Med School In Two Postings: Part 1

Medical school is an entire other blog/book.

I want to get you up to speed, so I'll make this quick, though there are a few funny and interesting forays along the way.

First, it's an expensive venture to try and get into med school. You fill out a general application, send it to all the schools you're interested in (and many of those you are not), pay them money to read it, and hope they think it's good enough to send you their own school-specific secondary applications. You fill those out and send them another check. (Many, many essays ensue; one school I applied to required fifteen essays.) Then, if they like what they see and you make the next cut, you have to interview at their school on your dime. YOU pay for travel, YOU pay for a hotel, YOU pay for a rental car if you need one. (You repeat this again when you're applying for residency, by the way. Oh yeah, and then for advanced fellowship training too.)

All the interviews are pretty boring. You hear horror stories that are urban legends about how the interviewer will pretend to drop dead and see how you handle it. Completely untrue -- regardless of whether I wished they'd drop dead or not. Most are quite boring -- all black or blue suits, everyone on their best behavior, and everyone pretending that THAT'S their first-choice school. And you see the same people over and over again on the interview circuit, especially within a region of the country. And you notice that everyone has one and only one interview suit. Usually it's poorly tailored. Mine was.

One interview story merits attention, however. I flew to D.C. to interview at Georgetown, and there's a very famous (in med school circles) prim and proper Catholic/Jesuit woman who gives all the applicants in the morning a speech with three key components:

1) We don't care what religion you are, but every classroom has a crucifix in it. This is a Jesuit institution.

2) We don't care if you're pro-life or pro-choice, but you will not learn any component of D&C's here during your ob/gyn rotation. This is a Jesuit institution.

3) We don't care if you're gay or not, but you will not be allowed to form a gay student union or club. This is a Jesuit institution.

At that point, even though I AM religious, I thought it was a bit much and I couldn't wait to get onto to the tour so I could see where Father Karras hurled himself out of Reagan's window in a bloody, demonic mess as seen in The Exorcist.

In fact, when The Jesuit Introduction Woman asked if we had any questions, I wanted to spin my head around and say with a drunken, Cockneyed accent: "Do you know what she did? Your cunting daughter??" I just didn't think I could do Linda Blair justice.

So anyway, my interviewer was this crotchety old bat of a woman (I usually love those types) who used the interview more as a soapbox to lament managed care intrusion into her beloved field and how the state of medical education has really changed today. She even had a lit cigarette in one hand, and I'm sure a half-empty martini was sitting in one of her desk drawers.

"Med school is nothing like when *I* went," she said.

How do I respond to that? I just didn't. And apparently she didn't want me to.

"THESE days, you have so many Indians and Asians in med school with names you can't even pronounce."

Yep, she really said that. In 1996, and those were the Clinton years.

Oh no she di'ent!

I finally spoke up: "Ma'am, I should probably tell you at this point that I'm half Asian."

"Really?" she seemed genuinely surprised. I halfway expected her to say, "but your eyes are so big and round!" But it was even worse! She said, "Well, then they should change their names to something more pronounceable like YOU did." With lips pursed and eyes glancing out the window, she took a big puff off that Virginia Slim like she was Miss Scarlet on her Clue chaise lounge and blew smoke rings.

I got right up and said, "I think this interview is over."

The only reason I said that and didn't lose my spine and agree with 100% of what she said was only because I had already gotten into three med schools by that interview.

I went back to the main office were Father Dean Something-or-other said, "That was fast."

I re-told the entire story to him without embellishment and he scuttled around, sweating bullets before saying, "I'm sure that interview won't be an issue in our decision and I'm sure she won't be giving anymore interviews. She's new, you know."

"That's alright," I said. "I'm not the p.c. police."

"So you're going back to Chicago, then, I take it?" His awkward attempt at conversation was apparent.

"Yeah, I've got to get back to work."

"What do you do?"

"I work for a law firm."

Silence.

"See you later, had a nice time, g'bye!" I said as I exited the door.

I hung out that night and for two more days with my friends in D.C., caught a plane back to Chicago, came back to my apartment and a Next-Day FedEx letter was waiting there for me. I opened it up. "Congratulations!" it started, "The Admissions Committee of Georgetown Medical School would like to congratulate you on your acceptance."