The heavens aligned, and then decided to giggle

So I was historically crying this morning. In a good way.

I got accepted!

Four years of trying and going back for a masters and it finally happened! I am accepted into medical school! I seriously cannot believe this happened!

For anyone ever struggling towards their dream all I have to say is keep trying, if you work hard it will happen.

And then I went to work to try and finish a western blog while being super excited. I put the ECL devloping chemical on and then forgot to add the film for this 10 minute incubation.

Whoops :)

I'm in!!!!!!!!

Amorphousness

Nope, not dead yet.

Just really stressed and as much as I want to vent here, well I don't want to sound like I am complaining about everything because in truth thats what I sound like to myself some days.

Pretty much lab is insanely crazy but there may be a first author paper by August (yay!)

Summer job is eating my life and I hate my boss, but everyone else is really nice to work with.

I am waitlisted. Again. At the same school. Needless to say, this does not do much for my mood. Yes, I have written update letters (I actually found out I was waitlisted in April, but yeah, thats how badly its killed my mood. I really don't want to have to go another round of applications because its depressing to say the least). I am really crossing my fingers on this because I really want to get my life boogying by now. Plus it means I also may have a shot at an MD/PhD, which never had even crossed my mind until recently because my PI is pretty much trying to make me a graduate student (and I am kind of enjoying it).

And my roommate is moving at the end of July. I am sad to see her go, but its awesome because she got accepted into an amazing PhD program in a near by city. She totally deserves it. But I will miss her.

And I am not even going into firehouse politics, other than to say I want to bang my head against a wall at the ridiculousness.

Med school? Please?

Trying not to be nervous

With an upcoming interview I have been trying to calm my nerves with reading and as such as finally finished this book:

Can't say it helped with the nerves but it did strike my brain thinking again.

I remember being in high school, when we were still working out way through the Human Genome Project and my biology teaching was explaining what we knew about cancer then. I don't even remember what she was talking about but I am assuming it was oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes because I remember a question I asked. The Q & A went something like this:

Young EMT GFP: So if we know what genes go wrong in cancer, why can't we fix them or take them out and replace them with new ones?

Biology Teacher: I don't know, but I bet you will find that out someday.

I look back on that question now and realize what a profound question about cancer I managed to ask. I have no idea how I even put the pieces together but they are still questions we struggle with today in terms of cancer research. Granted, the questions are inevitably far more complex that what I asked in high school but while there will be no "magic bullet" cute for cancer, perhaps we can piece together smaller simpler answers that will help chip away at the beast.

There was a line in the last few chapters that described one scientist's way of looking a cancer as a function of his initial training. It rang true for me because my first job post undergrad was working in a research lab. It was an amazing experience but looking back, what I realize it did for me was take me from a budding molecular biologist who know scattered bits about a cells and gave me a system to think about.

My system became immunology and even now, years later working in a developmental lab, I can't help look at my work through the lens of the immune system. It has given me a lens to look a problems, work through them, learn from them. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it hinders, but I am learning to make it mine. Perhaps my next lens will be developmental or even stem cells. I will have to see where research takes me.

Though that of in itself is something I have been thinking about lately. I want nothing more than to get into med school. All of biological science makes more sense to me when observed through the lens of organ systems and body. Its all connected and seeing that picture makes me want to learn its details more. If there is anything my master's program taught me, this was it. But now its coming in direct contact with what I know I can do well, research.

I know many people can happily marry research and medicine, but until now I have always thought about it esoterically, as some far off future that I don't have to think about yet. A thought so far from the truth. What research I do now will build what I do in the future. I can use my research now as a spring board to future research, future jobs.

My P.I. has started to lay out paper ideas, paper ideas that can advanced basic science knowledge while working towards curing diseases. My mind has been running non-stop as to how to get these experiments going, I want them to be perfect, so that they have a real chance at working. Not because I want the papers, but because I hope someday it pans out and that a cure or at least a lasting treatment can be found. I want to see the faces of patients light up when they hear they are treated. No more drugs, no more tests, no more fearing for their life.

This, this is why I want to be a doctor, to fix people so that they may have a better life.

Scheduling Fail

Yeah.... I scheduled my medical school interview so it wouldn't be on a day that I taught.

Unfortunately I failed to check what I was doing in class that week. Review lectures AND giving an exam that week.

Guess who is using the weekend prior to write the exam in full instead of that Monday (while not on the calendar, Monday is an in lab day all day)!

I still think its better to have my interview earlier rather than later so busy week it is!

Stress!

Is due to me trying not to freak out over the interview I have in two weeks. After spending so many times getting so close to medical school (okay once, last cycle) and not getting in, I HAVE to do well or I may well explode.

I want this more than anything and I can almost taste it.

So I must go fight off my demons (oh how you still try to haunt me), remember all the details of the research I have done, and polish up on selling myself humbly.

The US seriously need more medical schools and a more logical system into why people get into them.

Hopefully there will be at least one EMS story by the end of the week (I have so many back logged that just need a good typing!)

Also, any interview types are happily accepted.

This has been stuck in my head all weekend...

This makes me laugh because its so close to the truth! A never ending string of studying! This was also very close to what my master's program was like. We were med students light, only not that light.

But I still haven't found what I am looking for...

Love U2, love that song, and it so aptly applies to my day! I naively assumed that since the antibody list said my antibody of interest was in the red box in the -20 that I would find it there. Sooooooooo has not happened yet. I froze my fingers going through enough red boxes for an army and still can't find the darn antibody! So much for proper antibody organization. I may have to let some OCD go and get the best of me and reorganize all the antibody boxes.

In other news, my new set of students for this semester are making me really excited about teaching! I have doubled my class size (16!) which for me is huge and they all seem really engaged. I was particularly proud of two moments in the first two days that I have been teaching them this semester. First, I already have several students asking if I will teach the second half of this class (which I taught last semester) over the summer! Always a good way to start! Second, I was on a clinical tangent over how it can be really bad not to have pain receptors in your skin (CIPA, as found here) but could not remember the name of the disease at all. Suddenly, one of the students in the back of the room who had been looking incredibly bored perks up her head and raises her hand, asking if the disease started with a 'C'. I answered honestly with the fact that I could not remember but by the end of our break that day she came up to me with a huge grin saying that she looked it up and it did start with a 'C' and was called CIPA.

Moments like the second, where I take a student who seemed bored and not interested and manage to pull them into being interest, particularly by a clinical correlate of all things, make me enjoying teaching more than I ever thought I could!

In medical school applications news, I have been rejected by two school, invited for an interview by one (the at the top of my list at that!), and spammed the rest with update letter. I got this email back and it made me smile.

"Dear EMT GFP,

Thank you for your email and your update.  The format is perfect!  We will place an electronic copy  of your attachment with your file.

We appreciate your continued interest in the School of Medicine.

Regards,

SOM"

I love it when I can make someone's day by correct formatting! It may also speak to the number of times I have gone through this darn application process!

Sadly, the EMS front has been fairly quiet.

Step 3, Done!

In truth, I have had my secondaries for medical school (step three (this round) in this step process. One was another round of MCATs and round two was the primary application) done for a while, I just haven't had time to write about it lately! There is also that lurking worry that I won't get in this time around (with as much as I have changed my application to be more competitive (yay better MCAT score!), I sure hope this is not a problem!)

I am not sure if I have mentioned it before but this is yet another round of me attempting to get into medical school. I was really close last year, interview and a spot on a waitlist! Unfortunately, in a fairly unusual event, the waitlist I was on did not move.

I think it is things like that that worry me the most. So many people are applying to medical school that even really qualified people are not getting in, people who have just as much merit as those who didn't. Many of my friends who are in medical school this year (I miss you guys!) have even said sometimes it seems like a crapshoot as to who gets in and who does not.

So needless to say, this whole wait to hear back thing does not suit me well. I don't the waiting thing well. Perhaps why I enjoy things like surgery and emergency medicine so much, because there is little waiting in those specialties. You get in, you figure out what is wrong, you fix it, the patient (is hopefully) better (minus complex cases that have so much back history it seems like one thing builds on another).

Anyways, I am now stuck waiting for step four (interviews) to happen or not.

Please let it be this time!