingers, and plan on flushing that stuff down religiously.

That wasn’t the end of our troubles, however. Today, my wife and I were running some errands. We got our Illinois licenses and plates (the DMV is always an adventure…a three-hour one, in this case. It also involved taking a written driving test, which was fun...), went shopping, went to the bank, and on the way to our last stop our car started making a really loud, ominous clicking sound. Apparently it had made it across the country and was sick and tired of us driving it here and there… It actually sort of sounded like it was trying to pretend like it was a diesel-fueled vehicle, which it most definitely is not.

We pulled over and I popped the hood. My ever-so-patient wife hopped in the driver’s seat and give it some gas while I looked into the innards of the vehicle. It sounded like it was coming from the serpentine belt, possibly one of the pulleys…maybe the tensioner? We got back on the road and I was debating with myself about trying to take the belt off, figure out which pulley it was, replacing it, and putting the belt back on, when the car started smoking at a stop light. I turned it off, figuring I would let it cool for a second and turn it back on when we got a green light…but the green light came and the car wouldn’t turn back on. Darn it. It sounded like the battery had died, which is also a possibility – but now? Maybe it was the alternator...or maybe the car was just saying, “Take this, fools!” Regardless, my aspirations of fiddling with the vehicle quickly dissipated. My wife hopped in the driver’s seat again and I got out and pushed the car into a nearby parking lot. We called a tow truck (thank God for AAA!!) and had it towed to an auto shop near our house, where it will reside until tomorrow (hopefully no longer than that…).

Ah well… I guess it’s better that all of this happens now than right before a big test later. Otherwise, though, things have been going very smoothly – the drive over was great, the moving went smoothly, and we’ve found some great deals on Craigslist for various pieces of furniture. We’re excited to finally be here, and looking forward to finally beginning this next chapter of our lives together.

Surprise!

So yesterday I had a mystery package arrive in the mail. I currently live in an apartment complex, and any relatively large packages are dropped off at the front office. My wife had picked it up last night and set it inside our apartment – it was addressed to me, but I didn’t recall ordering anything.

This morning, I finally opened it up. I figured that perhaps it was a book or something I had ordered and forgot about—as a fairly avid reader, this was not beyond the realm of possibility for me! I noticed that it was a bit light for a book, though. As I reached inside the box and pushed aside the packaging material, I was surprised to see a brand new 3M Littmann Cardiology III Stethoscope staring back up at me!

 

My first thought was, “Well, maybe it’s from the school?” But this was nice…probably too nice for the school to be sending out to students. Then I noticed that my name was engraved on it...and then I finally noticed the message included in the box, wishing me good luck in medical school from the doctors that I had worked with for two years as an emergency department scribe. Awww….

I had a great experience scribing with them, and this gift was greatly appreciated. I’m sure it will be put to good use.

How to Spend the Summer before Medical School

(Hint: Don’t pre-study.)

(Seriously.)

So, you’ve made it into medical school. And’s it’s summer. No more required resume-building activities, no more endless hours staring at a lecturer droning on and on about something you’ll never need after passing the next test, no more….oh, wait. I guess there’s more of that to come.

But not just yet. For now, the day is yours. So how should you spend it?

Don’t pre-study.

Listen. I get it. We’re all premeds, and by definition, we are generally all highly neurotic. We don’t really think we need to know all there is to know before medical school, we just want to “be prepared” or “be ready to jump in” when school rolls around – especially if we’ve been out for a little while. So why not just casually glance through Rohen’s or perhaps start reading Bate’s Guide to Physical Examination & History Taking while falling asleep? Can’t hurt, right?

Well, perhaps not. But when you actually have to read those books later, you’ll be kicking yourself for not taking advantage of your free time when you had the chance. Take the advice of multiple medical students, residents, and attendings who echo the repeated refrain: Don’t pre-study.

So, now that that required intro is out of the way, what should you do with your now-plentiful (hopefully!) free time? For some of us, we still need to work. Money, as your mother might have taught you, doesn’t grow on trees (but if you do find a money seed, please contact me). You’re still living, which means you need to live somewhere, eat, and pay for transportation to get to and from wherever you're going. That said, you likely worked during school, and you’ll quickly find that coming home from work to a bunch of homework is entirely different than simply working and coming home to significantly fewer responsibilities. As a bonus, your free days are often actually free, rather than periods of catch-up studying for the next exam or what-have-you. Ah, the glory…

So what to do? A couple things. For starters, while it’s generally a bad idea to pre-study, most of us are excited for what’s to come and want to do something related to medical school. So perhaps you could spend some time figuring out how you are going to study. Consider your past study habits and how they’ve worked for you, and then consider the format of your upcoming classes and consider how your habits might translate or need to be changed. Are you a book learner? Do you do best drawing things out? Studying in a group? Going to lecture? Some combination of the above? Peg your learning style now, so that you can begin studying efficiently when school starts in a few weeks.

For example: I like to solo-study. I don’t exactly like studying in a group, but I don’t mind it – as long as I’ve gone over the material at least once and have a general grasp of it. I can then use the time to help others learn it, which has the double-whammy bonus of 1) helping them and 2) reinforcing the material for me. But generally, I’m a bit of a loner in that regard.

Also, I like flash cards. I used them frequently in undergrad and while studying for the MCAT with great success. For material that I want to have down cold, these are my go-to tool. But they are a pain to make and store, and I now have a bunch of old flashcards that I’ll never look at again but I just can’t bring myself to throw away…

Solution? While perusing the internet, I came across a link to a blog by user who goes by the name of Dr.Willbe. In this post, he provides a great overview of some relevant first year tips, one of which involves using a spaced-repetition program called Anki. He goes into further detail about the program here, and since he’s done such a great job of distilling it into an understandable post, I’ll refer you there for further information if you’re curious (Update: I've written more about Anki here). Anki isn’t for everyone, and there are other options (like Gunner Training or the new-and-improved Firecracker) for those who want flashcards but don’t want to make them.

Also, during undergrad, I largely took notes by hand. I personally didn’t own a laptop until the last semester of my senior year, and then only bought one for medical school. After using it to take notes for a couple of extra-credit guest lectures (those are always nice…), I had a hard time going back to hand-writing my notes for my regular classes. It doesn’t help that my hand writing could easily be confused with the marks a chicken would make on the ground if it were to accidentally step in wet paint. So it was a no-brainer that I’ll be using a laptop for notes in medical school. The question then became exactly how I would go about it? Microsoft Word (or Pages, for you Mac users)? That would work….but then I discovered OneNote. Perfect. An easy, flexible way to take notes and access them anywhere.

Of course, figuring all this out certainly didn’t take the whole summer. What else can you do? Obviously, spending time with friends and family is important. For many of us, we will be moving away and even if we aren’t, we will be much busier than we are now, thus potentially reducing the amount of quality time we can spend with loved ones. If you are married, talk with your spouse about this now and be sure that all parties know what’s about to happen. But at the same time, just because you are in medical school doesn’t mean you get to ignore everyone – especially your spouse. Decide now that, while you will strive to do well, you will have boundaries and accept that there will be days where you won’t be able to study as much as you might like because it’s now time to be done and go spend time with your loved ones.

Another thing you can do during the summer is to adopt a hobby or learn about something new. Personally, for example, I had always been somewhat curious about investing, finance, and all that that entailed but never really sat down and learned about it. That’s changed this summer—I’ve had a great time reading books, online resources, and various forums about investing, and have learned a ton (but of course, I still have much to learn). In fact, I’ll probably be posting about relevant issues for medical students and residents in the years to come. This is one of those things that is better to learn sooner than later.

For those who are interested, here are a few places to get started (Update: I've written more about this topic too, which can be found here):

The White Coat Investor

This is a great resource for medical students and residents in particular, but also for anyone interested in investing. It is written by an emergency medicine physician, and has a lot of great info about all sorts of things. I would highly recommend reading all of the articles linked in his “First-Timers!” section from top to bottom.

The Motley Fool

What is the difference between a Roth IRA and a traditional IRA? What’s a 529? How do mutual funds work? The answers to these questions and more can be found here. I recommend reading at least through all of the articles under the tabs “How to Invest” and “Retirement” to get a general idea of what’s going on. One word of caution: This site offers a lot of great free content, but has to make money somehow. This often comes in the form of “hot stock tips” newsletters and what not. Ignore these.

The Bogleheads Wiki and The Bogleheads Forum

Don’t be thrown off by the strange-sounding name – this wiki and the associated forum are one of the one of the best resources online for learning about investing and finance. Spend some time here – it will serve you well in the future. If you have any questions, ask away in the “Help with Personal Investments” subforum – you can get answers within minutes from many wise individuals, including those who have authored some of the most common-sense investment books available today.

Morningstar.com’s Investing Classroom

If you really want to learn the nitty-gritty details about stocks, mutual funds, bonds, etc., this is the place to go. It takes some time – I’m still not done yet – but going through their free classes is an excellent way to learn some of the finer points of investing.

So there you have it—a number of free, easy ways to learn about investing. Again, this is one of those things that will serve you well if you get a handle on it sooner than later.

In sum, there are a number of ways to spend your summer. Above all, though, be sure to spend time doing things you enjoy with those you love – that’s definitely something that you won’t regret later.

How to Get into Medical School: Part 3

In the most recent post in this series (which can be found here), I talked about writing your personal statement, getting LORs, and creating your AMCAS application. In this last part of the series, we’ll discuss the rest of this *cough* fun *cough* process.

Secondaries (or, Giving Away Your Savings)

Secondaries are medical schools’ way of holding you upside down on the playground and shaking your milk money out of your pockets.  Secondary applications are medical schools’ way of getting to know you a little bit better as an applicant by asking questions that they, as a school, care about. It essentially amounts to more essay writing, and oftentimes many of the essays you write will be interchangeable among schools. The catch (there’s always a catch) is that you have to pay to submit them. In fact, most schools won’t even review your application until you do. And then, they might just reject you outright anyway within a period of time that makes it highly unlikely that a real person even read them (I’m not bitter at all….). Some schools don’t have secondaries…but they often still make you pay. Just because they can. They can run anywhere from around $25-$125 a pop, so plan ahead financially for these.

The key here is just staying on top of them. It’s not a bad idea to create a list of schools you’ve applied to, which ones have sent you secondaries, which secondaries you’ve returned, etc. You can update this later with interview invites, acceptances, waitlists, withdrawals, etc.  If you can find last year’s secondaries (like on the school-specific threads on SDN), then if you have time it usually pays off to pre-write them. They generally don’t change too much, but even if they do, you can often re-use the prewritten ones for other schools. Regardless, try to have them submitted within about two weeks of receiving them. Again, spend some time on these and try to have other people review them, if possible.

Interviewing

After a ton of writing, wringing your hands, and nervously checking your email, you’ve finally got your first interview. First off, congrats! Somebody wants to get to know you a little more. Once you’ve made it to this stage (generally, anyway), your odds of getting accepted by that school can go up quite a bit. But now you’ve got a whole host of problems to worry about.

First off, what to wear? I’m no fashion expert, by any means, so I’ll defer this topic to any one of the threads that pop up on SDN this time of the year regarding interview attire. I will say this, however: be fairly conservative. Now is not the time to express yourself via fashion – let your application do the talking. Unless you really know what you are doing (and you probably don’t), your goal is to not stand out in a crowd, at least in terms of fashion. Usually, it just ends up being a bad thing. Stand out in your interview and in your application – not your fashion choices. For guys, this means buying a suit. Charcoal is recommended, and some people like navy blue. Black can be done, but seems to generally be recommended against. Wear appropriate dress socks, and get some nice (but again, not loud) shoes. Women….you’re on your own. Sorry. Again, the threads over on SDN, as well as countless interview attire articles online, are likely to be of more service to you here. Just play it safe, watch your necklines/hemlines and perfume (it’s ok to smell nice, but don’t be overpowering), do some research, and you’ll be fine. Regardless of your gender, DO NOT wear jeans. That should be a given, but, sadly, that doesn’t always seem to be the case.

So you’ve picked out your attire. Now what? Well, you’ve got to get there. This is where it can get really expensive (as if buying a new suit wasn’t enough…). Drive if you can, but oftentimes you’ll need to fly. Shop around, try and find good deals, and lump your interviews together if you can to reduce the number of trips you’ll need to make. Take advantage of student hosts – it’s cheaper than a hotel and often a great way to really get some great info about the school (just be sure to maybe take them to dinner, or at least leave behind a nice card). Get a decent travel bag, preferably something you can carry on to the plane. Avoid checking a bag if you can. Get travel-sized toiletries. And use the public transportation systems when possible – avoid taxis and rental cars, as these can get really expensive really fast. Get a travel folder to carry your itinerary and any lodging plans, boarding passes, or public transportation info in.

With regards to preparing for the interview: Know your application by heart. Come up with a good answer to the questions, “Tell me about yourself,” “Why do you want to be a doctor?” “What are your greatest strengths/weaknesses?” (think of at least three for each category),  “Why this school?”  and “Do you have any questions for me?” Don’t memorize a rote answer, but remember some high points that you’ll hit when you address each question. If you do all of that, you’ll probably be fine. It’s also a good idea to peruse the interview questions section for each specific school on SDN.

At the end of the day, just remember that your interviewer is your friend. It’s his or her job to present you to the admissions committee and sell you to them. While the questions might seem difficult or your interviewer might seem mean, s/he is just trying to get to know you. So give him/her something to sell. S/he’s on your side.

Aaaand the Waiting….

 Once you’ve finished your interview, you’ve pretty much done all that you can. So relax. More than likely, it’ll be a few weeks before the school can even get back you with a decision. Hopefully, they’ll give you a timeframe. If not, you’ll probably be constantly checking your email and mailbox (Ok, let’s be honest…you’ll be doing that anyway). But seriously…relax. You’ve done what you can.

If all goes well, sometime in the fall or spring after your interview, you’ll get a notification of acceptance. Congrats! You’ve made it. You’re going to be a doctor. If you are put on a waitlist, don’t give up hope – consider sending in occasional updates with new information about activities, why you love the school and would be a good fit, updated transcripts, etc. If you’re rejected, write it off and move on. There are more interviews to come. Hopefully. If not, consider what you can do to buff up your application for next year.

Springtime Glory

Hopefully, once spring rolls around, you’re sitting on at least one (maybe more?) acceptance. By May 15^th, you have to withdraw from all but one school. By that time, schools should have sent you financial aid packages, which will assist you in making your final decision. My only recommendation here is, when at all possible, go with the cheapest one. Cheap school is good school. The “prestige” of the school (unless it’s literally a top 10 school, or whatever, and your goal is definitely something in academics) really doesn’t matter. You can do well wherever you go – your school’s name won’t give you a free ride. And money may not be able to buy happiness, but the quicker you can pay back your loans, the quicker you’ll be financially free – and freedom is pretty darn good.

The summer before school starts is generally pretty much up to you. You can work, relax, travel, etc. Do NOT prestudy for school. You won’t be able to study efficiently, and more than likely you’ll regret it later. It’s tempting, I know, but don’t do it. If you absolutely must do something, then start thinking about HOW you’ll study. Will you read books? Make outlines? Use flashcards? Group study? Solo study? Some combination of the above? For example: I, for one, am considering using the spaced-repitition flashcard program Anki to retain material – not as a primary learning tool, mind you, but something to help me remember the bits of info I need AFTER I already understand them from reading a textbook, listening to lecture, etc.  I’ll probably post more about this later. You can read more about it here and here (I highly recommend these sources if you’re interested in Anki). I also plan on using OneNote to take notes during school. So I’ve spent some time familiarizing myself with these programs.

Also, spend some time doing things you won’t have much time to do later. Hang out with loved ones and friends. Read some books. Watch some TV. Relax. For example, I’m really interested in personal finance, investing, retirement planning, and have been thinking a lot about paying off loans and whatnot down the road. I figure it’s better to know these things ahead of time so that I can get the jump on them as soon as I am able – and some things, like personal finance, are just things you should know anyway. If you want, spend some time perusing the Boglehead’sWiki and over at White Coat Investor’s blog for more information.

So that’s it. Sorry about the written vomit. Good luck on your path to medical school, and I hope what you read here proves helpful to you in your journey.

How to Get into Medical School: Part 2

In the first post of this series (which can be found here), I rambled on about some of the basics of your medical school application, such as volunteering, research, the MCAT, and your GPA. Now, we’ll talk about the next phase of the application process – and all of the stress that comes with it. Lucky you.

Your Personal Statement

Ah, the personal statement. Your opportunity to communicate to admissions committees across the country why in the world you would want to be a doctor, and why you would be a good candidate for admission to their school. This portion of the application is perhaps the most frustrating, if only because you need to communicate so much while only being given about 5,300 characters (including spaces. Yay...).  That’s a little over a page to sell yourself.

There are countless articles online about writing your personal statement, and ideally, you’ll have a writing service at your school and other knowledgeable individuals who can help you fine tune it. My primary piece of advice is START EARLY. While some people can hammer out a workable product in a relatively short amount of time, this is not something you want to rush. Plan on this taking a few months to write, review, rewrite, rinse, and repeat – about one bazillion times. Keep a journal about meaningful experiences while you are volunteering or working in a clinical position or shadowing. You can tie these stories into your statement later. As with all other parts of your app, and perhaps more so, have lots of trusted people review this before you submit. Ideally, you want this done at least a few weeks before you can even submit your application, because in the weeks leading up to submission you’ll have plenty of other stuff to worry about.

For those who are interested, you can read my personal statement here. 

Obtaining Letters of Recommendation

This part of your application can perhaps be the most awkward, but it is nevertheless important, if only to play the application game well. Letters of recommendation (or LORs, as the cool pre-meds call them) are essentially a venue through which admissions committees can obtain a perspective of you as a person that is different from that which is presented in your application. Therefore, you only want to ask individuals who can paint a very strong positive picture of you. Ideally, you’ll find writers who can honestly say, using real-life examples, that you are not just a good applicant, but a great one.

You typically need at least three letters – two from science professors and one from a non-science professor (think history, English, etc.). If you’ve done research in a lab, many schools will require one from your PI. If you are employed, consider getting one from your boss. I was a scribe who worked closely with a few doctors, and was able to get a few from them. Each school might vary a bit in their requirements, so be sure to check out their website for more information. Don’t get any more than six – that’s just annoying.

Writing letters takes time. So ask your writers well in advance of when your application is due – generally, about three months of notice is a good rule of thumb. When you ask them, be sure to bring along a little packet with your resume, a draft of your personal statement, a letter with instructions on how they should submit their letter (more on this in a bit), a due date, and perhaps what medical schools are looking for, and maybe a sample of your academic work. All of this should be in a clean-looking, professional folder. Ask your potential writer if they would be willing to write a strong letter of recommendation for medical school. If they hesitate, or give any response other than a confident positive answer, walk away – politely. You do not want a wishy-washy letter. After they have said yes and you’ve given them a packet, make sure they know how to contact you (this should be in the packet) and let them be for a bit. About half way through their three months, shoot them an email thanking them for their willingness to help you and reminding them about the upcoming due date. Send similar emails a week or two out from the due date if you haven’t heard from them, but don’t be annoying.

Typically, you aren’t supposed to see the letters – or, at the very least, you are supposed to waive your right to see them. Some writers may opt to give you a copy, and that’s fine. But they don’t have to. So how do you collect them? Perhaps one of the easier ways to do this is use a letter storage service, such as Interfolio. This site will allow you, for a small fee, to store your letters electronically and then send them safely to AMCAS. Your letter writers can submit directly to Interfolio via snail mail or by scanning them in. Give them a choice – usually, the former is easier. Just be sure to include a pre-addressed manila envelope with postage in your packet.

So, in summary – ask early, ask only people who can write strong letters, give them a packet, and check on them once and a while. Make it as easy for them as possible.

Creating Your AMCAS Application (or, Where Crap Starts to Get Real)

AMCAS (the American Medical College Application Service) provides a centralized application service for most U.S. MD schools (for a fee, of course). In the past, applicants had to obtain applications for each school they wanted to apply to, fill it out, and send in a hardcopy of their application to as many schools as they needed to. Now, thankfully, applicants can just fill out a universal online application that can then be sent to any participating schools (except most Texas schools – as might be expected, they do their own thing and use TMDSAS, a similar application service specific to the great nation of Texas).

The application itself can be found at the AMCAS website. Generally, it is made available to applicants in early May, but can’t actually be submitted until early June. I strongly recommend creating an account, opening the application, and beginning to fill it out as soon as you can. It’s a time-consuming process, and must be picture-perfect. Medical school admissions can, at times, be an arbitrary process, and you don’t want a poorly-written application filled with typos to be the thing that keeps you out of your dream school.

Before beginning the application, I highly recommend taking the time to read through the AMCAS Instruction Manual (which can be found on this page). It’ll save you time and possibly heartache later if you just do everything right the first time.

As far as general tips for filling out the application: start early. Spend some time reviewing your work/activities sections – these are like mini-personal statements for that activity. Some people prefer to write these in a bullet-point format, while others prefer a narrative format. I chose the latter, but that’s just me. Be sure to describe the activity, but don’t forget to mention how it affected you or guided to toward medicine or whatever. You can create fifteen work/activity sections, and pick a few of them (it was three, I think, when I applied) as your “Most Meaningful” – in other words, the activities that really changed you or drove you in this direction or taught you something important. You then get a little extra space to write about each activity. Don’t worry about trying to game the system (e.g. picking one research activity, one volunteering activity, and one leadership activity, or what have you) – just pick the three that were really the most important to your personal development. It’ll pay off later when your true passion for whatever the activity was comes through. Have people review your application. DO NOT miss typos – it’s just bad form. If you write your personal statement, work/activity descriptions, etc., in something like Microsoft Word, then be sure to paste it into a program like Notepad and then paste that into the AMCAS application – it avoids any potential formatting issues from directly importing Word’s rich-text into the comparatively low-tech application.

Ideally, if you started it early, you’ll have your application up and ready to go when it comes time to submit in June. Be sure that you and other people have reviewed it multiple times and that there are no errors. Once you submit it, it then goes to AMCAS for verification of your grades, classes, and whatnot. The earlier you submit, the less time this takes. If you submit in the first few days, this might just take a day or two. Any longer than that, it can take a few weeks – and your application will not be received by medical schools until after it is verified. So start it as soon as you can, stay on top of things, and submit early. 

And that wraps up this post. Next, we'll talk about secondaries, interviewing, financial aid, and the rest of the process.

Loyola's Second Visit

4/12/13

            My wife and I flew in the day before the event, which was on a Friday. We planned to stay through the weekend to look around the area a bit and, if not find an apartment (unlikely, since we won’t actually move for a while yet), at least find a few areas we would feel at home in.

The next day, we drove to the school after grabbing some breakfast at our hotel. The day started with a check-in process that started at about 9:30 am or so. After parking in the parking garage (which was a reasonable $5 for the day), small herds of potential Loyola MS1s made their way into the medical school, where we lined up at a table and received a name tag and a packet like the one received on the interview day, except this one had a schedule for the day, the match list, housing information, and some informational sheets about the school. Immediately after walking in the door, before putting on my name tag, some random person walked up to me and said, “Oh, you must be eefen! Good to see you here.” The gesture, small as it was, was certainly appreciated and I think exemplifies how Loyola treats its students, even potential ones, as people rather than cogs in a machine.

After we had all checked in, we all (perhaps several hundred of us, including parents, significant others, siblings, etc.) gathered in the second floor atrium and made small talk until Dean Jones began the welcoming process, which was continued by about four others speakers, including the Dean of the medical school (the highlight was probably “Father Doctor” Muccino [a Jesuit priest], who compared the Second Visit to a Second “date” and then chuckled slyly, “Perhaps the reason I like this day so much is that it’s the closest I’ll ever get to actually dating”).

We were then divided into two large groups, depending on which half of the alphabet our last name fell into, and led into one of the large lecture halls (which, by the way, are quite large with comfy seats and abundant outlets). Several people then took turns speaking about a variety of subjects, including an overview of each year of medical school, research and global health opportunities, and financing medical school. I think perhaps the things that stood out the most during this series of mini-lectures was the apparent friendliness of each speaker and a passion for what they did, as well as a close collegiality among themselves.

After this, we had lunch. They basically converted the basketball court in the health and fitness center into large buffet – they laid out a false floor (tarp, essentially, but a floor nonetheless), set out a large number of tables, and prepared a large amount of food that was actually fairly good. Everyone was assigned to a table, and each table had at least one medical student present. There was an M1 at our table, and he was helpful in answering some final questions about the school and was generally a pleasure to talk to, as most people at Loyola seem to be.

Once lunch was finished, we all went back to the lecture halls, but this time we were separated into “future students” and family. Apparently, this was to allow students or family members to ask questions that perhaps they wouldn’t ask in front of each other. For each group, they had a panel of around five students or so at various stages of the process, as well as a number of administrative types, available to answer questions and share their perspective on the school. Here, I really felt like the students and faculty/administrative people really did a good job of communicating a concern for not just how well the student performs, but also for the emotional and spiritual health of the student. As cheesy as that might sound on paper, it actually appeared to be a legitimate concern, and as a probable future student, that is something I appreciated.

            This all went on till about 3 pm, after which the “formal” day was over. Everyone present then had the opportunity to either leave or gather back in the atrium for an “Ice Cream Social.” They had (rather speedily) set up a number of booths representing various departments and opportunities at the school. My wife and I actually did try and make the rounds, and everyone we talked to was very friendly and personable (not really a surprise at this point – I think Loyola only hires nice people...).

Around this time, those who wanted also had the opportunity to go on a tour, similar to the one on the interview day. They took use to many of the various rooms used for studying, testing, and generally hanging out in the medical school itself, as well as to the school of nursing, their library (which is bookless, by the way…it’s all online), the anatomy lab, and the simulation center.

This last bit was actually kind of interesting – they had a student there who introduced us to “Harvey” and told us a bit about what he was used for. He then suddenly started in on a scenario: “A 50 year old man presents to the ED complaining of crushing substernal chest pain radiating to his left chest accompanied by shortness of breath and diaphoresis.” He then pointed us to the rhythm monitor, which up to that point had been reading normal sinus rhythm but suddenly switched into v-tach, which eventually became v-fib. He asked if anyone knew what it was – a few members of the group mumbled it under their breath, until someone made a joke about only knowing because they watched Grey’s Anatomy. He laughed, and then talked about how the heart was no longer getting oxygen to the brain via the blood, and asked if we knew what to do next. Someone answered (“CPR!”) and was then asked to come perform it on Harvey. Someone else was asked to come start bagging him with a bag-valve mask. The student then talked about giving epinephrine, and after that didn’t work, had another student pretend to shock Harvey twice. Finally, the rhythm converted back into normal sinus, and the poor student who got stuck doing CPR could catch his breath.

Overall, the day was excellent. It was great to see the school again, and I’m really glad that my wife was able to see it as well. I will say that the tone of the day was different from the interview day. The latter was quite stressful, though Loyola didn’t make it overly so. Today, however, was much more celebratory in nature. It was as if they were saying, “You’re in. You’ve made it, and we’re glad you’re here. You’re one of us now, and we’ll get you through this. Welcome home.”

You know how it works….right?

19 year old female presents to the ED complaining of vaginal pain over the past couple of days. It apparently started suddenly during intercourse with her partner of two months; she finally came into the ED because the pain seemed to be worsening and was increasingly painful during urination.

Her history went something like the following:

Doctor: So are you on birth control?

Patient: No

D: Do you use condoms?

P: No

D: Do you use any protection during intercourse?

P: No

D: Are you trying to get pregnant?

P: No

D: Are you prepared to bring a child into the world at this point in your life?

P: No

D: *blank look*

P: *blank look*

*Insert face palm here.*

Physical exam was normal except for some mild suprapubic tenderness. Vaginal exam revealed a minimal amount of mucusopurulent discharge with a nickel-sized mucoscal ulceration vs possible healing vaginal wall tear on the left side of the vaginal wall about 1.5 cm proximal to the vaginal opening that was concerning for an STD (especially a herpetic lesion) or possible trauma. hCG was negative, no bacterial or yeast infections apparent on laboratory studies. Herpes study was pending when I left. Either she now has a new life-long friend, or this was a freak coital accident. But then, aren’t we all? /sarcasm

Oh yeah…when the chaperoning female tech showed the patient the speculum for the vaginal exam (which, by the way, is phallic in shape but quite small), the patient appeared nervous and said, “I don’t think that’ll fit inside me….”

One can only speculate about what that implies about her poor boyfriend…