Hello From The Newest Contributing Writer For The (Almost) Doctor's Channel

I am very pleased to announce that I was offered the opportunity to contribute weekly for The Almost Doctor's Channel blog (which I've written about before here) and I've accepted! My first piece as a regular writer for them was posted Monday so please take a peek and feel free to comment and/or share. I have to admit, I'm chuffed to bits I get a bio/pic of my own on the contributor page. I absolutely couldn’t have done this without all of your support, dear internet (and real life!) friends, so thank you for following me and reading my articles, you are the best!

A Little Bit Of Positivity For Today

I'm trying to be better about writing more and I thought I'd follow up yesterday's post with a bit of good news - I have my University of Vermont College of Medicine interview next week! 

After getting the news back from Rush that I didn't get in I was so upset it was hard to remember that I'm very lucky that I got an interview at all. Last year there were almost 8,000 verified applicants to the school. Out of that ridiculously high number only 372 were interviewed and 128 ultimately matriculated. It's easy to lose sight of the little triumphs in the face of disappointment but it's reassuring to know that this year, I at least was chosen out of thousands of other applicants to make it through to the interview round.

Now I'm focusing on what's to come rather than what's happened in the past. Not only do I get to go home and visit my wonderful family, I also get another chance to experience the interview process at a new school. I promise to write an update after I return and let you all know how it goes!

I've been missin' these mountains...

And Now We Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Program

Did you guys miss me? I hope so because I REALLY missed you all! I haven't been as active on the interwebs lately because I've been a lot more busy at work and also, honestly, there were a few disappointing events in  the applying-to-medical-school part of my life and I didn't really know how to share that.

I'm a pretty private person (which many of you might have noticed since I don't usually talk about my personal/family life on here) and that extends to things like GPA and MCAT scores and getting rejected from schools. I'm sure that's fairly normal since there's always an element of shame when you don't get in somewhere you really wanted to go or you get your MCAT back and it's lower than you had wanted (and felt like you deserved). I never know if that's something I should share because comiserating helps you feel better and also helps others in similar situations feel like they aren't alone or if I should keep it to myself because I'll feel worse if everyone knows about something I've perceived as a failure in my life. I've also noticed that we all tend to get really competitive when talk turns to concrete things like GPA and MCAT and if the Student Doctor Network is any indication we pre-med folks are sometimes a lot more damaging than encouraging to each other. I hate getting into that kind of mindset because I know enough current medical students that have shown me the importance of  hard work and perseverence over a perfectly competitive application. Because of that, I've always been really loathe to discuss the numbers that I'm less than proud of.

But because of recent happenings I've been rethinking this approach and I guess the decision that I've made is that there should be a balance. Maybe it's not necessary to share exact numbers but it's OK to tell everyone that I didn't do as well on my second MCAT try as I had hoped. Maybe I don't need to feel like it's a sign of weakness if I tell you all that I was crushed when I heard back from Rush and I didn't get in. I think ultimately doing this will help me to feel better about these setbacks and feel encouraged to keep moving forward rather than wallow in the bad feelings that accompany getting this kind of news. Nothing in life works out perfectly all of the time and learning to deal with disappointment definitely helps you to become a better person. So I'm going to try my best to be more open and share these things with all of you because I think not only will it help me, but for those of you out there who might be facing similar distress, it might help to know you're not the only one.

Thanks for reading!