Does anyone want to...

[Elysium]

Tell their story?

I've been reading these boards for some time now and I'd like to now a little bit more about you guys.

I'll start: I'm a 29 year old SWF. I was born in Galveston, TX and grew up in a suburb of Houston. I went to college at Boston University and majored in film production. After I graduated I worked on feature films in Boston, including "Good Will Hunting", "Amistad", and "A Civil Action". I did locations on the movies, which is basically what it sounds like. I helped scout the locations and then worked as a liason during production. I worked with a lot of people you guys might know, and most of them are fairly horrific. But that's a whole other conversation.
Anyway, my dad is an internist so I grew up around medicine. As I became disillusioned with film I realized that what I truly loved doing was working with people in a more positive, constructive manner. Specifically, I was able to watch my friend give birth to her daughter and I really fell in love with medicine in a shy and profound way. I then went back to school to complete all those irksome pre-reqs that you science majors do so well in (naturally!) so that I could apply to med school. While I was in school I worked as a clinical assistant at Planned Parenthood for a year and currently work as a medical assistant at a internist's office. I've interviewed at a couple of MD schools in TX and I'm waiting (hopefully) for DO interviews (my application was recently completed...finally...after a major snafu from my post-bacc school sending my letters...but I digress). I want to be an OB-Gyn, eventually. Maybe reproductive endocrinology (fertility medicine) but I'm not sure. I'm sure as hell not getting any younger.

My favorite book is "Portnoy's Complaint" by Phillip Roth and "Catcher in the Rye" by JD Salinger. My favorite movies are "Red" directed by Krystof Kieslowski, "Annie Hall" (woody Allen); "Fight Club" (David Fincher); "Do the Right Thing" (Spike Lee); "Goodfellas" (Martin Scorcese)...and I could go on. But I'll spare you that.

Favorite TV shows: X-Files (see signature); Sex in the City; Will and Grace; Scrubs; Law and Order(s); Moonlighting (old sckool)

Favorite bands: Radiohead; U2; Soul Coughing; Billy Joel; Ani Difranco; Mozart; Eric Satie (composer); the Beatles (ecletic, no?)

And that's it. I think. God, this was more painful than MSU's secondary. But not as painful as Western's.

Anyone else want to share? I look forward to meeting you all!

Tiffany (not the singer)

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[Dr JPH]

I'm a regular guy from Connecticut.

Moved to Philadelphia for undergrad, not wanting to stay near my parents.

Fooled around for 4 years in college but still got good grades.

Nailed the MCAT.

Now I'm first year at PCOM, my first choice medical school.

 

[Bevo]

I wrote a frigging book....

25 m.

Father is an Internist, brother has a masters in engineering from Cornell.

Becoming a doctor is something Ive always wanted todo since I could walk. I used to have a problem eating, I refused to eat unless we went to McDonalds so my father was usually on call on the weekends back then so he'd take my brother and I out for lunch there and we were regularly went to teh hospital where my dad had to go and see some patients. It was like this for a good number of years until my father's practice started to pick up.

Had an easy time in high school. Never studied, didn't know how to study but I graduated with a 4.0. I got into Brandeis and really payed for not knowing how to study or being mature enough to realize it was something I needed to learn how todo.
I also met a lot of adversity from the people at the school. To me, it felt like they were setting me up to become a failure and encouraged people to fail. The people who were strong enough to get past that did well, and the rest ended up choosing new majors. I was forced into choosing something I didn't enjoy.
2nd year I knew I had to really get my grades up and really do well but I thought I needed someone to really ride my ass about studying, to force me to study. So I did one of the dumbest things I ever did. I joined a fraternity. At first it worked since I had made a few friends in the frat who could help me, and at teh beginning of teh semester my grades were good. I think I prob could have made a 3.5-4.0 that semester if things had stayed the way they were. But with pledging a fraternity things get worse and worse as teh semester progresses. My grades dipped sharply once they kept me from sleeping properly. TO show the effect in my 2nd attempt at general chemistry I had a 98 on the first test, 47 on the 2nd test and finally a 12 on the 3rd test. I dont think I managed to get above a 40 on my final. I ended up with a lower grade this time around, a D. I wasn't mature enough to comprehend that the frat was dragging me down. I thought I needed them and I pretty much died for them after that semester. the next 4 semesters were probably the worst. I was forced to choose economics as a major since a. nothing else interested me b. my parents and aunt would not fund me for getting a degree in history or political science or something that they thought was a waist of money and time. So I was forced to choose between computer science or economics really. Im not very good at programming so I did economics and I would have been able to graduate with my friends too if I did economics. I had no interest in what I was doing. I didn't know what you could do with an economics degree. Everyone told me everything! well I didn't know what everything was. I need a specific goal in mind, something to shoot for. A generic answer didn't help motivate me at all. So I stopped caring about school and the grades I was receiving. My senior year when people were starting to apply for jobs for when they graduate I began to realize what the hell am I going todo this summer. I really dont like sitting in an cubicle working for someone Id probably never like, and who wouldn't think twice about canning my butt. So I looked at my options and talked to my parents about how I wanted to try for medicine once again. My father told me about doing some post bacc work at a Texas school. So I applied to the various state schools in Texas and got into one. My last semester I finally applied myself and started working with a professor to improve myself and I for the first time in my collegiate career ended up with a gpa above a 3.0 that semester. I made a 3.2 that semester. It was a confidence booster because being at school with a lot of gunners and just generally smart people I wondered how and why I was there. I didn't think I was capable of doing what they were doing.

I graduated and moved down to Texas. First semester here I felt I needed to help with the finances so I got a job at an ISP doing tech support. It really sucked and they had me working the worst hours. I was working till 2-3 am 3 nights a week and the next morning I had gen chem at 9 am. It really hurt me the first few weeks there so I quit. I wanted to quit after they wouldn't let me get 2 days off to go down and see my mother who was having a double masdectomy for breast cancer. Instead of working I started volunteering in a local hospital. While not in school or volunteering I became depressed. I was in a strange city and didn't know anyone. And the school I was at was pretty much a 4 year university commuter school. No dorms, no social scene. It was hard making friends at first. It really hurt my studying and grades that fall. I felt like quiting a lot and just getting some job but my friends wouldn't let me. That spring I began to get my act together. I was applying myself and I felt like I had the tools to succeed but something wasn't working. I was studying with a group of people. I was working with teh TAs in all my classes. But at the end of the semester I still wasn't seeing the results. I only managed a 2.99 taking g.chem II and physics II and 2 other courses I can't remember right now. Over teh summer I loaded up too many courses and historically over teh summer Im just not teh best student. I dipped down to a 2.3 gpa mostly because I struggled with calculus II here. I got a C- and made a B in my orgo I class and lab. That fall I met one of the best professors I ever had when I was retaking gchem I again for the 4th time. I had a made a C+ my 3rd time with the course. half way through I was making a B in the class when I went to go talk with him. He asked me what was keeping me from making the A. It wasn't that I didn't know the material, just got to the point where I was making myself fail always makign careless mistakes. Thinks started clicking for me then. THe next 3 tests I avg'd a 98 per test. I was failing orgo II at that point as well and I managed to raise my grade to a B. I ended up with a 3.2 that fall. Since then I have raised my gpa each semester getting a 3.5 last spring and a 3.7 this last fall taking upper level science and neuroscience courses.

Looking back what what I wrote, I think I wrote too much. LOL.
Like I said above Im not teh best student during teh summer and my MCAT score shows that, apart from another silly mistake I made the night and the day of the test. I ended up taking the test with 4 hours of sleep and couldn't open my eyes up for the verbal section, etc.

Ive applied to a variety of Osteopathic and Foreign medical schools. Ive had no success with VCOM, TCOM, and CCOM. Trying to stay patient and keep calm with everything. My application is finally under review since filling out the aacomas form in the middle of august.

Im studying to retake the mcat this april and learning from past mistakes. Got friends to study with and help me with it. Taking what I think is a better prep course for myself and trying to slowly lose all the weight I gained while I was depressed.

THings aren't great when you worry about getting an interview and not about which school you'd rather go to. But things are beginning to look up since I received my first interview request for Ross this morning. Hopefully I'll be getting some the open DO schools I got going as Id much rather a DO than an MD. and regardless if I get into a good school or not this application cycle I still want to retake the MCAT this april to prove to myself that the test isn't better than me.

 

[Elysium]

Thanks guys for sharing (especially you Imbebo).

Imbebo- I can totally relate re: stressing about interviews. My applications should be complete soon (I hope) and all I do is pretty much worry about whether or not I'll get interveiws from any DO schools. I interviewed at UTMB, but I think that had more to do with my dad being an alumnus than anything else.

I'm working on my contingency plan right now - trying to decide if I should go for a masters or just do more post-bacc classes. I pretty much have the bare minimum of sciences right now. I'm taking Biochem this semester.

I know things have kinda sucked for you, but know that over the several years I've been lurking around SDN (I started in 1999), I've read a lot of success stories (a I-beat-the-odds kind of thing). My feeling is that if you're persistant you will get into medical school. Just don't give up.

Anyone else want to tell their life story? Come on, it's fun!

 

[eschauberger]

You'd be surprised with the roads some people travel to get to medicine. A story my father, an OB/Gyn, told me once: he had a patient in his office. They did the usual small talk that usually occurs in a physicians office. My father knew that she was the manager at a local McDonalds.

She goes, "I'm going back to school (she had a two year associates degree at this point) and am going to go to medical school, and plan on coming back here to be one of your colleagues."

My father, in a half aknowledging, half believing, "wow that's great."

Well, about 12 years later she is one of the best doctors they have in my father's department.
-=Eric