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!