Falling in love

Do I fall in love too easily? Today’s visit at Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine felt like love. It felt like they loved me and, frankly, I can reciprocate. The day was sunny and bright and beautiful, and the weather was pretty good, too!

So what’s the love about? TCOM is an innovator. It was one of the first schools to develop a systems-based, integrated curriculum. It has a sim lab that served as the model for Mayo and the anatomy lab was set up by a former surgeon general (C. Everett Koop, I believe—my personal favorite SG.) There are computers at each tank and a mobile camera for all to observe particularly interesting finds on the large-screen monitors throughout the room. Students have 24-hour access to both labs.

 

The classrooms are massive. Not my favorite, but expected for such a large school with 240 students per class. There are screens in the classroom and each student has a personal mike for asking (or answering) questions. The OMM lab has five cameras on the demo table and plenty of monitors throughout.

How do they make the large classes feel not so overwhelming? Students are divided into four “colleges”—think Hogwarts School of Medicine. Each college provides students with a support network for studying and socializing. The students are further divided (not sure if this is a cross colleges or not) into work groups of 6-7 people. These are the same folks you will be doing group assignments with throughout your first two years.

 
Whatever their recipe for success is, it seems to be working. The school has one of the highest COMLEX pass rates and 90% of their students sit for USMLE Step 1 (and have a pass rate on par with any other med school in the nation).

I know that at some point in time, I would like to be involved in academic medicine. TCOM is a place where I truly would feel comfortable. It is collegial and inviting. One of my interviewers was a “second-career” DO. He was soft-spoken and very encouraging. The interview ended with him saying, “We need to find your husband a job here.”

 

My second interview was even more calming than my first. We sat down and he let me know that he read my file thoroughly. He liked what he read, and told me so. We talked a little about the journey of life. I felt like I was speaking to a kindred spirit.

And that is the greatest love. Finding kindred spirits in life is so rejuvenating. I know that TCOM would be full of them. No, not 240, but enough. Maybe I have settled into a place in my life where connecting with such spirits is easy. Maybe I’ve become better able at trusting my intuition and feeling things out. I like what I felt today. It felt like home. A strange, unfamiliar, comfortable home.

Such a LONG road

This is one ridiculously long road to go down. (Yeah, yeah, yeah--I know that applies to all of medical education.) If you are thinking about applying next cycle, push your "submit" button as close to June 1 as possible. Maybe, just maybe, that might make the wait a little less painful?

I applied to medical schools through three systems in July: AMCAS, TMDSAS, and AACOMAS. I started AMCAS first (in May) and submitted it last (early July) as I felt so particular about what I wrote for each of my 15 extracurriculars. I hope that extra crafting helped, because it took the full six weeks ("expect 3-6 weeks") to get verified. That was nerve-wracking. The Texas system was the quickest one to verify. I got verified with them in just under three weeks. AACOMAS was three weeks and a couple of days.

As of August 21, my application is complete at 9 schools. (It helps that Houston, San Antonio, and Gavleston do not require a secondary application.) Right now I am insanely excited to finally be verified by AMCAS and feel the urge to push out three or four secondaries by the end of the week. A little reality check, though. School starts tomorrow for my kids. I'm retaking the MCAT in 10 days, and I just started a genetics class at today. Secondaries must wait until after the MCAT is put to rest.

Drafting My Personal Statement

I recently met an MD/PhD student who offered to assist me with crafting my personal statement. What a relief! I've gotten my first draft to her (and she's already given me feedback). I have a few other people who said that they were willing to review it (2 MD clinical professors, 1 MD not associated with the university, 1 second-year student). So much is riding on this single essay--it's a bit frightening. My plan is to go through a few rounds of revision with a single reviewer before sharing it with others.