I cannot believe that it has been about 2 years since my last post. The reason why it has been 2 years is quite compelling, you see, I was completing my training in Critical Care and this past June I finished and I am now an Intensivist, also known as a Specialist in Critical Care.

It took me, 13 years from the time that I came up with the concept of going to medical school to follow a dream to completing my training and becoming an Attending.

I now work for a group that specializes in Intensive Care and I go to 4 hospitals. Not in one day of course, but rather I am credentialed at 4 hospitals and go where I am scheduled to. Two of the hospitals have residents there already and that is great because I enjoy teaching and it keeps me on my toes about the material. The third hospital will be getting residents next year, which hopefully means that I will be on faculty and be involved in the developement of the program. The fourth hospital does not have residents and that is fine.

The days of my sleeping in the hospital because I am on call are pretty much done. I come home every night, which my girls love, but the days that I do work I am on call from home. This can mean multiple phone calls at night or no phone calls at night. Of course, if there is an issue I will go to the hospital but that is usually few and far between.

It feels so nice to be able to wake up in the morning and enjoy going to work. I do nto have that feeling of dread that I used to experience knowing that I was going to work the next day. I don't have stress that I am going to be in work environment that I do not like. The stress that I do have is quite significant though. I mean, it is the stress at the end of the day thinking about the critical patients and wondering if I missed something. Or was I on the right track with my diagnosis, or could I have done something more aggressive, was I too aggressive and the patient was suffering when the best thing was to let them go, did we try to resuscitate long enough and if so, what kind of brain damage is there going to be, will this family or the patient sue me because they did not like the outcome even though the patient was sick beyond bringing them back. All of these thoughts are important because there is an epidemic of physician suicide in this country and these stressors are why.

The practice I joined is great because they are taking over from fellowship and continuing my training. Learning how to really run an ICU, aspects of billing and coding that I was never taught, being a mentor to younger doctors.

At the end of the day, I did not want to live with regret. So I bet, and I hit the jackpot. I put my family through a large financial burden but it is paying off now. In more ways than one. I hope to be able to blod more, but this depends on the schedule. I will also try to Vlog more. Again, depends on the schedule.

Well, here I am

A little bit about me in this issue to give people some background about me.

I graduated from college in 1997 with a degree in biotechnology. this was the final degree I decided on as during my freshman year I had about 4 majors and they were all in the second semester. When I began college I was a gung-ho premed. I was in biology 101, math, english, the rest of the basic freshman classes except for chemistry because I did not want to bog myself down. I came from a high school where I was in the top 20% of the class (#81/312). I was also very good in the sciences, especially biology. So I was expecting to do really well in biology. However, there was something that I was not prepared for and it was going to come back and haunt me.

I was not prepared for how to manage my time, nor was I prepared to start doing poorly in my classes. I was used to be an A/B student and nothing lower. I would read and understand. Here I am in college and I am struggling. Not only that, but since I never attended a high school party and I was away from my parents or any authority figure I wanted people to know that I was fun to be with so I went out every weekend and got drunk. I would hand out in the campus center or my dorm room but I would not be able to focus. At the same time I was pledging so that took up my time as well. In the end, I did really poorly in my first semester including failing biology. This was my first F in my academic career ever, and I was especially devastated that it was in biology. So I convinced myself that I did not like school and that I would drop premed and try to do something else.

I went ahead and changed my declaration from biology to human ecology to environmental planning and design to Landscape Architecture. I retook my english and math and passed it and registered for Landscape Architecture classes for my sophmore year.

During the fall of my sophmore year, I had a running start. I did well in my exams and really liked what I was doing. I was convinced that this was my real calling. My roommate was a biotechnology major and I saw how he was struggling with organic and thought to myself, am I glad that I do not have to deal with that. This semester turned out better than my last 2 but I had straight C's. The worse part was that I was not accepted to the Landscape Architecture program and ran back to my apartment crying thinking that I should drop out of school.

It was then that an ambulance call came in and as an EMT, with time, I went to station and went on the call. I was back in my element and successfully treated the patient. It was then that I realized that medicine WAS my true calling and it was time I shaped up and got cracking. By this time, it was already the spring of my sophmore year and I immediately went to the Pre-med dean and had a meeting with him. After the meeting the first thing I did was to extend my graduate year by 1 and drop every single one of my classes and register for my pre-reqs. I also dropped every one of my EC's and began.

Over the next few years I took classes over the summer. I retook biology and got a B in it. But there would be a lot of problems. Ths issue was that I still did not know how I needed to study. I had tried many, many different things. The main issue was the I was able to explain things to my roommates but when it came to the exams, I would blank out.

I tried studying in silence, but my mind kept wandering. So I tried studying to Jazz, no good. Classical, no good. In the library, no good. I tried 20 minutes intense reading and 10 minutes off, nothing. Finally, at the end of my junior year I got it right. My girlfriend had a tape of a thunderstorm and I borrowed it. I went to the library and put it on. When I lifted my head for the first time, I was amazed that an hour and a half went by and I remembered everything that I read. It was at this session that I decided to outline the chapter. Finally, I found my niche. However there was something missing.

In the spring of 1996, I signed up for the MCAT. I was planning on taking it and felt that since I was taking organic chemistry and physics that I would already be studying for it, so why should I bother studying extra (I now know that this was very, very foolish but hey, I was young). My parents could not afford kaplan or TPR so they sent me to a small, no name prep course that was horrible. I would up getting a 24 (VR 9, PS 7, BS, 8 VR P).

At the time, I really had not idea what it meant to apply to medical school. It turns out my roommates' girlfriend's mother worked at a medical school and got me a meeting with dean of admissions who suggested I retake the MCAT. So I did and again, did not prepare. I did worse 20 (VR 6, PS 6, BS 8, WS S). I called the dean and she suggested I get a masters degree.

I wound up graduating and starting my life. I figured medical school was a distant memory, but maybe. I finally landed a job in a lab 1.5 years after graduation and it was here that the last peice of my studying puzzle was placed. I taped the lectures of the one class I went to. During my commute to/from work I would listen to the tapes. I would up remembering everything better and did very well on the tests and scored a B+.

Life went on and I got married and had my first kid. I would up getting a job at place where they pay 100% tuition reimbursement and my boss was asking if I would be going for a masters or a PhD. Since I could not find a part time PhD program I setteled for a masters program. I started going to school in 2001. In fact, my first day of class was supposed to be on 9/11. A year and a half later I was a sporting a 4.0 and during a trip to Tampa, Florida I told my wife that I really wanted to go to medical school and she said fine. However, we agreed that we would keep this between us.

I also learned how naive I was at the application process when I was in college in addition to how to properly prepare for the MCAT.

To date, I have a 3.4999 in graduate school with a missing grade due to my thesis, which I should be defending in March. I retook the MCAT in August of 2004 and scored a 22 (VR 7, PS 6, BS 9, VR R). I applied to 14 schools and was rejected by all. I restudied for the MCAT and scored a 29 (VR 9, PS 10, BS 10, WS Q). I reapplied to 9 schools, all DO and was accepted by 2, my top two choices.

Here I am, 3 years later and am about to start my 4th and final year of medical school. One little surprise though, our 4th daughter arrived almost 2 weeks ago. That has added the benefit of having less sleep that I did before but in a good way. Because I can bond with her while either giving her a bottle or changing her and waiting for the bottle to arrive. Either way, we get some Daddy:Amy time.

I hope you enjoy my blog and as I enter my final year of medical school and start the process of looking for a residency position I will write often. So don't be a stranger.

Doc.