It's Hard To Get Into Med School

I’m shocked, aren’t you? It’d be more amusing except that really I am, kind of. I thought that all you needed were good grades (really good, like 4.0 good) and a decent score on your MCAT (the SAT’s of med school). It turns out that this is not so. You also need a good amount of physician shadowing, 500+ hours of volunteer work (yes over five hundred. Yikes!) in a clinical setting and “well rounded extra-curricular activities”.

So basically I have to get a 4.0 in a “well rounded” (not just sciences) degree, ace my MCAT, convince several doctors to let me follow them around for a while, offer myself up for ten hours a week of indentured servitude for a year, and join, ugh, clubs.

All I have to say, is that they must really want to make sure that you really want to be a doctor. And that you handle pressure well. As far as I can tell, the schedule imposed by the volunteer work plus school and school related activities (classes, homework, clubs, and work study) AND the care and feeding of my spouse and four children will leave me with approximately six hours a week of free time to do things like, you know, read a novel or poop. Did I mention that medical school and residency are supposed to be much worse than this? I think that they have about this same schedule only without sleeping during the week.

I’m glad I found the Flylady system which works uber awesome for me. It’s the only way I have a prayer of keeping up with school, getting my homework done and keeping my house from being condemned. I strongly suggest that everyone check it out. Just be sure to take some of the over-the-top sappy messages with a grain of salt. I, for one, can’t help but snicker at terms like, “weekly home blessing hour” (that’s when you do things like change your sheets) and quotes like, “Nothing says I love you like a clean toilet to throw up in!” You should definitely check it out, just don’t drink the Kool-Aid.

In unrelated news, my brother got married yesterday in a beautiful ceremony that just made me wish harder for one of my own. Fortunately my divorce (from a man I separated from nearly a decade ago) should be final by the end of September which means that I can finally marry the wonderful man that I cohabitate with, although I still don’t get a gorgeous ceremony or a pretty dress. Such is life I suppose.

I’ll post pictures of the ceremony regardless, because, well, I’m pretty proud of myself for finally having the courage to get divorced. It took me a long time. Heck, starting school, getting divorced, VBACing my fourth baby. This year seems to be all about courage for me. It’s certainly filled with new experiences.

Well, I should probably run along and put an end to the Wrestle Mania going on in my living room. Be sure to tune in… well, tomorrow to read about the awesome volunteer job I nailed over at our local hospital.