A Day in the Practice of ...

For the last two weeks of this program I shadowed physicians from different fields: family medicine (of course), pediatrics, dermatology, ENT, psychiatry, etc. Instead of posts, I will make separate pages on this blog titled A Day in the Practice of ... with the ellipse being replaced with the name of a doctor and the field they practice in.  So in a way I will be doing  MS3 rotations. These lasts few (6-10) posts will be more focused on general information about each field. However, I will give a short summary on my take on the field as well.

I know, short lame post, but I feel like I should have give you some insight as to what is going on for my last posts.

Admissions Advice

Meeting Renee Akins, IUSM Associate Director of Admissions

Taiwo Ajumobi: How did you get involved in IUSM’s admissions process?

Renee Akins: I have worked in higher education admissions more than 15 years.  I was previously employed as the Student Enrollment Services Coordinator in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, formerly Allied Health, for seven years. I joined the IUSM  admission team September 2009 as the Associate Director of Admissions.

TA: What do you look for in a potential candidate besides the GPA, MCAT and ECs?

RA:As a member of the Admission Office and Committee I look for candidates that are well prepared with good questions when they come to see me, have given thought to a contingency plan, willing to make decisions on their own based upon my input and what is best for them, have good eye contact, and have a passion for altruism whether it is through donating their time or financial resources. And, finally candidates need to be able to articulate their thoughts clearly.

TA:  From your interview experiences, what have been your top turn offs from candidates and turn ons from them?

RA: Turn-off candidates who are not prepared and ask me to make a decision for them,  candidates who have not done their research because it is too easy to pick up the telephone and call and ask someone for the information, candidates who lack eye contact, and candidates who tell me, “well my friend told me…………………”  Preferred candidates are those who have done some initial research and come in with well thought out questions, good eye contact and who keep in touch in case there are changes in other words the best candidate is the one who is prepared!

TA: From your experience as the Associate Director of Admissions, do you see a change in what a “IUSM” student embodies? What have been the changes?

RA: I’ve been in my role a little more than one year and I see that the IUSM student embodies  paying forward what has so graciously been given to them in an effort to diversify the class and physician population so that undeserved members of the community will be compelled to visit their doctor and seek a better quality of life from a mental and physical point of view.

TA: Since IUSM has preference for in-state students, what can an out-of-state student do to stand out during the application and interview process?

RA: IUSM enrolls the best candidates and while preference is given to residents each year a significant number of out of state students do gain admission.  Nonresidents must do the same as residents be well prepared, well-rounded, and keep in contact with admission personnel by asking for their input and recommendations for being a successful candidate to medical school.

On-Call Residency

The day started at 8am with me waiting in the front of St. Vincent hospital for the on-call resident I was to shadow: Dr. Joe Aeschliman,family medicine. I was surprised the family medicine have inpatients as well as outpatients. Honestly the more I shadow Family Practice Physicians, the less I realize I know about their area of medicine.

While waiting I decided to take some pictures of the beautiful hospital. Most of the pictures were bad but this one of the nurses, symbolizes the faith based mission behind the hospital. You did know that St. Vincent was a faith based hospital right?

Anyway, Dr. Aeschliman met me and took me up to the residence lounge and we got to talk about medicine, residency, etc. Dr. Aeschliman for today is the on-call resident leader meaning that 1) he is in charge of all the residents on-call working with him and they have to report their care of patients to him 2) he assigns which resident takes care of an incoming patient 3) he reports to the Attending Staff (a practicing physician) the reports of the residents 4) he has to somehow remember to stay calm and breath during those 12 hours he's on call. 

Dr. Aeschliman listening to a MS3 giving his report on his patients before he leaves

Medicine and Residency with Dr. Aeschliman


10:30 AM By this time we have seen an obese 20 year old who is suffering from hypertension. We also so a couple with different conditions. The wife suffered gastrointestinal problems and the man had upper respiratory complications. We saw another woman with upper respiratory problems but she was doing better once she had her medicine. What was interesting about her is that she did not want to leave. She was afraid that the medication tablets would not be as strong as the medication via IV injection. The team had to come up with an effective way to convince the patient that she would be fine at her home with the medication they prescribed to her. It was decided to kindly reassure the patient that she would be fine with the medication she was given.


12:00 PM Right now eating lunch listening to a lunch lecture on infectious diseases. I'm surprised that this didn't ruin my appetite but at the same time, I didn't eat much for breakfast so I was really hungry. Before lunch there was a 11 AM staff meeting when the Attending Staff, on call resident, two other residents, a pharmacist resident, and a Physical Assistant resident all came to discuss their cases. At 11:30am we went to another meeting where all residences met to talk about another case. As you probably have noticed, application-based lectures are common in the "medical world" which I personally appreciate especially since I'm the the person who always wonders "where will I ever use this?".


2:45 PM  Dr. Aeschliman had to go attend to one of the residents' patients so I shadowed intern (a First year resident) Dr. Dana Ridderman. The case we saw was interesting. The patient was an elderly woman, 92 years old, who had fell while at home. Her daughter, who lives with her, called 911 and had her mom rushed to the hospital. The woman was very alert and knew what was going on however, the main issue shifted from her falling at home, to the fact that she stopped taking her medication because she was "ready to die". What was more peculiar was the fact that she didn't stop taking all of her medication, only her hypertension medication. The case was solved by informing the patient on the importance of her taking the medication for hypertension in order to prevent her from having a stroke and living with the physical repercussions of it. She then was going to released the next day. She seemed to understand what the doctor was saying so hopefully she won't "play doctor" anymore and continue to take all of her pills.

This is Dr. Ridderman holding up her PDA device. Residents as well as MS3 students have to carry these devices in order to download files. MS3 and residents use these in order to have faculty check off any tasks they complete

Afterward I got to talk to Dr. Ridderman about her residency experience so far as a first-year resident. She said that so far it was a positive experience and that the staff was supportive so although it was a change from medical school to residency, the transition itself wasn't bad. We also talked about the changes in technology and how that's affecting medicine. This change to e-charts and X-ray scans on computers, was a huge shock to me (particularly since I'm a bit of a technopobe--if that's a word,

This is a peek into the Family Medicine Physician room

but you get my point).  

Dr. Aeschliman met with me and I shadowed him the rest of the shift. He informed me that the case he had to attend earlier involved an elderly woman with borderline biopolarism, and everyone on the floor could tell. She wanted to sue the hospital because they didn't have the medication that she wanted for stomach pain (the one the hospital had wasn't in the right medicine bottle) and because of that she didn't feel that they were attending to her properly as a patient. I wish I could have seen the patient but Dr. Aeschliman didn't want to go back in there.  

Dr. Kedele, Internal Medicine faculty

4:45 PM One of the residents that Dr. Aeschliman is in charge of is an Internal Medicine intern on her transitional year (for some specialities such as radiology, anestelogy, etc, within the residency, the resident does a one-year transition in which they have the opportunity to interact with patients doing general care)so she reported her cases to Dr. Kedele, her attending physician for the shift which she did at this time. Dr. Kedele is originally from Erithea (next to Ethiopia) and like many DePauw University international students, came to America for college then continued on to get his medical degree. 

Does the beeper and phone rule the man, or does the man rule the beeper and phone? Dr. Aeschliman's question of the day.

After this meeting, Dr. Aeschliman and I went into the doctor's lounge for a quick snack. I'm not going to elaborate on the doctor's lounge,but in short,the lounge is a nice perk for being a doctor. For the next hour and half (so up to 6pm)it was relatively quiet (which translated to boredom for me since I did'nt have any patient charts to fill out) however for some reason Dr. Aeschliman's beeper and phone repeatedly went off but when he tried to answer the call, it went to a machine and this continued consistently for 30 mins. It was a bit funny but at the same time annoying. 

At this time,my legs started to hurt. I was wearing 1 1/2 inch heels and I was starting to feel it so the break was nice for my
feet. 

Fashion tip for you ladies interested in medicine, whether clogs or 6 in high heels, the only rule is, if you can work it, you can wear it!

We did see another patient, an elderly woman with COPD due to emphysema. She was in the hospital because she wasn't given a transportable oxygen tank so when she had to go out, she was unable to take the tank with her and, you probably can guess what happened. Dr. Aeschliman was doing a follow up making sure she was okay and then ordered a transportable oxygen tank for her.


6:30PM Dr. Aeschliman checked in his unit's last patient of the day, a homeless man who had a psychological disorder (burned down his house as well as parts of his own hair)who came in because he had passed out drunk. After the patient was revived and went through tests, the resident in charge of him found out that the man was suffering from liver sclerosis. Dr. Aeschliman was checking up on the patient and confirmed the resident's diagnosis. 


7:30PM The shift is officially over so Dr. Aeschliman and his unit are no longer responsible for incoming patients. Now all they have to do is paper work. I could have offered to help but since it's probably illegal for me to look patients plus the fact that I rather wait until I'm actually a resident before taking part of this "experience" I decided to head home and write about all I have experienced.

Summary of On-Call Residency
 Residency is no joke. You have to be on your feet for many hours at a time, be calm in an environment that at times is anything but calm and be able to apply all the knowledge that you spent four years in medical school learning on each patient, remembering that no patient's diagnosis will be textbook perfect. From the TV shows we've seen on residencies: Grey's Anatomy, ER (1990s), etc one truth that these shows do reveal to the audience is that residency is a time when post medical students see the reality of healthcare and patients. You are also always learning whether through case study presentations with your staff or through the lunch lectures more knowledge on better treatments, diagnosis, diseases, etc are continuously thrown at you. 


 From my brief experience, I found residency to be a doctor's first realization of the fact that you can't help everyone. That sometimes a patient will be less than grateful for all the hard work you put into treating them and you have to let it go.  That sometimes the phone won't stop ringing, the pager won't stop going off, patients will keep on being administered into the hospital under your care and you can't do anything to stop it. All you can do is deal with it and remember why you became a doctor in the first place. It takes patience, dedication, and focus on one's final goal to be a practicing physician (in case you're wondering, yes there is one more test residents have to take before they are official practicing physicians. It's called USMLE 3 .Bet you didn't hear about that on Grey's Anatomy) as well as really comfortable shoes.


Residency has also gone through many changes in the recent years. Primarily to help residents be able to administer care to the best of their ability. Talking to Dr.Byrant and doing some independent reading           (Treatment Kind and Fair: Letters to a Young Doctor by Dr. Perri Klass) I was able to learn more on the controversy behind the changes. Part of the controversy is the idea that young residents are being spoiled and by reducing the required hours they have to work, it's believed that the training they need to have (which they can only have by being in the hospital) is being compromised. Another factor is the fact is that by reducing the time a patient is in the hospital, there is less continuity for patient care so instead of one patient seeing one doctor throughout their visit, they are now seeing two or three separate doctors at different times giving probability of miscommunication between these doctors concerning proper treatment for the patient. However, proponents for the recent changes is that overloading residents on patients to the point that it deprives them of sleep to the point that they are unable to do their job and administer care to the patients effectively is not helpful or beneficial to anyone and with a patient's life at stake is not worth the risk. What's even more interesting is the fact that as medicine, technology, and healthcare continues to change, they will affect how residency programs are run. So the residency program that I was able to have a glimpse into now, will probably become completely different once it's my turn to take part of it as resident. 


In short, residency is one's first glance into the reality of medicine and the joys and not so happy times that as doctors we will all go through. As Dr. Aeschliman stated in his interview, you do have faculty with you to help you with any question or concerns so you don't face the 3-5 year challenge alone. Although it can at times be the hectic step on the road to being a practicing physician, after my brief experience, I understand its importance in shaping post-medical students into doctors. 

Third Year Medical School Student (MS 3)

So, now I'm a third year medical student. Wow time has passed by. I've already taken the USMLE 1, passed it with flying colors, I did so well  Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, and every other hospital in America is already asking me to come to their hospitals for residency! Outside, of the obvious(at least I hope it was obvious) fact that I personally haven't taken the USMLE 1, today I got to spend the day with other MS3 students going on rotations-- well actually one.

Before I discuss my day, let me explain MS3 more.Unlike MS1 and MS2, your rotations are not the same as every student. What happens is that each student does have to complete rotations in pediatrics, internal medicine, emergency, family medicine, OB-GYN, surgery, etc. However, the order of when the rotations are done as well as what hospital and/or clinic that the rotations take place, is not the same. Also, unlike MS1 and MS2, NO DAILY LECTURES!!! MS3 is the year of getting your hands dirty and starting to learn how to do what the doctors do. Once a week a group of students working in the same center meet together to listen to a lecture given by a physician abouthealth information related to the area of medicine that a student is rotating.

However here are the cons of this new set-up:
--After every rotation there is an exam over it
--No summer vacation (the rotations are all year)
--multiple lectures are crammed into the weekly "lecture day"
--Afterward you have to take USMLE2 CS (recommendated by Fall of Senior year)

 

This is one of the Sports Medicine Doctors

 (sorry I forget his name) demonostrating on a MS3
 how to do  a wrist wrap so that it properly supports
 the wrist. It's actually a bit more complex than it looks
 because there are two bones and not one in the
 lower arm (ulna and radius).

  

But, instead of looking at the negative, let's get back to the positive aspects of MS3. The weekly lectures for the Family Medicine rotation was held in one of their lecture rooms. The morning lectures were over medications used to control both HDL and LDL cholesterol levels and Upper Respiratory Infections (UPI). After the lecture we got learn more about one of the areas of Family Practice, Sports Medicine. I was a student athletic trainer in high school so I was familiar with some of the terminology and techniques. For our project, we (really the four MS3s that I was shadowing) had to learn how to make a cast and do a wrist wrap. I got to be a model for one of the MS3 (yah me?!).



During the lunch lecture, we saw a lecture given by Dr.Jerry Fletcher, a child psychiatrist, on the autism spectrum (this lunch lecture was actually nice). We got to observe a mother who had five children with psychological disorders, which four of the five children were diagnosed with autism. The other child was diagnosed with anxiety disorder. What was even more amazing was the fact that each case of autism was completely different and truly was on a spectrum. One child had a less severe form of autism called Asperger's another one had combination of Autism and bi-polar disorder and at a time had to put in a child institution before they were able to find the right medications that helped her temperment.

I'm very interested in autism so I am interested in going on and on, on what happened during the lunch lecture but I won't since this blog is about MS3.  But I will say that one of the main topics during this lecture was better understanding how doctors, who don't know or understand much on autism, can help parents(who also don't understand  what's going on with their children) can help both the patients and the patients' parents. Last semester I studied the current doctor/parent conflict emerging around autism due to lack of effective communication between the two groups so listening in on this lecture was a treat for me.

Anyway, NOW I'm getting back to MS3. After lunch we had three afternoon lectures. One was on Pap Smears (thankfully I didn't have to take part in), the other on osteoporosis, and the last was on colonoscopies. The last lecture was cool because we got to practice doing colonoscopies with a colonoscope. The colonoscope looks like a combinatin of a fishing pole and remote control and was really cool. Class ended at around 4pm and we were able to leave afterwards.

This Family Medicine Doctor (I forget his name too) is demonstrating how to do a colonoscopy.
 We used a colon model (they wouldn't let us use people, dang it.) and the screen to do a colonoscopy.
The model even had polps in them to practice the procedure for extracting them from to colon for further
 biospy (polps like lumps on breast, can be precursors to cancer). What the doctor is holding in his hands
 is the colonoscope. Yes, it was as fun to mess with it as it looks.



Summary MS3

In all honesty, for me to give my summary of MS3 after one day wouldn't give you the best idea of what MS3 is like. So I talked to the MS3 students that I was with and I got a lot of responses from them so, don't take my word about MS3, read theirs.


"In year 3 you learn how much you don't know"


"Year 3 is a Year of humility"


"You learn during your rotations that if you anger the sugeon or doctor, it doesn't matter because you are not the first person you've upset nor is he going to remember you"


" ...Not all residents are bad. What it is, is that residents at times are not the nicest at helping MS3 because they are in their residency trying to prove themselves and learn and here you are, a MS3 who won't be around in a month and is distracting them from what they have to do."


 Tomorrow, I get to be on-call for 10 HOURS at St. Vincent Hospital as a  on-call resident!



DePauw Alumni Love--Adrienne Cobb ('09)

Two years later she's still smiling, she makes med school look too easy.

*Warning, all videos were done on my phone so the image is a bit grainy, but the sound is great!*


 As a DePauw alumnus, did DePauw  adequately prepare you for the challenges of med school?

You went straight from college into medical school ,do you wish that you took a year off?

What improvements/changes do you think are needed in DePauw’s "pre-med program” ?

If you could go back to DePauw, what would you say to pre-med students?

What has been the biggest social and/or academic change from DePauw to IUSM for you so far?

Was  all of the effort you put into getting into IUSM worth it? Was it all you imagined it to be? Any surprises?

Day 8: Second Year Medical Student (MS2)

So, it was my last day as a MS2, and I had to battle snow and slow traffic to get to campus. When I finally arrived in the lecture hall, pharmacology was over and Introduction to Clinical Medicine lecture had started :(

I could write about what I learned in all of those classes, but why waste time and space. You MD wannabees are going to be able to learn all of it yourselves when you get into medical school anyway.

Honestly, the most interesting thing that happened today was that the autopsy presentations. I didn't get to present :( but Kyle and his group did a great job. Mike Stump and his group also presented. Class was over early so I was able to come home and type up this blog.

Summary of MS2

I really liked MS2.I think what made me appreciate MS2 so much was the fact that I see the great contrast from this class to MS1. In MS1 I felt that MS1 students were more student than doctor. In MS2 students,however, I see their transformation from student to doctor. Now this transformation isn't complete, more like 40% doctor and 60% student, but the change is still significant. 

Talking with Kyle and Adrienne, I learned that the exam schedules are also set-up differently than MS1. In MS1 the tests are well separated. However, in MS2 particularly in the second semester, the test start piling up on the same day. So their finals (or one of their test days I don't remember) will be all on the same day. So for 5hrs these MS2s will be doing nothing but tests. According to Adrienne, the reason for this is because it the lectures believe that this setup will prepare them for the USMLE1 (aka like the MCAT but 10Xs more important because it's a factor in determining what residency program you get into) which is an 8hr exam computer exam.  Personally, I think it's easy to give these rationales for why to put medical students in intense settings like 5hrs worth of tests, when you're not the one taking them, but hey I'm not in med school yet so I have nothing to complain about...yet!

Quote of the Day: "Medical School is like trying to take a sip of water through a fire hose put on full blast"--Kyle Speakman, IUSOM MS2

Introducing my MS2 IUSOM "Ambassador" Kyle Speakman....



Sorry ladies, he's taken (meaning HAPPILY MARRIED).
From my interactions with MS1s and MS2, I've noticed
 that although there are more men than females here, most
 of these men are either married, engaged, or in a serious
 relationship. So for you pre-med females who think they'll meet
their future  husbands  at IUSOM, I'm not saying it won't happen,
 but I suggest coming up with a Plan B.



*Warning, did all videos were done on my phone so the image is grainy, however the sound is great*

       What was your major/minor in college?

   Why did you choose IUSM? What set this school apart from other schools?

Transition from 1^st year to 2^nd year, what was the biggest change? Academically? Personally?

Did you have “med school shock”? How did you handle this?

If you could go back to your college, what advice would you have for pre-meds?

Was all that you put into getting into med school worth it?


Your IUSM experience was unique in that you have been on two of their nine campuses (Terre Haute and Indy) what would you say were the advantages and disadvantages between the two?

 Because the Terre Haute campus is so small, you really get to know your fellow classmates really well.  You spend so much time with them in class, studying, etc. and so it allows you to get really close, which is nice.  Also because of the size, it enables professors to get to know you as well.  One major disadvantage of Terre Haute is that the lectures are not recorded and thus you cannot watch the recordings online later.  Being a center campus away from the main school of medicine, you also find that sometimes you feel sort of “out of the loop.”  You hear about different things going on at the main campus, but since you’re not there, it’s harder to be involved with them. 

Now for Indy… because Indy is so much larger, a major disadvantage is that you can’t get to know all of your other classmates and the professors especially aren’t able to get to know each of the students.  That makes it a little difficult… a major advantage, however, is that lectures are all recorded.  That means that if for some reason you don’t go to class or if you just need to hear/see a lecture again, you can log online from home and watch them.  The other benefit is that by being in Indy, there are a lot more physicians with specific specialties that are available to come lecture.  That means that the person who is lecturing often times is actually specializing in that specific area (meaning they are experts on what they’re talking about).  This is good and bad… sometimes you can tell that since they’re so knowledgeable about their specific area, they are more difficult to understand because they have a difficult time putting it in terms that aren’t above us.  However, it also allows you to learn from someone that is actually working in that specific field of medicine, which is definitely helpful.

Kyle, like Mike is cool with you emailing him any further questions you may have about medical school. So feel free to email him at : kspeakma@iupui.edu.

DePauw Alumni Love--Mike Stump('08)

--As a DePauw alumnus, how has your education from DePauw helped you in medical school? Did it adequately prepare you for the challenges of med school courses? What about DePauw in general?

The biggest help I had from DePauw was in my major selection, Biochemistry.  Having this as my primary focus of study really gave me an advantage during the first year of medical school, especially in the Cell & Molecular Biology course and, big surprise, the Biochemistry course.  By having this advantage, the increase in course load during the first year of medical school was buffered a good deal and gave me some breathing room to figure out how to schedule my time.  The second biggest way DePauw helped me was through its small class sizes:  by having small classes, sometimes in the single digits, there is no escape from participating in class discussions.  By discussing things in class routinely for four years I wasn’t afraid to talk to lecturers during my medical school courses about any questions or problems I was having and helped prevent me from getting behind or spending way too much time trying to figure out a single topic.  Also, by participating in group discussions in some of my medical school classes, as I was accustomed to doing at DePauw, I learned faster and helped my group(s) out more than I would have if I had just stayed quiet.

The course load I took at DePauw and the courses themselves definitely helped me prepare for medical school.  As anyone who takes classes at DePauw knows, I couldn’t slack off and hope for a curve to carry me to a good GPA – good grades came through focused studying, not as the benefit of others’ failures. 

To answer the last question, now that I have graduated and look back nostalgically at my time spent at DePauw I can more fully understand what a great school it is.  My professors were, on average, wonderful.  Sure, I had a professor or two that I didn’t like, but I still learned a bunch from their courses.  I don’t intend to harp on this item, but the class size, structure, and environment were excellent for teaching and engaging me in the topics being taught.  Another huge plus DePauw has going for it, perhaps the biggest advantage it has, isn’t the equipment, faculty, campus or resources, but the student body itself.  The students at DePauw are not the same as students at some other institutions around the country.  DePauw students didn’t get accepted by just filling out their name on a form and showing up.  They worked hard in high school and were ranked higher in their graduating class than the student bodies at other schools – and it shows.  That equates to better class discussions, tougher competition, and more great minds to encounter in your daily life at DePauw – all contribute to make the individual DePauw student better than they would have been if they had gone somewhere else.

--If you could go back to DePauw, what would you say to pre-med students?

If I could go back in time and talk to my past self I would strongly encourage getting together with other pre-med students and going over the details of the application itself and the application process as early as possible.  I tended to put things off and, while I did make it in the end, that strategy didn’t help.  Also, I would suggest getting at least a couple people “in the know” to look over your application and essays before sending them in.  This could be a trusted professor who IS ACCUSTOMED TO LOOKING OVER MEDICAL SCHOOL APPLICATION ESSAYS or utilizing a medical school prep service, like Kaplan, to give everything you are sending in a once-over.  With regards to MCAT preparation, I would recommend spending more time doing practice questions, exam sections, and whole exams over reading an MCAT prep book.  I know everyone studies differently, but I got way more benefit out of doing practice questions than reviewing the prep books.  I tended to use the prep book more as a reference for when I got things wrong than anything else.  It may not work for you, but at least give this strategy a shot.  With regards to interviews, do some practice interviews – this helped me identify mistakes I was making and calm my nerves for the real interview. 

--Looking back at your pre-med experiences at DePauw, what improvements/changes do you think are needed in DePauw’s pre-med “program” and how can faculty and students do to help make these changes? Are there necessary changes?

  My main advice in this area is two-fold: 1. Utilize DePauw’s program as much as possible, but 2. do not rely on this program to be your sole source of guidance.  One thing people, students or faculty, could do to improve this area is just get in touch with DePauw alumni who are in medical school or have gone to medical school to help guide current DePauw students.  It shouldn’t be that hard to find these people as DePauw has a large amount of graduates in medical programs despite its small size.  Another option is to, again, utilize a med prep service or have someone in a group use such a service and then spread the information around.

 

-- Even though you had stellar academic credentials (GPA: >3.7, 34O MCAT [VR-09, PS-14, BS-11.]), you did not get into med school straight from college, what did you do that year to improve your application? Looking back do you still regret not getting in right after college or do you think it was a blessing in disguise? Why?

After getting my rejection letter from IU the first thing I did was to contact the Dean of Admissions and set up a meeting to discuss the faults of my application.  During our meeting I found out my weak area was extracurricular activities, something I admittedly neglected somewhat during undergrad.  During my year off I volunteered with the Red Cross and for the Indianapolis Medical History Museum.  The great thing about doing this was that it put me in touch with some people who, later on, wrote me some great letters of recommendation in addition to strengthening my application.

Looking back, I’m still upset I didn’t get in the first time around, but that year off wasn’t a year wasted.  I got to meet some great people, with whom I still keep in touch, and, when I did get accepted the next fall, I was way more excited and ready to begin the next stage of my education than I would have been if I just got in straight from college.  Also, I have to admit, having that year off was a nice breather before starting in on an education program as tough as medical school.

--What common misconception about medical school (the whole process, what it’s really like) in general do you think pre-med students have?

I can’t answer for every medical student, but the biggest misconception I had was about how “bad” the interview process was going to be.  I had this mentality that I was going to get hit left and right with tough questions when, in reality, the interviewers just want to get to know you better.  However, this does not mean that you do not need to prepare.  You definitely want to look up common interview questions and prepare your answers (again, do this with a trusted, relevant advisor).  By preparing ahead of time your responses will not only be better and hopefully music to the interviewer’s ears, but also you will be way more relaxed and able to just be yourself during the interview instead of a twisted ball of nerves.

--Was all of the effort you put into getting into IUSM worth it? Was it all you imagined it to be? Any surprises?

Worth it: end of story.  The only surprise I had was that I ended up liking medical school much more than I thought I could like school.  I thoroughly enjoy studying the topics taught (well, most of them at least) and, even though there are long hours studying and reviewing, I never got sick of it or thought I made the wrong choice – to even entertain such a thought is absurd to me.  Each semester that passes here I gain another unit of appreciation for the material taught in my courses to the point that I feel downright honored that I have the opportunity to study at such a high level in academia.  

Mike is also super cool with you pre-meds emailing him at  mikestump@gmail.com with any questions you have or finding him on Facebook (he's signed onto the DePauw Facebook page)