Missionary Orthopod in the Making

I’m currently typing this from the library at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine, in the Bronx, NY. Lol, no I didn’t get an interview here, I’m just visiting my fiancee, who is doing summer research here. From face value, there are ALOT ALOT ALOT ALOT of Asian doctors, med students, etc., here. This is not a bad thing, but from the name of the school I just expected for there to be alot of Jews here. So yeah, besides that there is alot of construction, but overall I’m realizing that I don’t like the hustle and bustle of the city life. I could be a little biased due to the hardship I had getting from Maryland to the Bronx by bus, but its just not for me. There are too many people, too many offensive smells, etc. I would still practice in the city, but not live there. I realized that I’m seriously doing you all a disservice by not letting you feel the pain of filling out secondary apps. Here are the different questions I had to answer for Maryland. I’ll put the other schools questions in later entries. (i’ll put my answers too, so you can see what professional BS is, lol, j/k):

University of Maryland

1. Briefly describe your most important exposure to clinical medicine. (200 word max.): My most important exposure occurred when I had to opportunity to shadow a surgery resident on his trauma rotation. The resident really took me under his wings and I had to opportunity to suture closed a deceased man’s chest, who had an emergency thoracotomy done to save him from a bullet wound; I was given a trauma pager, I was given the opportunity to pull a chest tube, to scrub in on a leg amputation, and to locally anesthetize a bullet wound on a 16 year old. In addition to procedures, I experienced the human side of medicine when a girl my age came in with her forehead lacerated down to her skull. While the surgeons were suturing her forehead closed I held her hand and talked to her to take her mind off of what was going on. I also had the opportunity to sit in on multiple Morbidity & Mortality meetings, as well as be on call with the surgeons for their 36 hour shift. There were many more experiences at Cincinnati but overall I was given to opportunity to experience what the life of a surgery resident was like, and I loved it.

2. Briefly describe your most satisfying experience related to community service. (200 word max.): When Hurricane Rita hit Louisiana, I left school with about 40 other people and we went done to Lake Charles, LA to help. As usual, the lower income neighbors were the last to be helped so we went there and cut numerous trees off of trailer homes and houses, teamed up with the Convoy of Hope to pass out hundreds of pounds of food and water, and passed out donated toys and hygiene products to families. One of my most touching experiences while there occurred after we had cut about 5 trees of a Baptist preacher’s trailer home. When we were done he along with his wife and children stood in their lawn crying because they just couldn’t believe that a group of college students all the way from Alabama came to help them. Knowing that we had made such a difference in their lives really touched me and made me realize how fulfilling helping others is.

3. What does it mean to be entering a profession? (300 word max.) (this was the hardest question to me): Entering a profession is more than simply getting a job. Entering a profession requires dedication to your career, not simply to get a paycheck, but because you know that this profession is what you were made to do. Entering a profession also requires adherence to the moral practices and integrity of the profession. It is important to learn these things when entering a profession to ensure a continuity of the profession’s moral and ethical standard. Entering a profession entails embarking on a new way of living, thinking, and interacting with others. Also, as the UMB School of Medicine teaches, entering a profession requires humanism, ethics, life-long learning, humility, cultural and social sensitivity, and respect.

4. Please describe your long term career goals. What has been the major influence in your life that has led you in that direction? (300 word max.): My long term career goals include graduating from medical school and entering into a general surgery residency. Upon completion of my residency I desire to work in hospitals in underserved areas serving patient populations I can relate to. Along with all this it is my desire to complete medical school and residency with little to no debt. This will give me the financial freedom to not just serve the underserved in the United States, but the seriously underserved internationally. My future goals have been influenced by the domestic and international relief work I have done while at Oakwood College. My experiences during Hurricane Rita and in the United Nations refugee camps in Africa have shown me the need for willing surgeons not just domestically but around the world. After serving in the United States and around the world, it is my desire to start a special surgical fellowship in missionary surgery, where surgeons would learn how to operate with little to no technological equipment that is usually found in hospitals. From this, I would hope that many surgeons would use these skills to serve Americans during natural disasters or refugees overseas where there is no immediate access to hospitals.

My strategy with these secondaries has been to finish them the same day I receive them, because its so easy to procrastinate on the essay parts. I also plan to submit the Maryland and Loma Linda secondaries on Monday, since those are the two schools I’m most interested in getting into. I’ll submit the others later as the money is available. I received Mayo Clinic’s e-mail basically telling me that I need to mail them a $75 check before they will look at my AMCAS app. For a school that only accepts like 30 students, I think I’ll pass and use my $75 for school books. Anyway, I’m going to see what there is to do in NY. Next time I post I’ll put up another secondary.

School	App Fee	2º App Received	2º App Complete	2º App Mailed out	LORs sent	Interview	Accepted?
Howard University	$45
University of Maryland	$70	X	X	X	X
Morehouse University SOM	$50	X	X		X
University of Cincinnati	$25	X	X		X
Loma Linda University	$75	X	X	X	X
Meharry Medical College	$60	X	X		X
SECONDARY TOTAL:	$ 325