10 days to go

So in 10 days, I will have orientation for residency. During these next few days I will have the time to fix things around the house, probably hit a Matinee with my wife (date day) and just enjoy and relax.

A recent issue had come up that I wanted to share with you all. I miscalculated how much we would need between medical school ending and getting a paycheck. So I applied to get a residency loan and I was turned down because of an issue with my credit report. It turns out that said issue was an error by the creditor which needed to be taken care of right away. Had I looked at my credit report before I applied for the loan, I would have seen the error, fixed it, and then applied. Since I fixed the problem, I am debating whether or not to apply for the loan again. The question is, should we grin and bear it or should we give ourselves some breathing room.

Last week, I had the utmost pleasure to go and speak at the Old Pre Meds conference in Las Vegas (www.oldpremeds.com). For those of you have not gone to a conference of this kind yet, I urge you, nay, I STRONGLY urge you to go next year. Word on the street is that it will return to the east coast but nothing formal has been announced.  The conference is 100% non traditional. There is nothing in the conference that does not aim at the non trads. Not to mention there was a good showing of schools and programs to speak to.

I had the pleasure of speaking to several people who are just starting out and they have families. Specific questions included how to assuage your spouse from fearing that once you are done with medical school that you will  not leave them. This is one of the most feared situations a support person has. The best advice that I can give is to constantly remind them how much you appreciate them, how much you love them, and how much you cannot do this without their support. Recognize them whenever you can. Whenever I am asked how I was able to accomplish medical school with a family, the first words out of my mouth are that "I could not have done it without my wife. She deserves the praise". In addition, during graduation, I had the family gather around and I presented her with my own gift to her. Which is seen below. The wording took me about 3 weeks to figure out.

"Three weeks!!!! Why did it take you so long to figure out what to say. Why not say 'I Love You' and be done with it?" And the answer is, because she KNOWS I love her. She does not need a plaque for it. What she wants to know is how much I appreciated her SACRIFICE  she sacrificed everything for me. And I needed to not only let her know how much I appreciated it, but that I publicly acknowledged it. The wording, I felt, needed to reflect not only how much I appreciated her love, but how much I appreciated her doing a lot more of her fair share so that I can study, go to conferences, build my resume, and participate in school functions.  But the sacrifice was not isolated to medical school but also to the preparation for it. For the time I took to go to graduate school and prepare for it. Write and defend my thesis, study and take the MCAT (not once; but twice).  But most importantly, for keeping the family together during this stressful time. And while a gift or a plaque will not fully assuage the fear that I would leave her after I am done, telling her that I will not and showing her that I will not (by being open and honest) will do that.  But the most important thing you can do, is to acknowledge the fear and keep telling them that all will be ok. 


And so with that, fellow non trads I leave you for now. Stay tuned for more as I enter Residency. 








    

Could be the end of Interview Season?

So I finished my last scheduled interview earlier this week. In total I had 6 interviews, and while I would like to at least have had 9 or 10, the fact of the matter is that you only need 1 nod and you are in your residency.  This last interview was a little more challenging as I was asked questions that I did not anticipate and therefor did not prepare. So I will talk a little bit about how I prepared for my interviews.

To begin with, I applied to as many places as I could have within a 1-1.5 hour driving radius as the boss (aka the wife) told me that we are not moving. Or at least, that is the DEFCON 1 option. So when I received the invitation I ensured that I was prepared.

I started off by going to the website of each institution and program. I spent at least 1 hour looking around the website. Looking at the community that they tend to serve,  seeing how many patients they see annually, looking to see if the hospital has a special niche. For example, is it a level 1 trauma center, does it have a cancer center, is it known for bone and joints, etc. Then I looked at the services that were offered to the community. What kind of resources were available? Then I looked at the residency program. I wanted to look for the curriculum. How long was each rotation, was there elective time and if so how much and where. Look to see where graduates of the programs went to, what type of specialty did they get and where. What kind of benefits are there, do they give you a stipend for books, meetings, conferences, if I was able to find out who I was interviewing with I did several searches to see if they had published any literature. And I read the papers when I could. And finally, I made sure that I thought about and wrote down at least 7-8 questions.

What I have found with this strategy is that the people that you interview with realize that you took the interview seriously. That you made the effort to research them and you care. I always say that if you do not have any questions, then you did not prepare enough because there is no way to know everything about the program.

So now, as in medicine, comes more waiting. The Osteopathic match is not until February 14th. So until then I have to wait. I need to sit down with all of the information I garnered from the interviews and I need to put together a ranking list for the match. In the meantime, I will be continuing to go on rotations. I will be happy to do something other than emergency medicine. I did some family medicine, I will be doing some internal medicine, infectious diseases, cardiology. I need to set up a surgical subspecialty and I may just do it in plastic surgery. I am so looking forward to being able to spend more time at home and relax before residency starts. I cannot wait,  just over 5 months to go.

Right now I am doing something I have not done in a long time. Read for entertainment.

A couple of weeks to go

I cannot believe that there are only 2.5 weeks to go before I take my boards. I have been studying like a mad man and yet it never feels like it is enough. I know that I have the knowledge and the studying is helping me stir the brain and get the material out. However, I seem to have 1 issue that no amount of studying can help with.......

I have to STOP changing my answers!!!!!! For the love of G-D, my first instinct has been correct more often than not, yet I seem to second guess myself because I over think things when I review the questions. I even wrote a note on my note book: STOP CHANGING YOUR ANSWERS!!!!!!

Any way. That will happen from now on. I have been reviewing my practice tests and have been ensuring that I answer the questions correctly for the right reasons. I am sure that I will do fine. In the meantime, I have scheduled 3 residency interviews for October and I hope that once I get my board scores back and they are acceptable that I will receive more. I am limited by geography because we have planted roots in the South Jersey area and do not want to move. So I applied to programs that are about an hour away.

We are entering my favorite time of year. The Fall and the 'ber months (September, October, you get it) and I cannot wait for the weather to get cool and we can sleep with the windows open (I do anyway, except in the summer) and can smell the leaves on the ground and the nights come sooner. Then one of my favorite holidays will be upon us; Thanksgiving. This year it will be at my parents' house which is great because frankly, my wife and I are beat. From having my schedule and a new baby we are spent. And then for the first time in probably 2 years we are actually going to be home for Chanukah.

Things are progressing nicely. Although it would have been much much easier had I done it right the first time. Funny thing. In my last rotation, one of the Attending Doctors and I were in the same Dorm during freshman year in college. She on the 4th floor and I on the 2nd floor. So if I did things right the first time, then I would have been an Attending by now. However, I believe that things happen for a reason. I am sure that I have said it before but I will say it again. I was so unfocused when I was in college that had I been accepted to medical school I may have well failed and then I would be without recourse to be a doctor. Now that I am older, I am more focused, probably because I not only have matured but I have worked hard to get here and have even more to loose if I do fail. Funny thing is that many patients think that I am 26 years old. The last thing they believe is that I am 36, a husband, and father of 4.

This week was back to school for my kids. Even little Amy is going to the babysitter. Here is a picture of them on the first day.