Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match!

Hello!

Match week 2019 is finally upon us. After 4 long years filled with endless amounts of studying, a ridiculous number of exams, clinical rotations, and residency interviews, I'm proud to say that I will officially become an OB-Gyn!

Becoming a doctor has been a dream of mine since I was 4 years old (yes, really). Medical school has definitely been difficult, but I never truly doubted my ability to actually achieve this dream until I started to apply for residencies this past fall. My friends will tell you that I'm crazy for making that statement, but let me explain myself. I consider myself an average applicant for the field of OB-Gyn. My step 1 score is right on average for past OB-Gyn applicants. I made Honors and High Passes in almost all my courses but was not high achieving enough to qualify for AOA*. I had a good number of volunteer experiences and a handful of leadership experiences. I participated in research but was never able to publish anything. Overall, I felt I checked all the boxes and had many meaningful experiences that I could talk about on the interview trail. Now, you may be thinking, "You're definitely crazy! All of that sounds amazing!" The reasons why I continue to insist I'm an average applicant are because my step 1 score is average and the field of OB-Gyn is becoming more and more competitive. Theoretically, I interviewed and ranked enough programs, but you can just never be sure especially after having met so many amazing applicants who were interviewing at top-notch programs on the interview trail. Regardless, by the grace of God, I have matched to an OB-Gyn residency position!

I'll find out where I will be training on Match Day on Friday, March 15th. Keep a look out for that announcement. I also still plan on writing more blog posts about my residency application and interview experience. I've been holding off because it didn't feel right to give you all my perspective and advice without knowing if it actually worked for me!

To any fellow MS4s reading this: congrats if you've matched as well! If not and you're currently going through SOAP, just remember that this experience doesn't define you. You are an amazing and successful individual who has reached an education level that only 1% of the world's population have also achieved. There is a reason for everything and just trust that there is a reason for your current struggles, a plan for your life, and many people who love you.

Much love and talk to you all again soon!


*Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) is a national medical school honor society. Members are the highest achieving students in their respective medical school classes and chosen based on basic science and clerkship grades.

I'm Back?

Alright, it's obvious, I suck at keeping this blog up to date. I've always loved the cathartic nature of reflecting on one's life through a blog or journal yet never seem to be great at keeping up with such self-reflection tools for longer than a few weeks. My growing collection of store bought, DIY-ed, and digital means for journaling perfectly represents my struggle. Regardless, here I am with thoughts of nostalgia and self-reflection crawling back to my digital journal that will forever be waiting and saved as a collection of 1's and 0's on the interwebs. Looking back at my scarce collection of published and saved but never published blog posts, I've noticed a trend for when I return to this blog: I tend to return either just before or immediately after a big change in my life. Today is no different. The last post published on this blog lists the things I've learned about myself and medical school at the end of my first year of medical school. Since then, I've continued with my medical education and have accomplished and passed many milestones like taking Step 1 at the end of my second year, starting clerkships and getting to know some amazing patients and medical professionals during my third year, and finally applying for and interviewing for jobs as a fourth year. This is the part of my life from where I write to you all now. I'm nearing the end of my OB-Gyn residency interview trail and have to turn in my rank list of programs in 2 months. After that, my future lies in the hands of an algorithm and, more importantly, God.

I had a lot of initial thoughts of what I wanted this post to be about: advice about residency applications, advice about residency interviews, and/or reflections about my journey applying to residency. I will hopefully eventually write a separate blog post about each of these topics, but I think for now I'll leave this one as an update on where I am in my life now and what my future plans for this blog are. In an ideal world where I am not a lazy procrastinator, I will follow through with the above as well as maybe detail future trips I hope to go on. Until then, just know that I'm doing well, the residency interview trail is long and tiring, and medical school is long and tiring. Overall, however, I wouldn't change anything about how I've lived my life for the past 3.5 years.

I hope you all are doing well also.

Lessons from my First Year of Medical School

Some of these will be more serious, others are very tongue-in-cheek.

1. It's okay to abide by the P=M.D. mentality (pass=M.D.) when first starting out or even for your entire medical school career.*
2. It's also okay to push yourself to achieve that Honors if that's what you want. Just don't let it stress you out and turn you into a gunner.**
3. Be confident and proud of where you are. You were chosen for a reason, own it.
4. With #3 being said, don't let your achievements and experience get to your head. You do still need to be humble.
5. The phrase "high-yield" will become a part of your daily vernacular.
6. The medical field has purposely tried to over-complicate things by creating new words for simple things like bruises and nose bleeds.
7. Every space, line, ridge, and bump in the human body has a name that you will have to learn in anatomy.
8. Your white coat and medical school I.D. can open many doors for you. You no longer have to beg doctors to let you shadow them.
• Subpoint: people outside of the medical field will mistake you for a doctor if you're wearing the socially accepted uniform of scrubs and white coat 
9. Your professors are great people and will do almost anything to help you succeed.
10. Your undergrad degree, if useful at all for medicine, sorry liberal arts majors, will probably only help you in certain classes for 1 lecture at best. . . the material is much more in-depth now.
11. You will encounter people who are really high-strung and stressful to you, don't feel like you have to associate with them. Choose to surround yourself with people that will encourage you and help you.
12. Don't feel like you have to follow the advice of the upperclassmen or even your classmates. If their study methods don't work for you, don't use them.
13. It's okay if you slip up in your grades a bit. There's a learning-curve and a big transition from undergrad to medical school. What's important is that you adapt and persevere. Also see #1.
14. Some people in your class will know 100% what they want to do when they grow up. It's awesome if you are one of those people. It's also completely fine if you're not.
15. Try to get along with your anatomy tankmates if you don't already. It'll make the 2-3 hours dissections that much more bearable.
16. Wash your anatomy scrubs at the end of every week. If you don't keep up with it, they will stink forever.
17. Try to desensitize yourself to your cadaver somewhat, especially when doing crazy things like cutting the body in half.
18. With #17 being said, do occasionally remember that your cadaver was a person with a life and a family who graciously donated their bodies for your education.
19. Don't worry about Step 1 just yet. Some of your classmates will talk about reading First Aid, but don't worry about them. Focus on completing your first year first.
20. Some members of your class will want to party and drink every weekend. If that's you, great, but don't forget about why you're here. If that's not you, don't feel like you have to become that person. Do the things that you love during your free time, because free time will be hard to come by.
21. Figure out what are the things you need in your life to keep you sane. Medical school is demanding and you're going to have to prioritize things in order to keep doing them.
22. You can get sucked into studying all day, every day. Don't feel like you have to to keep up with the work. It's important to still feel like a human being. See #21.
23. Keep up with your friends who aren't in medical school. You'll need to have some conversations that aren't about the brachial plexus and drug interactions.
24. Don't get upset if your friends and family who aren't in medicine don't think it's cool that you held and dissected a heart in anatomy lab. Everyone has their own criteria for what they consider cool.
25. Stay connected with the events that are going on in the world. There are things going on out there besides the Circle of Willis.
26. Never before has not having anything to do ever been so glorious
27. You might start freaking out now about rotations, Step, and match, but don't! You'll get there in your own time and when you do you will conquer them head on.

* My school still follows a Marginal Pass to Honor grading system. This won't fully apply to you if your school is on a Pass/Fail system.
**Gunner: a person who tends to sabotage peers in order to get ahead

1st Semester Recap

Why hello there!

The last time I was able to write on this blog, or even think about writing about this blog, I was about 2 weeks away from starting medical school. Since that last post, a lot of things have happened in my life with regards to medical school. In fact, these past 4 months have probably been the quickest, most stressful, and busiest months of my life so far. Highlights, in no specific order, include:

1. Officially donned my white coat for the first time and said the Hippocratic Oath
2. Met my first patient (my cadaver) and successfully completed anatomy lab without vomiting or passing out
3. Took my first National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) Shelf exam and did decently well
4. Worked with my first standardized patient (SP) and learned almost all aspects of the physical exam (Neuro is to come next semester)
5. Became an Ambassador for my school and talked to interviewees and high school students about our school and med school life in general
6. Joined a women's Bible study and became a member of the leadership team for the Christian Medical and Dental Association (CMDA)
7. Got selected to go on a Spring Break global health trip to Santa Ana, Honduras
8. Met a great group of friends who are supportive and totally not gunners
9. Took 8 exams in 2 weeks and received a Pass or better on all of them
10. Finished my first semester of medical school with High Passes and Honors in all of my classes

Even though there have been bumps along the way, especially during my first block week of exams and finals, I don't think I've been much happier than I am now. I feel like I belong at school and as #8 reflects, found friends who will build each other up rather than tear each other down to get to the top. My top 2 criterion for a medical school were a supportive class and great opportunities to get clinical experience. My school exceeds both of those criterion by miles and I am so glad to be here. Thus, I have truly learned that school rank doesn't matter. What matters for me in my medical education is that I am happy and surrounded by people that will do anything to help me succeed, because how I'm feeling has a greater impact on my performance than my school's ranking.

I learned a lot this semester. . . probably more than I ever did in a year at undergrad, and I know I have a lot of learning to do. The biggest lesson for me, however, was that I am competent. I earned my spot in my class and I don't think the admissions committee made a mistake. I thank God everyday that He has put me on this path and is with me every step of the way.

I have a long road in front of me and a lot of things still left to figure out, but for now, I'm proud and happy to say that I am 1/8th an M.D! 

Life Update - Being an Adult is Hard

Hello again,

I always seem to come back to this blog in times of reflection and semi-boredom. . . no offense. It's not that I will only write posts if there's nothing better to do, I'm just unable to make myself seem coherent when I have some extra time on my hands.

Moving on, the biggest lesson I've learned this summer is: being an adult is hard. I don't really consider myself an adult (or just don't want to accept it) yet as I still have 4 more years of schooling left, but this summer I have had to deal with the inevitable search for an apartment and all the associated adulty things like finding an electricity provider, buying renter's insurance, finding an internet provider, and creating a budget.

My biggest realization in dealing with all of this is: being an adult means making a lot of phone calls. I really dislike making phone calls. I'm a millennial; I am used to sending emails and text messages. I'm also an introvert; I prefer staying indoors and limiting my interaction with other human beings, especially human beings that sound like they resent every phone call they get from a (potential) customer.

Regardless, I'm really proud of how I've handled everything. Even though it's been really stressful, I'm very happy with how I've handled things and relieved/glad that things are working out. (I'm signing the lease and moving into my apartment in a week!) If anything, this only makes me a little more confident that I'll be able to handle medical school like a champion which leads me to the second update I want to provide. (Good segue*, me!)

Medical school will officially start for me in t-minus 18 days. (Insert screaming emoji) I've bought scrubs embroidered with my school's logo, ordered my white coat, bought a new (required) laptop, registered for MS1 retreat, and looked into stethoscopes. In 12 days I'll get my ID badge and all the fancy computer/website authorizations needed to do medical school. In 2 weeks, I'll attend orientation and participate in the white coat ceremony! A lot of things are happening/soon to happen and it is so daunting, scary, nerve-wracking, and exciting.

I hope to keep you all updated on how things go. This blog is already a mixed bag of topics/themes, but hey I have a mixed bag of interests/experiences, so I hope to continue the focus on my journey to becoming a doctor. Actually, as I type this, I think I will try to make a video or write a post about medical school interviews and my experience.

Until next time guys. (Hopefully next time will be soon, but no guarantees.)


*Don't you think segue is spelled funny? It's like it's trying to compensate for something by being weird to spell.