My Journey to Medicine

Like I said in my last post I wanted to write a summary of my journey to medicine from childhood to now - a lot is missing, but you should be able to get the general timeline:

When I was in grade 8 and they asked everyone what they wanted to be when they grew up - my answer wasn't to be a doctor - I wanted to be a Mathematician or an Accountant - I loved math and was inspired by the Mathnet show I watched after school all the time.

It wasn't until High school and early University that I thought maybe Math isn't that fun or cool (calculus did me in), and I really liked figuring people out and listening to them, so I decided I was going to become a Psychiatrist. Fun times in University (along with low grades), started to make my medicine dream fade away, and I started thinking of alternatives. Like most biology undergrads my options were lab work, a masters, or teaching. I hated lab work, and I didn't want to do a masters so teaching was the obvious choice.

However, when I graduated and married Leah, I still felt like I wasn't ready to commit to a career in teaching - we wanted to travel (I was thinking Africa) and we had huge student loans ($50,000 is about right) we had to pay off - so we decided to combine the two and teaching in Japan was the answer. It was during our second year there that Leah had this idea that maybe I could still become a doctor (I think because I wasn't coming home everyday excited about teaching) - I thought I had lost my chance with my bad grades my first couple of years (C - C+ average) - but she checked it out and I met the minimum. I was inspired (i.e. greatly encouraged by Leah) to check into it more and found that I only needed one more prerequisite course and to write the MCAT.

I decided to go for it, and it was during this time that I started studying for the MCAT, and we made plans to leave Japan and for me to go back to school to get that pre-req and boost up my GPA. I wrote the MCAT (I did ok: 28Q), I went to Uvic and took biochem 300, along with other courses that I knew would be easy and were related to medicine (biomedical ethics, psychology of adults and aging, etc). I finished off a great year but I received my first letter of -"we regret to inform you that you were not chosen......".

I knew it was coming, and we had already started making plans to go on a mission trip the next year that would give me the experiences in a medical setting. We chose Mexico and I spent six months working alongside doctors and assisting in procedures (they taught me how to scrub in at the local hospital and get in on cesarean births -only in Mexico!). I loved it, and it was here that I got the motivation and the drive to keep on applying to med school for another five more years.

We had to leave Mexico because I got a letter saying that I had an interview - one step closer. This interview was a failure and I didn't get in, so Leah and I needed to look at the next year. I needed to finally make money (Leah was tired of being my sugar-daddy), and I needed something quick, and since I had liked teaching I thought I would go and do my B.Ed. So I went back to school again (year 7 of post-secondary) and finished my B.Ed. and got another interview for UBC med - and again - "we are regret to inform you" letter appeared. No problem - I could TOC and make some money and keep on trying for another 3 years. I decided to write my MCAT again, so I gave up another summer of no fun and got better results (30O)

It was this fourth time applying that I was able to get in, and I have never been happier (besides my wedding and Asher's birth) - I'm excited to get started, get my hands dirty, and maybe eventually end up doing missions in the future (definitely back to Mexico to the clinic that so inspired me).

There's my story - a lot longer than I thought, but I guess when something consumes you for so long it takes up a lot of space.