This Nontrad Was Accepted to 16 Medical Schools. Hear His Story! | The Premed Years Ep. 397

thirty-four interview invites is still astronomically high what do you think it was in your application that caused so many schools to go I want to talk to this kid Jehan welcome to the pre-made years thanks for joining me thanks so much for having me dr. gray appreciate it I'm excited after you reached out to me sent me an email of all of your success after what seemed to be a lot of turmoil and delays and everything else when you emailed me your success story I'm like holy moly I need to get you on the podcast and chat with you so congratulations first off on your success thank you so much it was definitely a long road and in the end I'm really happy with the outcome obviously yeah thank you yeah let's start with when you first realized you wanted to be a physician I would say probably three or four probably two or three years after undergrad is when I actually decided hey actually medicine might be something that I want to pursue the entire time I was focused after undergrad to you know be in education my path was very much so through a principal pipeline I did Teach for America after undergrad and that was kind of like the route that I wanted to take with my life and personal experiences having my kids also some you know family illnesses me personally I also had to have surgery you know during this time and all of these kind of experiences snowballed into maybe I should look at medicine as something that I can pour my heart and soul into initially I joined TFA because I wanted to help alleviate you know educational disparities in underserved communities and I felt like every day I was battling just what felt like at the time insurmountable health disparities for my students and my wife is also a nurse so she was talking about the experiences that she was having and needle exchanges and stuff in the same hospitals in the area and so all of these things kind of came to a head and I decided to take take the plunge and to see if this was actually a path that me and my family can pursue because it was definitely a family decision couldn't do it on my own yeah yeah with having a family as a No traditional student going back through that journey going back to medical school is definitely a conversation that has to has to be had when when you were an undergrad there was there was no inkling like oh do I want to do teaching or do I want to be pre-med like pre-med was never on the radar okay so it was there potentially with anything when you start off like I felt like the world was the oyster I was also thinking like oh I wonder if I will be a small business owner or I'm gonna look into getting a PhD or becoming a professor one day but yeah I think all those things kind of like slowly but surely found my way into teaching and that's kind of what I wanted to do right after undergrad even though I didn't even I didn't even major in education TFA it was just something that I pursued like during early part of my senior year yeah nothing worked out and that was the decision we decided to go with did you have any family that were in health care like parents or aunts and uncles no I'm first gen everything that's so first to go to college first to pretty much to do a lot of things and so it was kind of like making my way through this really convoluted path of college and also you know work like life after college moving we moved you know a lot and so and then also applying to med school I would say I have a lot of people in the healthcare field that are in my family that are do a lot of different types of things but more like CNA stuff um you know it's just a living that kind of thing but you know no one who's you know at that time is it health care in any formal capacity yeah so you're out with Teach for America and you have this kind of light bulb like maybe I meant to go to medical school and and help this on the health care side for the students what's the first step that you take to to even ascertain what you need to do or if it's even possible Google after college that was part of it in my Google search I also being in new from Miami to Baltimore I went to you know the University of Miami for undergrad and so a lot of my connections to my alma mater were very regional not a ton of alum in the Baltimore area that that I know of or that I knew how to get in contact with it's not like Miami's alum are very useful anyway I mean nothing like Gator alumni so yeah it was just it was one of those things where that network wasn't as maybe as accessible as I wanted it to be not to mention I'm also working like you know 85 90 hours a week it's not like it was easy yeah I mean like first first and second year teaching is not a you know well let's just say I'm ready for residency I guess you think you are you're never ready yeah yeah so I just started cold calling a bunch of doctors actually like I probably all called a hundred doctors or emailed so a combination one hundred yeah I get so many messages from students Beck I called three doctors and they all said no I'm like keep calling like for me like I wasn't naive about the fact that listen I had to have this doctor be willing to work around my work schedule around my graduate program be willing to let me come in when I could like so that's not and he's like Hunter's like why do I need to do all this for the United mean I wouldn't I didn't expect anyone to jump at the chance yeah and so also I would say I found 2 to 3 that responded to me and one of them was someone the only reason why he reached out he told me like hey my daughter is also a teacher I understand how difficult this is and that's the reason why I'm willing to you know be so flexible and he turned out to be like the head of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins right like what are the odds that being able to get that kind of experience and exposure with him early on and do some research with him and be with him in the or and see how that worked out yeah but that was all prior to me even shadowing my wife and my wife was also a nurse mm-hmm so I actually like shadowed her interviewed her talked to her about her experiences in health care and that was my first foray into what is this like what does this mean she worked with a lot of residents a lot of fellows at the time a lot of different attending them so that was the first I think the first rung in the ladder and then that led to you know me reaching out to other doctors and trying to get experience with shadowing because I was also doing er you know stuff but that's you know not I wouldn't say as um I opening as obviously shadowing and being more hands-on I think one of your sayings is you have to be able to smell the patients that kind of thing yeah and I think you got I got a lot of that with the experience with them with that with that specific doctor yeah so a lot of students in in your situation though they'll go from Teach for America to I want to be a doctor they go and take classes and then they apply to medical school you went out and got experience you got close to those patients when you did that did you have any doubts back well this isn't what I thought it was going to be or was was it like holy crap this was amazing I need to keep doing that I think it was a combination of things I think it was a little bit of a culture shock of you know kind of being in a field that I was finding success and I felt very comfortable in at the time I was investing a lot of my time and energy but the shock for me came from the fact that in my mind mentally preparing to literally start back from the bottom in terms of my professional aspirations and the way that I think I you know circumventing that mentally was just to understand that it wasn't about where I was starting it was more about the work that I was doing so how appealing and how invested and how connected that I feel to the actual work and not I guess where I stood on the totem pole of that quote-unquote work and I think the work the work that you would be doing as a physician or the work that you were doing right then and there on that very day yeah the work that I would say the work that I would be doing as a physician because there was nothing there was nothing I think that from my experience is that that shocked me and told me that this is not for me I think every experience led to you well I want to see how this works and I want to learn more about this and I want to you know kind of get more of an exposure to you know how to read a film like there were so many different things that I think I I was able to kind of spread my my fingers into different networks while being with you know in the different fields that I was in because whether it be talking to other nurses that you know my wife's colleagues whether it be with you know dr. Bergman Monty connecting with other people to shado whether it be with see different services in the IDI that kind of thing and so with everybody every different experience it felt like yeah this is something I could definitely feel myself doing because it wasn't it wasn't a decision I took lightly it was something that I needed to make be certain of before we decided to take the plunge what was the hardest thing about going back getting the experiences taking classes since you weren't pre-med in undergrad while also doing Teach for America and everything else you were up to I would say that it was so I like finished my post Beckley almost three years ago so like I'm just starting med school so I would say like this year so I would say for me the biggest was you know the setbacks and the failures that hit you I mean I guess you can mean yeah what I call them fail elcome setbacks probably more so than failures but I would say those hit me really hard because as someone who is like really driven and focused like many pre-meds are you have this plan for your life and you want it to work a certain way and then when it doesn't it's like you have to kind of rearrange or figure out what's what's the other route that you want to take and that's not always an easy thing to do when you're thinking when you're like thinking about like planning for your family where we're gonna be living I'm how much is this stuff than a cost like you know all this kind of ancillary duties that you have an inherent as a husband on leasing so I think those setbacks were the toughest for me um but there was always I feel like there was always um it's not a plan B to the plan a but what happens for if this plan a doesn't work out how do I still get back to plan a yeah um in a way that makes the most sense and so for me I think that was I think really beneficial and also having a really strong support system in my family that would willing to support me in regardless of what whatever those setbacks were um yeah so I would say you know those things where those setbacks related to going to school getting good grades were they just related to life and having kids and family and all that other stuff there's just a little bit everything I think it's a combination of things is like I delayed I actually like delayed my application three times like so initially when I applied so in our in our post bacc program there are these things called linkage agreements and I initially applied to one school through a linkage agreement the way it works is you only apply to school you don't even have to take the MCAT sometimes and you just directly go to that school so when I applied for the linkage to that one school I was really disappointed because they you know I had I had done really well in all my postback classes for Oh throughout the time there and I was very excited I thought it was a really competitive applicant but they looked at my SAT scores from when I was 17 to determine whether or not they would give me an interview and that's something I was just shocked that they even decided to even look up and I guess I was like one or two percent house below they're cut off or that score and reason they use it as a determination for you know if you're gonna do well and pass boards standard ISO but for me I was just like are you serious and so like that was a big shock to me because you know I mean there was a documentary the other day that I was watching Michelle Obama's documentary called becoming and she talks so much about well she talks for a portion of it about stories over stats how important stories are over stats and yeah I bought into that completely and I think that's extremely true because crafting my story through my application process and then throughout the interviews I found that to be extremely compelling but that stat piece is still a piece that you know at that point was like BAM right in the face are you serious like are you talking about a 16 17 year old number that like in anyway so that was that was annoying and then my wife we we had another baby so that our timeline back a little bit and then I also had to have surgery on my hand I had owner nerve transposition surgery go home during that time yeah so I had like woke up one day and I lost feeling in my to my tours like two of my fingers on my left hand minor numb from from studying for the boards like this for hours having my my elbow bent for hours I can't I couldn't clip my fingernails what is happening to my hands and as somebody who we know wants to do procedures in the future yeah I was terrified and so like that pushed it back a little bit I remember my director of my post back was like are you going to apply yeah it's at some point do you get that like little kind of voice in your head going oh maybe I'm not committed to this I keep pushing it back I think I can see how that could be a thing but for me I think there was always I was always working toward it right it wasn't like I got off the train like train was still going I still understood what the am cast timeline was I still here said I need who I needed to get letters from I still like had had some I still kept in contact with everyone that I needed to keep in contact with to keep the engine running yeah I was ready to execute I could execute right and so like you know even if that meant like I remember I was setting for the MCAT in the hospital when my daughter was born she was sitting there she was asleep mom was asleep and I had my my am flat cards now like reading through the question and because I was always on the train I didn't I didn't plan to get off of it so it wasn't something that I was considering at all in terms of like is this for me is it not for me you know I wish I put some money on it because I'm my friend from the postbag did have like a running bet like is he ever gonna apply to med school I should have collected yeah awesome so in your situation it sounds like you went to a formal post bacc the head linkage connections linkage agreements with medical schools when you were looking at post backs versus a do-it-yourself kind of situation what was the decision for you to do a formal post back because those those are expensive they are I looked at it as an investment and all the time commit it's it's easy to look back and say well I had all this other time but I could have liked speaking my time and done it like you know part time but I think the combination of experiencing everything that a postback had to offer and eliminating all the guesswork of getting letters and having excuse me a committee letter written for me and for getting the experiences that I needed and getting all of my labs and science courses in one year I mean it was just worth it at that time and I looked at okay we're looking at what did the numbers were maybe like five to seven percent of what overall like student loans might cost and then I also look at the potential for you know getting some kind of aid or scholarships for med school out of that so for me it was kind of like an investment and also I was fortunate enough to go to go to college on a scholarship so I didn't have a ton of student loan debt so that's a privilege that I had not having a ton of student loan debt going into you know this whole you know career change so that was something that weighed heavily on me and then during my interview sold me I mean I interviewed and I remember there was a professor and she was teaching organic chemistry and it was just so compelling she was she had I mean she it for me I didn't want to be anywhere else except there yeah she was thoroughly teaching stereoisomers with like chemo IV in her arm cuz she was you know battling eye cancer and I was just like I want to learn from this person I want to be here this seems like such a special place you know and so for me it was like no brainer at that point was there a part of the decision at all part of the algorithm that were you needing to overcome poor undergrad grades and so you're like I need to go to a competitive formal postback and do as well as possible to overcome earlier grades or where your grades fine and you just wanted to go to a place you felt was a fit yeah my grades were good thankfully I graduated with high honors from you know Miami but I didn't really take any of the science courses I think the one I think I think I just wanted to be as prepared as possible like this again and another calculated decision right you know how could I be as prepared as possible for the basic sciences going into med school and I felt the formal postback a rigorous postback one with all the labs and that around like-minded people would assist me in doing that yeah and so that's that's pretty much the main decision point that's not to say that I crushed undergrad by the way like I got into all these and I had a successful application cycle but yeah like you're definitely preaching to the choir every time I listen to the pre-med years the Prima deer's was the soundtrack of my life by the way soundtrack of my pipetting life when I was doing research it was just it was like dr. grey all the time in my ear like learning all this stuff taking notes and like making sure I had a plan and it really paid off a lot funny funny side note I interviewed at with dr. Politis and he was talking to me about H prep in an interview and in the interviews like interview with dr. grey and he was like yeah that was like for me that that episode was like relatively fresh like you interviewed at Wash U and had dr. Politis as your interview that's awesome dr. gray the podcast where we're pretty muds are going like how H breath was gonna be yeah that's pretty much what it was like yeah that was very awesome yeah that's awesome yeah he's he's been on the podcast four times I think he's these the most visited guests so let's let's talk about your application in medical school so you applied one time only well one time officially in the night went fishing now I call it a fake ID pump fake the bunch of applications yes like I started it and then I didn't submit all the way or like I had one school or whatever yeah because in my mind I just wanted to make sure like whatever when I rice hit the send button for the next time that was the final sent because I know how important it is not to be considered like every applicant at places and things like Ellie's in my mind right I'm calm I want it to be like you know one shot that's it I'm done but obviously I wasn't I just wanted to make sure like everything was in and I had no other issues because of all the other stuff no other babies on the way nothing else I started and stopped the application I think like three times and I submitted it once before and then it was like two years and that was this submit I think was a link the linkage application okay but all the other ones were just kind of like yeah fill it out and don't click Submit yeah it's like the whole the whole how many times does it take to quit smoking it's like seven times so you were like feeling it out feeling it out feeling you know okay I'm ready so I mean in the end it was you know I did um did you want to talk about applications yes I'm looking now so you when you emailed me a couple months ago you applied to 40 schools which is way too many and you recognized that interview invites to 34 schools you interviewed at 21 and you have ten acceptances and a few wait lists 16 acceptance I would say so you alone like the speaking of the butterfly flapping the wings causing a hurricane on the other side of the planet right the you alone actually committing to one school like was a domino effect for everyone else coming off of a waitlist that hit multiple schools which I'm really happy about and I think yeah I think and I just I was fortunate to have to decide early so I don't have to that's around too much with figuring out like one versus the other but I would say like the the entire process was extremely humbling like I said I apply the completely blind I didn't know well in terms of blinded blind to my MCAT score everything else was in I mean we could talk I mean I had pretty much overall GPA was was really good post back was you know I did well in the post back and that was because I treated it honestly like I was so invested I treated it like a job I didn't man around was something that was really important to me in my family I mean I cry study for that MCAT like religiously I was I would say that my study in my preparation was part and that's part of why I felt comfortable applying without it because I had very consistent scores at that point did you play the whole apply to one school game and then you added other schools when you got your score back you're like I'm fine I'm gonna do like I'm just gonna whatever score I get is the score I'm gonna get ya know it wasn't I wasn't looking back at that point and so what you end up with on you I'm Kent I got I got a 519 on my MCAT okay which was I'm good I think but beyond to be completely honest I was I was not - not to be obnoxious but it was a little disappointed because I was courting you know five nothing less than a 522 on my other practice test but that just shows just to emphasize that buffering those point that your your your points and your expectation is extremely important I mean at the time like ER I was two months and I think I've got three or four hours of sleep before the MCAT because I mean she's two months old like and although you will you plan like I'm gonna go sleep in the guest and look on the floors like you hear stuff like notes happen and it is what it is it's fine I'm not I did come out the MCAT thinking it crushed it though I was like yeah crushed that test of 528 but the other people crush the tube so it was I would say for me just felt very comfortable to be so successful I think in that and also studying for it as someone who was in education and as an adult learner at that point and not someone who's trying to figure out how I learn I approached every section very differently because I felt like they liked for me personally like I took them differently I feel like they tested different different skill sets and the way I process information and that was very helpful to kind of figure that out for each section MCAT reddit is a godsend I felt like that was a lot of I was a ton of help on there I mean you can pretty much study for cars and psych social like tomorrow if you wanted to yeah listen that's let's talk through the application a little bit because having a 4.0 or whatever that is possible postback GPA a 519 MCAT score like 34 interview invites is still astronomically high what do you think it was in your application that caused so many schools to go I want to talk to this kid I think honestly I think my application was very well thought out and and put together in a way that made a compelling case for wanting to go into medicine with the evidence that supported it I think that's part of it the other part of it is I mean I did a lot of things dr. gray before I applied to med school so I mean my recommend I had like 10 recommendation letters I don't know how many people read all of them but on every single interview they talked about the recommendation letters and you know what you know some of the things that they found really compelling about that so I think those two things were important one a wealth of extremely well-crafted you know narrative not only personal statement but like every single and you were like I mean instrumental and figuring out how to craft that story through all the experiences that led to the same I guess thesis of what this application is right or what my application was who I was and I think everything kind of led back to this is how this story and this is how this experience affected me as a human being and that is why I wanted you know go into medicine and I think every one of those experiences coupled with that the length and duration of the experiences yeah with a with a personal statement that made sense and was compelling and the recommendations I feel like like yeah I think like all those coalesced into a really well-thought-out application not to mention all the secondaries obviously so yeah but in there too in terms of how you want to communicate you know your interests to the school and the secondary so yeah I would say that and to be honest I mean how much do I know about that's like how successful that well I mean I don't know exactly what was the most important thing after I left or before they decided to send me an interview invite I mean who knows yeah so that's just from my from my perspective but I think was the most compelling yeah even after like going to the interviews and hearing what the interviewers have to say yes that's an important part a lot of students in your situation the ones who don't get all of those inner interview invites the ones who go on an interview and don't get the acceptances they don't know their story and it sounds like you knew your story and I helped you craft that a little bit with your personal statement and descriptions and stuff but at the end of the day you knew your story you knew the power of story even talking about Michelle Obama's becoming which is a great book I really love that book I didn't know as a documentary to off to check that out but the story is so compelling to understand right you you weren't just a robot of oh look at my great grades and look at all these things I've checked off you were a non-traditional student who through experience and through time realized that you needed to go to medical school and you told that story and it obviously resonated with the medical schools to to get that many interview invites when you were on the interview trail number one you went on 21 interviews that that gets a little expensive I'm assuming why go to that many interviews I had no idea what my competitiveness was in this whole application process like especially applying without an MCAT score and for me and you know my family one of the biggest things for us going to med school was where are we going to be able to go with the least economic burden like where is gonna be the most financially feasible and my mindset was let's go to all the places that we know give good aid and so as soon as I got to be frank as soon as I got my first you know scholarship package in December and acceptance in December I cut a ton of interviews out right but I had already gone to like sixteenth because I also wanted to be early it's already had gone to a ton early on and so after that first acceptance it was just kind of like okay we're in a good place now this is what I mean I'm really happy with you know this this awesome school is great offer and so let's let's hold off on all these other ones so I didn't I didn't have any more flights after that I didn't really go anywhere that was further than driving I think I only went to three or four interviews after December and so yeah but I had done so many interviews prior to that because I wanted to like you know be in the wave before Thanksgiving or before the Christmas break yeah I kind of wanted to get those answers earlier and so that's what it was it was just an investment game it was we set aside money for the process for the flights and everything we got the special credit card with all the points everybody was tallying up you know year and a half I probably I don't think I spend nearly as much as I would have if I didn't plan for that before because you know I mean all that stuff adds up yeah and then I also stayed with a ton of students right so like a lot of the hospital stays weren't I mean hospital stays one of the hotel stays excuse me yeah um weren't as costly and so yeah just trying to just manage that as best as possible because it was something that we saw as an investment and not something you know that I just wanted to oh yeah let's go on these three or four you know if I had the opportunity I wanted to make sure I took the most yeah what was the biggest surprise for you throughout the interview trail biggest surprise I think sitting in the room with all of my future colleagues for you know and in every one of the interview you know destinations I think the biggest surprise was just hearing you know how many different amazing paths that people took to medicine whether it be you know in this short conversations we have all are waiting for interviews whether it be outside the MMI doors I actually connected I have like four or five like close friends now that I've met new trail that we still keep in contact with you in different ways like you know zooming and like texting and things like that and I think finding those and feeling those connections actually really did surprise me because someone who's going through this I assumed you know there would be you know young it would be a younger you know crowd I don't know how much I would connect with you know a lot of people in the interview trail I met two other dads you know I mean like it's pretty cool to go through the whole process and come out the other side with you know these stronger relationships for it and just being able to go through medicine now with who saw you while you were interviewing you know so I think it's very cool that was that was surprising for me yeah with so many acceptances what was the decision for you to come to a final conclusion on what school you wanted to attend first first was money and so like what was the financial like what would be the financial package at different schools and how could i leverage that at other schools if there was a possibility to do that so that was number one number two um I think figuring out I think at the time when I was making the decision I think we had just found out that step one would possibly be pass/fail um and so for me I think part of it was you know in terms of in terms of the schools that I'm looking at well you know how much of an emphasis or how much of a you know curriculum shift or change would there be for like all these upcoming changes cuz I do think step one may be being passed but I mean this is just my personal opinion that there will be other dominoes that would need to happen in order to you know I think transform medical education for the better and then Alby Cova did write soon how we're all like so now you know we're talking about virtual spaces and virtual learning anything being at a place that's open to innovate innovation and change in medical education specifically as a former teacher was important to me and then a lot of the other stuff to be honest was family considerations so could we live in a place big enough that could fit like me three kids and my partner right yeah that was one um I what were the schools like in the area like my wife didn't want to necessarily have a place that no backyard of no parks and she wasn't really too keen on a super city life but that was something that we talked a lot about whoa is there us is there an area outside of the city that we could still live in and that kind of stuff and so we're open to moving anywhere but a lot of the other considerations you know hinged on that like where would where would we be the best fit as a family and so first was again versus money to was a curriculum and how those things would change in a lot of other stuff were family factors what are you looking forward to starting medical school yeah so I decided on a school I'm gonna be going to harbor in the fall which is really excited room come true doesn't feel real yet we've been connecting a lot of the a lot of the students in a lot of different formats virtual phone call and stuff like an incoming students who would be attending and so for me I'm really excited getting to learn and alongside my classmates I mean it will be virtual alongside virtually and kind of just get to know all these awesome people that I'm able to you know learn medicine alongside because I think so far it's just been AI just a great opportunity to connect with people on this journey with you and so that's really exciting for me I also just bought an iPad for the first time you know Harvard doesn't give you one come on I wish waiting on we're still waiting on to see if we get a little text I pin for the iPad stuff so I mean for me I think learning how to learn in this new age of like you know using all these apps and stuff I think that really interesting because it's something that I'm you nice I just threw out a ton of notes that I had from like undergrad I was like man I had all these like saved somewhere you nicely look back at them if I wanted to every once in a while yeah so yeah I'm excited about that too just just kind of jumping in and getting started if you could go back and change anything about your you're pre-med journey what what do you think you would change it's difficult to argue with the result right so and I'm definitely not someone who who looks at I guess life as like this discrete timeline and all you have to hit this milestone by this age and this milestone and you have to be this you know at this far along and something at this age and so because I think so much of that social construct of you know meeting these milestones professionally or even personally in your personal life can hamper your ability to enjoy the now yeah and so I think yeah I think for me looking back on it there were moments you know in the middle of that that it felt like you know how much am I am I losing by continuing to pursue this and I think if I change if I change anything I think I would have just been a little bit I would have fast forward my mental flexibility and my gut like it eliminated my cognitive dissidence or all of you likes yeah try to eliminate that more and just try to focus on you know the journey because I mean it's long man like even now like I'm looking at another god no I mean like you're looking at school residency all this stuff it's not around the corner so I think focusing on the fact that I'm doing what I wanted to do doing what I love to do now instead of like well in this much time then I'll be a resident in this much time I'll be an attending and this much time I'll do research and all that stuff like the process is so long you're in medicine right and you're gonna be doing what you want to be doing and I think enjoying that you know living that I think figuring that out earlier would have been more helpful for me psychologically but thankfully I feel comfortable with it now yeah talk about the conversations with your your spouse having kids obviously with her being a nurse and having her own career how do you how do you have those conversations or what did those conversations look like to say I'm gonna be busy with medical school are you gonna want to continue with your career doing your stuff how do we get the child care and be able to afford everything and what did that look like yeah so first like my my wife Priscilla she's a rock star like she is I'm gonna brag on her a little bit she's like the best I would say for me personally probably the best decision I've ever made in my life was to marry her and we got married really young we knew each other from elementary school we got married right out of high school and we went to under we went to undergrad together so we've been this past June was 12 years we've been married and we've been together since pretty much high school and so I would say growing alongside of her and like her support throughout this whole process has been just so inspirational for me because I never have to worry about if anyone is doubting doubting me it's just like this unconditional I believe you can do this support that I'm privileged to have 100% she is also a career changer by the way so when we moved to the Baltimore for teaching she we had just had my first daughter somaye and she was like listen I think I really want to be a nurse and she had gone to a nonprofit sector that's that was her initial career and I said okay that's what you want let's do it and she did the classes she enrolled in a bunch of you know classes and then she got into a 1-year accelerated program at Hopkins did well and then she went to she went on to like working than she worked at you know peds hospitals and actually looking for a job and so like for me for her I think initially like that was that was you know her doing her thing while I was still teaching and supporting our family and so when I talked to her about possibly doing this it was pretty much you know reciprocating that support was a big part of it and just having that open and honest conversation all the time just like okay so where are we at now where does this look like for us you know as a family you know she went two nights you know she's planning to go two nights to be able to manage like me like you know learning during the day and like having to go to classes and we talking about you know having an au pair again like all this stuff finance is a big part of it like so how do our finances gonna work and so just having that open and honest communication with the backdrop of we're supporting this as a family goal and not just like as only something that you know you want to do it's like kind of like a whole mindset cuz you know we have a nine-year-old too so she's all about she's in every single decision you know and her and her feeling included is really important to us so you know although she didn't want to leave Philly you know she was with it and she's having fun so far so for the student listening to this struggling on their decision to leave whatever they're doing and go back to school and pursue this path to become a physician what kind of final words of wisdom do you have for them I think to be honest since everyone's path is just so unique I think the most general and I feel like it's a platitude but I really believe in it is make sure this is what you want and then commit to it with everything you have because you know Plan B's that yeah if you don't have that initial like you know confidence and this is the path if you have any wavering it's gonna be easy to get off the train like you have so many opportunities and so many stops along the way to be like now this wasn't it I get I get so much hate for for my no plan B mentality but it's it's the truth this path is so hard that if you're like well I could go do this other thing and think you're gonna go do that other thing yeah there's so many opportunities to just like you know check out and like oh it's too much or like okay well you know because you didn't find success in that one field or that one area that you needed to find success in like okay I'm gonna do something else like it just makes it so much more difficult cuz then you can't you can't develop a steady support system around you because you're all you know you're all wavering yeah I'm times I'm not like so then who's gonna be there to like want to support you if you're like waffling and you're flaky about what you want to do so like just be sure about it and then honestly just commit to it and find out every single opportunity to make sure that it happens because otherwise you know you're gonna be there there I mean you can list all the different up like ways that you can opt out you can opt out from you know not doing one or go it's uh you know not what study for the MCAT you know not you know not crushing your interviews - you know residents have to having kids and you're like I never mind absolutely so I mean I think all that is part of it - awesome what is your your plan for the future what are you hoping to potentially go into for a career you have you have any ideas yet yeah I think I know a bunch of things that I don't want to do which is really helpful I think that's for me it's like feels really good to start doing them like elimination piece because I still want to go into every single rotation and experience with an open mind because that would defeat the purpose of like you know for me like going into medicine and trying to enjoy the journey as much as possible so I do want to do that but there are some things that I'm just like I don't think I really would enjoy that like psychiatry I probably wouldn't really enjoy and some other things but I think one of the things like the I would say the core themes of certain fields like having an outcome whether it be good or bad I think having consequence of action is really important to me feeling like I'm working with my hands it's important to mean that could be procedural or surgical I'm definitely leading to something surgery but again like with a family and thinking long term like how is that how is that going to look and what is that gonna look and feel like for our family so I think those are all part of it yeah so I think that's what I'm leaning toward I also you know I think I'm just trying to also figure out all the things that you know medicine has to offer I just got an IG account and I started putting stuff on Instagram because I never had I didn't really like have an Instagram before and then all all the new incoming students like oh you don't have a G I was like get one and I need a tik-tok I don't know I just figured thorry on IG yeah so at future doctor Han if anybody wants to follow I guess yeah but it was for me was only it was just like it's just gonna use it as like an opportunity to like have a journal of what this whole process was like cuz I'm something so hard to like remember what did you do at this time and so mapped is for so yeah I think so you know to put a bow on your question I have no idea but definitely not a few things and open to something you know in the realm of you know kind of surge radio procedural based but who knows well it's amazing Congrats on all of your success Congrats on sticking through right multiple kind of false starts and and really sticking to your guns and knowing that this is what you wanted and finally getting there and obviously having major success through the application cycle thanks so much dr. grey you have I mean I words can't express how integral your role has been either personally or through the podcast or your books but um I would say I don't think I could have been nearly as repaired if it wasn't for all of your materials and the things that you're doing so I really appreciate you thank you thank you

Channel: Medical School HQ

Views: 55,312

Keywords: med school, medical school, premed, pre-med, pre med, premed success, med school success, medical school success, success story, premed success story, 519 mcat, mcat, harvard medical school, medical school headquarters, premed years, ryan gray, dr. gray, premed podcast, premed advice, premed interview, med school interview, nontraditional student, nontraditional med student, nontraditional premed, nontrad, physician, doctor, future doctor, medical schools, med student, medical

Id: M52xMbptkbU

Length: 41min 12sec (2472 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 06 2020