Personalized plates (stupid?)

June 30, 2006 by DoctaJay

Research at Hopkins is actually going great. If I had had such a great and interesting time doing research before, I actually might have considered pursuing an PhD, but its too late for that now. I’ve already started filling out 2 secondaries from George Washington and Howard University. The others haven’t contacted me yet.

I’m getting bored and so I decided to spice up my life by getting personalized license plates. I’ve Photoshopped the different ideas I had for my plates on the PICTURES BELOW so please click on them and choose below in the poll which one you prefer. For those wondering, Mutonga is an African name I was given and it means servant. But I’ve been told that if you don’t know what it means, then it actually could be mistaken for some dirty name, so I’m concerned about that. Also, who can figure out what SCPLPLZ is?

[Show as slideshow]

No Comments / Posted in Non-Academic Life

Doctor Shadowing

June 25, 2006 by DoctaJay

My doctor shadowing this past Friday at the Washington Hospital Center was great!!! The surgery resident I was shadowing was just finishing up his second year and he was on the burn service for the hospital. So if someone came in with any kind of severe burn, then they took care of them. When I arrived at the hospital I met the surgery resident and he took me downstairs to get some scrubs (I truly love those things…I would wear them to my wedding if I could, lol). After that, we went up to the burn unit and into the OR where they were prepping a guy for surgery. This guy truly went through a lot; he had gotten into a bad car accident and his car burst into flames. It took an extended period of time for the ambulance to arrive so he was in the car burning for awhile. As a result of that, his legs were basically burnt to a crisp, and he had burns on like 92% of his body, pretty bad burns too (I can’t remember what burn degrees equal what). So when the guy first arrived into the trauma center, they had to rush him to the OR immediately to amputate both of his legs because he was losing too much blood due to the extensive damage. So they amputated both legs above the knee and proceeded to get his other burns in check. By the time I saw him, he had already had a couple of skin graft surgeries, but that day, they were working on the palms of his hands. Now while shadowing, I’ve seen some pretty bloody things, but nothing made me quite as queasy as watching them prep the guys palm for the skin graft. You see, in order to place a skin graft there, they had to make sure that all the burnt and dead tissue was gone. So first they took an instrument similar to what you would used to peel a potato, and they started shaving off the tissue on his palm, layer, by layer, by layer. And then, in order to see whether they got all the dead tissue, they released the tourniquet on his arm so that the blood could flow back to his hand. You see, if there was dead tissue then it wouldn’t bleed, but if the tissue was alive, then it would bleed. So there is a lot of shaving, and a lot of bleeding involved in burn surgeries, but it was also very very fascinating. Once they finished prepping his palm, they looked for good areas on his body to take the skin graft. He didn’t have many good spots because he had been burned on so much of his body. They ended up taking a skin graft from a part that they had already taken a skin graft from. But the chief surgeon there said that as long as you haven’t taken out the hair follicles from previous skin grafts then you can take another skin graft from that area. So yeah, they took an instrument similar to that used in a black barber shop and they took the skin graft and just laid it on top of his palm. The skin graft part was the easy part, it was the previous shaving part that really took most of the time.

So yeah, it was an interesting surgery. I’m not sure whether I would do a fellowship in burn surgery but you do significantly improve how they look. But the surgery did raise some ethical questions for me. This guy was basically dead when he came in. Both of his legs are now gone, his fingers were charred so badly that his extensor tendons are gone, so they had to pin his fingers together, meaning that he will only be able to use his hands as a lobster does, with his four fingers and his thumb. Burn patients like him have almost eternal pain and are constantly drugged up, and he’ll probably have to have like 15 more surgeries to take care of the rest of the burns. It made me wonder (if I was in his shoes) whether I would have wanted to be saved. Should the doctors have saved his guy’s life, or just let him die? Yes he’s alive, but his quality of life will be so horrible that I don’t even think it can be called “quality” of life. I know that it is not the doctor’s decision on whether this guy should have been saved or not, but it kind of makes you wonder whether it’s fair to the guy to let him live like this. This was just something that crossed my mind. And once again, I know that doctors can’t make that decision, but it’s something that should be discussed.

Also, while the surgeons were performing the surgery (it was a resident and the chief burn surgery attending), they were discussing the current fate of the possible merger between the Georgetown residency and the Washington Hospital Center residency. You see, both hospitals are run by a company called MedStar, but talks are underway for merging the two surgery residency programs (I’m not sure if its just surgery or all of them). The problem with Georgetown is that its in basically a very rich part of D.C., and most of the people in the area are very healthy, so the surgeons don’t see a wealth of cases. On the other hand, Washington Hospital Center is in the middle of D.C. and they have a Level 1 trauma center with 3 helicopters so the surgery residents there get A LOT of cases. Because of that, the Georgetown residents rotate at the Washington Hospital Center to get their trauma and their burn experience. The problem with this is that the Georgetown residents are getting Washington Hospital Center cases, but they still have the advantage of the Georgetown name, while the Washington Hospital Center residents are getting great experience, but they don’t have the world renowned name. Anyway, it was more of a political talk, but it was cool to hear what goes on in the higher levels of the hospital.

I have SUBMITTED MY AMCAS, and the status is: Submitted to AMCAS- Ready for Review. So now I just have to wait for AMCAS to process my application and check my mailed in transcript against what I wrote on my AMCAS app and the secondaries will start rolling in!

The surgery resident I shadowed on Friday will be starting his 3rd year on July 1st, and he will be on the team that basically does what normal general surgeons do, which is basically bread and butter surgeries. This will be great for me to see because it will let me see whether I would just want to stay a general surgeon or go on to do a fellowship. I truly admire surgeons because (as the burn surgery attending told me), surgeons are the only doctors that actually heal people (lol, he could be bias though). But he said that all the other doctors just treat patients, but surgeons actually fix things. And that’s the kind of doctor I want to be. I want to fix people not treat some never ending disease.

So yeah, I had a great time and hopefully I can do some more shadowing.

No Comments / Posted in Doctor Shadowing

I’ve gotten a little more rest so I can actual concentrate as I’m writing.

June 22, 2006 by DoctaJay

I’ve gotten a little more rest so I can actual concentrate as I’m writing. As you all know I’m currently in a summer research program at Johns Hopkins University in their Department of Biology. I know this is going to sound weird coming out of my mouth, but I am actually excited about my research project. If you would read my first couple of entries you would have discovered how I really feel about research, but this time it’s a little different. Now don’t get me wrong, I won’t be applying for any MD/PhD programs, but I think I’m more excited now because I’m actually working on a project from start to finish. At Cincinnati, they basically gave me a project that was 90% completed, but here I’m doing a project that hasn’t been started yet. My PI is out of town until next week, but I’ve been working with a post-doc and a 1st year grad student. For those that don’t know (because this is supposed to be informative right, lol) a post-doc is basically what PhD grads do once they have graduated. It’s not required but many do it because it opens up more doors for them. They have more freedom to do their research, and depending on where they do their post-doc they can then go on to start their own labs in tight places like Harvard or Mayo. A post-doc is almost like a residency for PhDs, but not exactly (I hope that helped). Anyway, the post-doc I’m working with is from Turkey…I don’t know why I find that cool, but I just do. I go to an HBCU so you miss diversity like that. The whole premise of a lot of the research in the lab is on this transmembrane receptor called melonopsin. For a long time people thought that only rods and cones dealt with detection of light in the eye, but they have now found that in the absence of rods and cones, mice still have a circadian rhythm entrained to light and dark environments. Meaning that even though we blind the mice (destroy their rods and cones), when we turn on the light the mice still recognize that there is light and they sleep (they are nocturnal) and when we turn off the lights, the mice still recognize that its dark and begin to be active. My project is related to how powerful their desire to stay away from light is compared to their desire to eat. I know that’s a horrible description but I know how much I hate reading or hearing about other people’s research, so I’m not going to make yall read about mine. I basically said all that to convey that I’m actually EXCITED about going to into the lab. Lol, the world must truly be coming to an end. Besides that I talked to a family friend who is a general surgery resident (I think PGY-3) at the Washington Hospital Center in D.C. and he said that I can shadow him tomorrow for the whole day. The post-doc and the grad student will be gone all day for different reasons, so they gave me the day off. He’s going to be doing skin grafts on different burn victims, so that should be interesting. You all can trust that I’ll write a nice description of my time there, but probably not until after the Sabbath.

I’m submitting my AMCAS application tomorrow so I’m pretty hyped about that. One day I’ll re-post all the different revisions of my personal statement so other pre-meds can see the revision process I went through. For all those currently writing theirs, I would highly recommend getting a meticulous professor to look over it; someone who is used to writing scientific papers and therefore someone who knows how to make sentences and paragraphs precise and concise. I will be oh so excited once secondary apps start rolling in because that means I’m one step closer to getting into medical school. I’ve run out of things to write so check back on Sunday for the description of the shadowing. God bless.

No Comments / Posted in Pre-Med, Research

AMCAS app complete

June 20, 2006 by DoctaJay

Wow, so much has happened while I’ve been gone. Its so nice to see so many new writers on the site. I’ve been pretty busy, but I don’t want to make this post too long. As most of you all know, I have been on a NAPS mission in Lake Charles, LA for the post 5 weeks and it was absolutely amazing. I truly can’t formulate words to completely describe how well it went, but what I can say is that many people received post-Hurricane Rita relief and many lives were touched. I know that’s general but I’d write a thesis if I wrote everything down that happened. For the pictures, just visit this link: www.napsoc.org/NewPhotosfromLakeCharles/tabid/152/Default.aspx

I drove up to Hopkins this morning to get orientated in my lab. The topic seems to be pretty interesting. Even though the PI of the lab is of Middle Eastern descent, everyone in his lab is white, so that’s a definitely a change in environment for me. At Cincinnati the whole lab was Chinese so I couldn’t really converse with them. It will be fun to work with people I can talk and joke around with. They gave me 3 papers to read which unfortunately I really have not gotten the chance to read yet. The PI is actually gone right now, so it looks like I’ll be getting bounced around from grad student to grad student until he comes back. I must admit that at this point I am pretty uninterested in doing any kind of research. I just want to sit at home in my underwear and watch TV. But I suppose that that is part of growing up; learning to do things when you really don’t feel like it.

Well my AMCAS application is COMPLETELY COMPLETELY COMPLETELY COMPLETE. My mom will have the $430 by the end of this week, so I’ll submit it then, still hopefully beating the verification rush.

This will be a busy summer for me. For the wedding, I’m in charge of designing the invitations and making the guest list. And then secondary applications will start rolling in next month, so I have to make sure I get my money straight for that. I also want to work out A LOT so I can look like the HULK at my wedding, lol (how vain can we be sometimes). Then, I’ll be shadowing a surgery resident that works at the Washington Hospital Center in D.C., so that will be exciting. I’m still dragging my feet from the drive up to Maryland from Alabama, so I’ll write more exciting posts last as I wake up. God bless.

No Comments / Posted in Pre-Med, Research

A little info about the Sabbath

May 14, 2006 by DoctaJay

Well, I’m getting ready to pull off for the mission in Lake Charles, LA. Like I said before, this will be a mission primarily composed of bible studies but we will do relief work too. During the morning we will do rebuilding of different people’s homes that were destroyed by Hurricane Rita, then in the afternoon we will do door to door Bible studies, and then at night we will have the evangelistic meetings. I probably won’t be able to make any diary entries for the next six weeks, but I will keep a journal and upload that when the mission is over. While I am gone I want you all to just get a taste of the Bible studies that we will be going through. If you want to, please leave comments and I’ll read them all when I get back from the mission. Actually, before I post the bible studies I need to set the record straight on what Seventh-day Adventists believe. All of our doctrines come from the Bible, which is how is should be. We believe, as the Bible itself tells us that all Scripture is inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:16), therefore all Scripture is truth. Adventists are most known for their Sabbath keeping, which is biblical, so I will post that (Bible references are in KJV):

THE SABBATH

1. On what day did Jesus customarily worship?
“And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read.” Luke 4:16.
Answer:Jesus’ custom was to worship on the Sabbath.

2. But which day of the week is the Sabbath?
“The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Exodus 20:10. “And when the Sabbath was past, ” very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher.” Mark 16: 1, 2.
Answer:The Sabbath is not the first day of the week (Sunday) as many believe, but the seventh day (Saturday). Notice from the above Scripture that the Sabbath is the day that comes just before the first day of the week (Sunday), which we all know Jesus was resurrected on.

3. Who made the Sabbath and when?
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day,and sanctified it.” Genesis 1:1 and 2:2, 3.
Answer:God made the Sabbath at the time of Creation (thousands of years before Jews even existed), when He made the world. He rested on the Sabbath and blessed and sanctified it (set it apart for a holy use).

4. What does God say about Sabbethkeeping in the Ten Commandments, which He wrote with His own finger?
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all they work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, they manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:8-11. “And the Lord delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God.” Deuteronomy 9:10.
Answer:In the fourth commandment of the 10, God commands us to observe the seventh-day Sabbath as His holy day. God knew people would forget the Sabbath, so He began this commandment with the word “remember.” He has never commanded anyone anywhere to keep any other day as a weekly holy day.

5. But haven’t the Ten Commandments been changed?
Jesus says: “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, then one tittle of the law to fail.” Luke 16:17. God says: “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.” Psalm 89:34. Notice, the Ten Commandments came from His lips. Exodus 20:1 says, “And God spake all these words, saying”[the Ten Commandments follow in verses 2-17].”
Answer:No, indeed! It is utterly impossible for any of God’s moral law ever to change. All Ten Commandments are binding today.

6. Did the apostles keep the Sabbath?
“And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures.”Acts 17:2. “Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia: and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem. But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down.” Acts 13:13,14. “And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted [thither]” Acts 16:13. “And he [Paul] reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.” Acts 18:4.
Answer:Yes, the book of Acts makes it clear that Paul and the early church kept the Sabbath

7. Did the Gentiles also worship on Sabbath?
God commanded it:
“Blessed [is] the man [that] doeth this, and the son of man [that] layeth hold on it; that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices [shall be] accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. ” Isaiah 56:2, 6, 7.

Apostles taught it:
“And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath. And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. ” Acts 13:42, 44. “And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and Greeks.” Acts 18:4.
Answer: The apostles in the early New Testament church not only obeyed God’s Sabbath command, but they also taught the converted Gentiles to worship on the Sabbath. Never once do they refer to Sunday as a holy day.

8. But wasn’t the Sabbath changed to Sunday at Christ’s death or resurrection?
Answer: No, there is not the remotest hint that the Sabbath was changed at Christ’s death or resurrection. The Bible teaches just the opposite. Please carefully review the following evidence:
A. God blessed the Sabbath. “The Lord, blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:11. “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.” Genesis 2:3.
B. Christ expected His people to be still keeping the Sabbath in A.D.70 when Jerusalem was destroyed. Knowing full well that Jerusalem would be destroyed by Rome in A.D. 70, Jesus warned His followers of that time saying, “But pray that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day.” Matthew 24:20. Jesus made it clear that He intended for the Sabbath to be kept even 40 years after His resurrection. In fact, there is no intimation anywhere in the Scriptures that Jesus, His Father, or the apostles ever (at any time, under any circumstances) changed the holy seventh-day Sabbath, to another day.
The women who came to anoint Christ’s dead body kept the Sabbath. Jesus died on “the day before the Sabbath” (Mark 15:37, 42), which is now called Good Friday. The women prepared spices and ointments to anoint His body, then “rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment.” Luke 23:56. Only “when the Sabbath was past” (Mark 16:1) did the women come “the first day of the week” (Mark 16:2) to continue their sad work. They found “Jesus was risen early the first day of the week” (verse 9), commonly called Easter Sunday. Please notethat the Sabbath “according to the commandment” was the day preceding Easter Sunday, which we now called Saturday.
Christ’s follower, Luke, wrote two books of the Bible; Luke and Acts. He says that in the book of Luke he wrote about “all” of Jesus’ teachings (Acts 1:1-3). But he never wrote about Sundaykeeping or a change of the Sabbath.

9. Some people say that Sabbath will be kept in God’s new earth. Is this correct?
“And it shall come to pass, [that] from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.” Isaiah 66:22, 23.
Answer: Yes, the Bible says the saved people of all ages will keep the Sabbath in the new earth.

10. But isn’t Sunday the Lord’s day?
“Call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord.”Isaiah 58:13. “for the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day.” Matthew 12:8.
Answer: The Bible speaks of the “Lord’s day” in Revelaton 1:10, so the Lord does have a special day. But no verse of Scripture refers to Sunday as the Lord’s day. Rather, the Bible plainly identifies Sabbath as the Lord’s day. The only day ever blessed by the Lord or claimed by Him as His holy day is the seventh-day Sabbath.

11. Shouldn’t I keep Sunday in honor of Christ’s resurrection?
“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also [in the likeness] of [his] resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with [him], that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” Romans 6:3-6.
Answer: No! No more than you would keep Friday in honor of the crucifixion. Christ gave the ordinance of baptism in honor of His death, burial, and resurrection. The Bible never suggests Sundaykeeping in honor of the resurrection (or for any other reason, for that matter). We honor Christ by obeying Him (John 14:15),not by substituting man-made requirements in place of His.

12. Well, if Sundaykeeping isn’t in the Bible, whose idea was it anyway?
“And he shall think to change the times and the law.” Daniel 7:25, RSV. “Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.” “IN vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Matthew 15:6, 9. “Her priests have violated my law.” “And her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar, “saying, Thus saith the Lord God, when the Lord hath not spoken.” Ezekiel 22:26, 28.
Answer: Misguided men of long years past announced that God’s holy day was changed from Sabbath to Sunday. God predicted it would happen and it did. This error was passed on to our unsuspecting generation as gospel fact. Sundaykeeping is a tradition of uninspired men and break’s God’s law, which commands Sabbathkeeping. Only god can make a day holy. God blessed the Sabbath, and when God blesses, no man can “reverse it.” Numbers 23:20

13: But isn’t it very dangerous to tamper with God’s law?
“Yeah shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God.” Deuteronomy 4:2. “Every word of God is pure. “Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” Proverbs 30:5,6
Answer: God has specifically and positively forbidden men to change His law by deletions or additions. To tamper with God’s holy law in any way is one of the most fearful and dangerous things a person can do.

14. Why did God make the Sabbath anyway?
A. Sign of Creation- “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.” For in six days the Lord made the heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:8, 11.
B. Sign of redemption and sanctification- “Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.” Ezekiel 20:12.
Answer: God gave the Sabbath as a twofold sign: (1) It is a sign that he created the world in six literal 24-hour days, and (2) it is also a sign of god’s mighty power to redeem and sanctify men. Surely every Christian will love the Sabbath as God’s precious sign of Creation and redemption (Exo. 31:13, 17; Eze. 20: 12, 20). It is a great insult to God for his people to trample upon His Sabbath. In Isaiah 58:13, 14, God says that all who would be blessed must first get their feet off His Sabbath.

15. How important is Sabbathkeeping?
“Sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4. “The wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23. “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” James 2:10. “Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow in his steps.” 1 Peter 2:21. “He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.” Hebrews 5:9.
Answer: It is a matter of life and death. Sabbathkeeping is enjoined in the fourth commandment of God’s law. The deliberate breaking of any one of the 10 commandments is a sin. Christians will gladly follow Christ’s example of Sabbathkeeping. Our only safety is to diligently study the Bible, “rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15. We must have positive Scripture support for every Christian practice we follow.

16. How does God feel about religious leaders who ignore the Sabbath?
“Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane”and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.” ” “Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them.” Answer: In hiding their eyes from God’s true Sabbath, religious leaders offend the God of heaven. God promises punishment for such false shepherds. Millions have been misled on this matter. God cannot treat it lightly. Jesus condemned the Pharisees for pretending to love God while making void one of the Ten Commandments by their tradition (Mark 7:7-13).

Does Sabbathkeeping really affect me personally?
“If ye love me, keep my commandments.” John 14:15. “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” Romans 14:12. “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” James 4:17. “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” Revelation 22:14. “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God.” Revelation 14:12.
Answer: Yes, by all means, the Sabbath is your Sabbath. God made it for you, and if you love Him you will keep it, because it is one of His commandments. Love without commandment-keeping is no love at all (1 John 2:4). You must make a decision. You cannot avoid it. No one can excuse you. You yourself will answer before God on this most important matter. God asks you to love and obey Him now!

So yeah yall, there is more on this subject if you all want to know, but really it all boils down to, “If you love God, then keep His commandments.” This isn’t some legalistic thing, its just honoring God by keeping what He commands. You have to keep all the 10 commandments, not just 9. If you call (800) 23- 2334 instead of (800) 239-2334, will you actually reach anyone? No, you won’t, you need to punch in all 10 numbers to reach your person. I hope you all learned something by reading this Bible study, and I’ll be able to respond to comments after June 18th when I come back! God bless.

P.S.- If there are typos, I’m truly sorry, because I know how that can crap up a Bible study. Please forgive me for any typos.

No Comments / Posted in Religion

Got my grades

May 12, 2006 by DoctaJay

A lot of things that I was worried about are now winding down. I don’t know if I told you all or not, but I’m going on another NAPS mission and it leaves on the 15th. I won’t have access to a computer again until June 18th which is when I definitely want to submit my AMCAS app because by then Brittany should have received her MCAT scores. But yeah, so since I knew that my AMCAS app would have to be ready to submit before I left on the 15th I was hustling to get it all finished. I sat down for a couple of sessions with my favorite professor, going over my personal statement, and I’m happy to say that it is perfect, besides some nit picky grammatical stuff. I truly to advise everyone that writes a personal statement to get that thing read by someone who is used to writing papers (i.e.- English majors, PhDs, etc.). When I had posted my PS on my diary the second time, I truly thought it was perfect then, but upon meeting with my professor, we made a lot of changes in sentence structure, and some content. Anyway, I am truly comfortable with my personal statement, and I’ll post the final version when I start getting some interview invites. So yeah, I’ve received my grades back and here they are:

Gross Anatomy II w/ Lab: A
Undergraduate Research: A
Life and Teachings of Jesus: A
Photography: A
World Literature: A-
Philosophy of Christian Education: A

I was kind of blown about the World Literature grade…not because I’m some crazy grade whore. I’m blown because throughout the whole year the teacher would tell me how I was the best student she has had in a long time, etc, etc. Because of all her praise, I even got her to write my LOR for my upcoming secondaries. And she still gave me an A-; I think that she is just one of those teachers who feels that an A= perfect, and if you don’t do everything perfect then you get lower. I mean, it didn’t really bite into my GPA, but I really thought that the A was in the bag. Anyway it doesn’t matter, because this is the last semester that med schools will see so I’m quite happy. Its kind of hard to believe that the app process is almost at hand. I’ve finished filling out my whole AMCAS app and now I’m just waiting till June 20th for my fiance’s MCAT scores to come back.

I’ve decided to take VCU off my list, meaning that I’m only applying to 10 schools. I really had no reason for applying there, and I’d rather be sure that every school I’m applying to I wouldn’t mind actually attending. I just know so little about VCU that it makes no sense to apply.

I’m really excited about the mission this summer because its going to be all ministry…not building projects or other stuff, just straight bible studies. We will be holding evangelistic meetings in Lake Charles, LA and Dallas, TX. There are so many people out there who need to know that there is much more to life that what they are currently aspiring for; many need to know that someone actually loves them. I’m just really excited about how much ministry I’ll get to be a part of this summer!!!!!! Anyway, I’m happy with my grades, my AMCAS app, my life, and everything else so things are good. I’ll probably write again to post the bible studies that we will be giving, so you all can go over them yourselves. Until then, peace!!!

No Comments / Posted in Pre-Med

Filling the bloody AMCAS out

May 3, 2006 by DoctaJay

The excitement of filling out my AMCAS has already died off. Now I’m slamming my head against my desk, trying to make sure that I word everything correctly for the Work/Experiences section. I’m not really sure how formal the wording needs to be, but I know that I’m not making it crazy formal. I’m just describing what the experience is, what part I played in it, and how it affected me. I’m not having any problems staying within the 1325 characters, but I just really want to make sure that I express all the pertinent information in my description. Here is what I plan to list in my work/experiences section:

1) My work with NAPS
2) My participation with the Oakwood Biomedical Association (OBMA)
3) My Neuroscience awards at the ABRCMS
4) Oakwood College Dean’s List (2003-Present)
5) Oakwood College Presidents Achievement Award (for junior with highest GPA)
6) Biology Student of the Year (for freshman and sophomore years)
7) Biology Tutor
8) Gross Anatomy Lab Instructor
9) Oakwood College Biology Department web designer
10) USM (Student Government) senator
11) Research at Cincinnati (still debating on whether I should make these separate)
12) Shadowing at Cincinnati (still debating on whether I should make these separate)

My personal statement is still being worked on. I personally think its perfect, but doesn’t everyone think their own PS is perfect, lol? I think I’ve finally decided on an apartment, so now I just have to put down the deposit. I’ll be rooming with 2 other guys, but they are good, smart guys. Not people who will be having sexing in the living room, or rolling weed in the dining room, like my previous experiences. One of them is my cousin, and the other is a good friend of my cousin, and I’m pretty cool with him too. I just have good feelings about this living arrangement. You can check out the apartment complex at THIS LINK HERE . The place is pretty cush, and it will be nice to come home to comfort after a long day at an interview.

By the way, I’m not sure if I told you all, but Brittany felt really really good about her MCAT. I know that the Lord came through this time for her, so its going to be fun waiting for the scores to come out.

Alright, time to go back and roam SDN forums.

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AMCAS is Open!!!

May 2, 2006 by DoctaJay

Its showtime baby!!!!! Lol, AMCAS 2007 is finally open! It’s weird though, for a second I was kind of scared to start filling it out, but that time has passed and I’m busy filling it out. I’m really confused as to why all the stuff I filled in for AMCAS 2006 didn’t transfer over. I was under the impression that it would, but from roaming through the pre-allo forums, I found that it wasn’t. So yeah, I have to go through the whole process now. I’ve already filled out everything except the “Course Work” and “Work/Activities” sections. Although I am pressed about this whole process, I’m not doing this all early to be anal. I leave for the mission on May 15th, so everything needs to basically be done before then. When I get back on June 20th (I won’t have access to a computer while on the mission, or at least I think so) I’ll just have to press the submit button. I loved and kissed up my mom, and she agreed that she would pay for the AMCAS part ($460), while I pay for the secondaries ($700). I’m going to wait for Brittany to receive her MCAT scores back to submit my AMCAS app…that should happen I guess around June 20. Final grades for my school should be out on Monday, so I’ll go on that day and print out an unofficial transcript to fill out the “Course Work” section on my AMCAS. I’ll also print out the AMCAS transcript request form and give it to my records office on that day. My plan is to at least have my transcript shown as having been received by AMCAS before I leave for the mission.

I took my last final today in Gross Anatomy and handed in my undergrad research thesis paper, so I’m DDDDDDDDOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! The Gross Anatomy lecture final was a bloody beast, but everything I studied I knew, and most of the stuff I didn’t study wasn’t on there. I’ve been studying for that test since Sunday, so my head was filled to capacity by the time I took it today. She had a lot of questions in the Step 1 Boards style and it was a little hard at first to get used to it, but it was actually more fun answering those than the normal, “What muscle does the XXXX artery supply?” questions. Those questions took longer to answer, but I felt pretty confident that I did alright. We got our final grades back for our Gross Anatomy lab (which counts for 50% of our grade) and praise the Lord that I got a 97.8% (I beat Brittany by 0.4%, lol). I’ll find out how I did on the Gross Anatomy lecture final tomorrow.

I’ll be meeting with one of my favorite professors all this week about my personal statement. She is going to help me tweak and refine some paragraphs and sentences. She didn’t dislike my opening paragraph, she just said that she didn’t understand it at first. Meh, I’ll see what I can change to help that, but I’m not willing to change it too much. She is actually the only teacher left to submit a recommendation to Interfolio, so I’ll press her more on that this week. Anyway, things are off to a good start!

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OBMA President!

April 28, 2006 by DoctaJay

Ahhh, the calm after the storm is truly peaceful. This past week was very very very very hard. I had finals in all of my classes except one. I also had three papers to write, one thesis presentation, a photography portfolio to finish, etc, etc. Last Sunday, I was looking at my To Do list and I started having a headache. I just couldn’t see how it was all going to work out. But the Lord is good…everything is done and I’m just chillin right now. My actual finals week is next week, but I only have one final, and that is in Gross Anatomy. She said that the final is going to be composed of 60% (what we haven’t been tested on yet) and 40% (old stuff). She said that she is going to make it very similar to the Step 1 Boards with lots and lots of clinical questions. It sounds fun, but it also sounds scary. With those kind of questions, you actually have to know the information and understand it to even tackle the clinical problem. So yeah, that final is on Tuesday, so after the Sabbath, I’m going to hit it hard.

The Lab Coordinator for the Gross Anatomy lab had a meeting with the juniors who were taking the class who were going to be lab instructors next year (that included me). She basically went through everything that we needed to do. At the end of the year, when the body has been completely dissected, we have to fill out a pathology report on the cadaver. The pathology report basically highlights any abnormalities that we found while dissecting. When we receive the bodies, they already have causes of death on their report, but as we are dissecting we may find new information that may indicate further causes of death, or we may just find more stuff to confirm their original cause of death; like excessive plaque in the coronary arteries for a lady that had atherosclerotic disease on her report. In body 62-05 (I prefer referring to them by their number…their mom gave them names and I don’t want to give them another one), we found a massive tumor around where her thyroid gland should have been. You should have seen it, it had its own extensive blood supply. I can see how those things eventually drain the life out of you. Anyway, the tumor wasn’t on the pathology report so we have to write it on there as another possible cause of death. But I started all this to say……????……oh yeah, so we also learned from her all the things that have to be done before we can mail the body back to California for cremation. We learned from the teacher of the Gross Anatomy lecture class that the lab instructors (us) will basically have full control over the lab. Its going to be good to have autonomy in the lab…I really hope that we can help our fellow classmates to learn, and I really hope that I can learn way more in the process. The lab coordinator didn’t tell us where she is going, but I suspect she is going to medical school. First off, running a gross anatomy lab for 3 years has to be a great aspect of a med school app, also, one day when I was talking with a future freshman, she told the freshman to go up on SDN and read my journal. No one goes on SDN for real if they don’t want to be a doctor. Also, she doesn’t hit me off as one to like research, so yeah, if she did get into medical school, I’m really happy for her. I know that she is going to KILL that Gross Anatomy class apart because of all her experience.

I’m moving out of the house I live in. I currently live with a she-witch and I can’t take it anymore. I’m trying to decide where to live, and also whether I should live by myself or with a roommate. Living alone is cool because you can walk around your place naked, but it also costs a lot. I don’t know, I’ve just had problems at every place I’ve lived, so I want to try living alone for a bit.

I really, truly can’t believe that I’m about to be a senior!!! I seems like just yesterday that I was walking into the freshmen boy’s dorm, and now I’m about to be out! I’m also very excited about starting my AMCAS application. So far, I think I might pull out with all A’s this semester, which would be an answer to prayer, because I really wanted the last semester that would make it on my transcript before I send it off to AMCAS to be good. I’ve been perusing the Pre-Allo forums a lot more lately, and I found out that the AMCAS 2007 should open around May 2nd or 3rd. That is so close by, and I’m really excited. I’ve also made my mdapplicants profile. I know that its not a big deal, but I’ve been on SDN since my freshman year of college and I’ve always seen these people showing off with their mdapps profile in their signature. It showed that they were in the app process…well now I get to, and I can be pressed about it all by myself! All but one of my LORs has been submitted to Interfolio, and my personal statement is currently being proof read by a very picky, perfectionist friend, and my favorite professor. I know that I’m going to probably get flak for my opening paragraph, but I really think I’m going to stand firm on that paragraph. So many people think that this thing needs to be real formal, but I feel the opposite. My whole personality is anti-formal, and although I know I’m taking a gamble…I’m willing to take it. The only thing that is out of the ordinary is that paragraph, everything else is fine. I hope that adcomm readers pay attention to the content. Anyway, I guess I’ll hear back within a week or so, about what they think about it. I really wanted them to read it for grammatical errors, but I’m sure that I’ll get flak for some of the content too.

Today I was elected president of the Oakwood Bio-Medical Association (OBMA). I’m pretty happy about it, and I just hope that I can lead the organization to new heights.

I e-mailed Johns Hopkins today to find out which lab I’ll be working in this summer. I received the e-mail back with a link to the guy’s bio. The guy’s name is Samer Hattar, and you can find his profile on the following link http://www.bio.jhu.edu/Faculty/Default.html. He’s a Arab (I think) guy, which is pretty cool to me. The last lab I worked with was all Asian, and I couldn’t really communicate with a lot of the people there, because a lot of them didn’t speak english. Hopefully, this summer will be really fun. The research his lab is doing seems pretty cool. I wonder if I should ever mention to any of the people in the lab that I’m applying to medical school. I’m sure it will come up some time, but I wonder if I will offend them or something. I don’t want them to feel like I’m just using their program as a means to an end, even though that is partly true. Anyway, there is a lot of hype about Hopkins, and I can’t wait to see if it lives up to it.

Next week is going to be filled with me working on my AMCAS app and looking for an apartment. I’ll write again if anything interesting happens.

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Unsettling info

April 20, 2006 by DoctaJay

I have never studied before liked I’ve been studying for the past 3 days. We had our final today in Gross Anatomy Lab, and its OVER!!!! For the final we had a written section and a practicum section. For the written section, the hardest part was remembering all the borders of all these bloody triangles that are in the body. You have a posterior triangle, anterior triangle, submental triangle, submandibular triangle, carotid triangle, muscular triangle, etc. Then you just have plain borders…borders of the neck, borders of the root of the neck, borders of the orbit, borders of the different cranial fossa, borders of blah blah blah blah. While I was studying for the test earlier this week, I called my mom just to complain to someone. I was telling her how tired I was of memorizing these “stupid” borders. I knew the structures cold, but borders took a whole lot of memorization. I told her how unimportant the borders seemed to me, and she slapped me back into reality. She told me that surgeons (which is what I want to be) rely quite heavily on knowing the borders of the different triangles, because when they get into a body, and things look horribly wrong, they need to know the borders and what is usually inside the borders so they know what to look for. She admitted that as a pediatrician, the borders and boundaries mean nothing to her, but she basically told me to suck it up, because it will help in the future. I’m glad I talked to her, because I got more motivation to learn those different borders and triangles. I know I got everything right on the written part, except for THE ONE BLOODY TRIANGLE THAT I TOLD MYSELF WOULD NOT BE ON THE FINAL. It was the blasted muscular triangle…uuggghhhh….I knew I should have memorized that one, but I knew all the other triangles so I figured that was good enough. So yeah, the practicum was quite simply a beast. I’m a very visual person, so I knew what everything was, the problem was that we didn’t have enough time. We had like 2 minutes at each station, and at some bodies, there were more than 11 pins in the body! It takes a lot of time to first off to find the pin, identify what its stuck in, orient yourself so you know whether to call it the “left” or “right” whatever and write it down completely, making sure to put “muscle” if it’s a muscle or artery, vein, nerve, etc. There where many times where I was absolutely blazing through the body, not hesitating at all, and I still had about 2 blank spots when she called “switch”. Anyway, we got 3 minutes at the end to fill in whatever we didn’t identify, but so many people had so many blank spots, that those 3 minutes didn’t help too much. I managed to get everything filled in, but due to time, there is no way I could have gone back and checked the ones I was unsure of. Anyway, it is over, and I have officially passed Gross Anatomy for the first time….hopefully I’ll pass it in med school. Finals week for my school starts May 1st, which is in two weeks, but many of my teachers plan on giving me their final next week. This means that my finals week won’t be real hectic, but it also means that next week is going to suck. I guess I’m a little more pressed right now about grades, because this semester will go on my transcript that I’m sending out to the medical schools, so I want to stay at my current GPA. Photography class is shaping up pretty well. My teacher loves my shots, but I still need to take 6 more good ones so my portfolio will be complete by next Friday. World literature is also looking pretty good. I have a paper due on Othello pretty soon, so I need to get on top of that. For the class part of Gross Anatomy, the final will be comprised of 40% old stuff, and 60% of everything we haven’t been tested on yet. One thing about this whole premed major is that you rarely get time to rejoice after a test, because there is always another one looming. Anyway, until finals week is over, I’m going to be pretty busy.

Last week was Alumni Weekend for Oakwood College. This is a very big weekend for my school, and the campus is basically engorged with thousands of alumni. On the Sabbath, I went over to my teacher’s house for potluck, and I got a chance to listen to two old physicians. I learned so much from them. First off I learned of the blatant racism that they dealt with while they were in school, especially medical school. The doctor that graduated from Loma Linda told me about how (and I hear it’s the same today) the white students will get the old tests from the teachers, and will study from them for the test, while the minority students would never hear about it. He recounted one time where he was studying in the library, and one of his white classmates who he had become friends with asked to study with him (he was just about setting the curve in the class, so they couldn’t ignore him). After a good while of studying, the white student got up, and asked him if he wanted to go and study at his friend’s house. When he got there, there was a whole crowd of his white classmates there surrounding a stack, and I mean a large stack of old tests. When they saw him, they started to gather them up to hide them, but it was too late. One of the most interesting facts I learned from that doctor though was that when he was applying to medical school (he’s like 60 something now), the only school in the United States that accepted less black students than Loma Linda was the University of Mississippi. That was so hurtful to learn how racist my church used to be, but I guess there are bad people in every church. He also told me a lot of plusses about Loma Linda, including the mission program, which he took part in. I truly look up to him for all the mission work he has done, and I hope to be like him one day.

The other doctor I talked to graduated from Howard, and he is in his 50s now. He had a lot of interesting stories about racism too. But aside from that, one interesting thing he told me was how he didn’t fail out of medical school. He told me that one day he was just overwhelmed completely by the sheer volume of material that he had to memorize. He was really going to give up until he was referred to this faculty. She taught him a little studying method that got her through school, because it helped her to memorize things easier. What you do is that you look over whatever you have to memorize, lets say it’s the branches of the external carotid artery. After you look over it in your book, then you close your book, and try to write exactly what you memorized out on paper. Look at what you wrote, throw it away, and open the book back up, grading yourself mentally using your book. Then, as many times as it takes for you to get it right, you close the book again, write out what you memorized, throw away the paper, open back up the book, and grade yourself again. He says that the method works because it sends the info through your brain more times than normal. By writing it out, checking it, and grading yourself. I tried this method when I was studying the borders for all those bloody triangles, and it worked pretty well. I don’t know whether I would have done better with or without it. The method seems more appropriate for Gross Anatomy, but it could probably be applied elsewhere.

At that potluck I also got a chance to talk to Dr. Newman, whose is a 2nd year general surgery resident at the Washington Hospital Center in D.C. He is also a graduate of Loma Linda, and he expressed basically to me how the teachers and white students for the most part ignore the minority students. It kind of scared me at first, because I kind of feel like the Lord is leading me to Loma Linda, but he also told me of a lot of good things about the school too. One thing being that they prepare you for the standardized tests big time. He told me that even though he got a 25 on his MCAT, he BLEW the Step II boards out the water, which allowed him to Match at his #1 spot at the Washington Hospital Center. After all the bad things I heard about Loma Linda, it was nice to hear some good things. Anyway, he is the doctor that I’ll be shadowing this summer, while I’m doing research at Hopkins, so it should be really cool. He told me that I should see a lot this summer because more people seem to get shot during the summer, and just generally get hurt. I’m excited, and hopefully this summer’s shadowing will be as fulfilling as my time at Cincinnati.

Two days ago, I got my packet in the mail from Hopkins, basically outlining the schedule for the summer, and all the different things “required” for the research program. Since Oakwood is paying me, I don’t have to comply too much, but I’ll try to do as much as I can. I’m honestly just doing this for the money, so when it comes time to pick my lab, I’m looking for a laid back lab, and not a lab that wants to win a Nobel prize or anything. I know this sounds bad, but it’s the truth.

Today, I was told something really weird. The chair of the Biology department wants me and my friend (both of us just finished taking Gross Anatomy) to basically show a class of 14 massage students from some school the cadavers and I guess explain stuff to them. To me it seems like scut work, but we’ve been promised $10 so I’ve been appeased a good amount. I actually just realized that we will have to show them the whole body, not just the part that was covered this semester, so I’ll have to look at my atlas to remember everything on the arms, back, thorax, and abdomen (which we covered last semester). Anyway, it seems like I’m getting thrown into the lab instructor mode already with this little activity our biology chair put us on. The current lab coordinator is going to meet with the juniors who took the class I guess to tell us what we need to know to keep the lab going strong. And after finals week, our Gross Anatomy class teacher is going to take us out to dinner to go over some things (I love Ph.Ds, they seem to love to talk things over while having food). Looking back, its absolutely amazing all we have learned, and I’m sure that I will be way ahead of my class come med school time if I continue to review the stuff, which shouldn’t been too hard since I’ll be a lab instructor.

Brittany is gearing up for the MCAT this Sunday. She truly seems more confident than when she took the August MCAT so I believe that she will do better. If you all remember, please pray for her on Sunday, that she blows the thing out the water.

Oh, Brittany and I found our wedding bands at Kay Jewelers…yeah, I know you didn’t care, but I’m running out of things to write. Anyway, other than all that, my life is pretty much uneventful.

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Almost application time

April 10, 2006 by DoctaJay
Hey everyone!!! The school year is winding down and I’m excited because then its application time!!! I’ve already received one LOR into my Interfolio account, so just two more to go! I know I’ve been going back and forth between what schools are on my list, but this list is truly my last list. There is this really tight thread in the Pre-Allo forum. You can visit it at the following link: CLICK HERE . Upon reading all the posts in that thread I gained more confidence in my ability to possibly get into Georgetown, so instead of replacing Georgetown with Meherry, I’m just going to apply to both of them. So that makes 11 schools! Dr. Tran wrote me an e-mail with some truly compelling points as to why I should apply to Penn State, and they mainly convinced me, but they didn’t convinced Brittany too much. And also, another thing that stopped us from putting Penn State on the list was their required research thesis. There truly aren’t words yet created in English to describe our dislike for research, and even though we could just knock it would during our only free summer, I would rather do mission work during that summer. Anyway, I liked Penn State, but me and the misses didn’t come to an agreement on it. Anyway, what you see below is the chart that I made, that will be tracking my whole application process. I will be posting it every time something new comes up. I truly love my parents. Since I won’t be getting my check until after I want to submit my AMCAS application, my mom said that her and my dad would pay the AMCAS fees, as long as I take care of the secondary fees. I was very happy to hear this, because it takes a lot of the bite off of my research stipend. So yeah, check out the table below:

School

App Fee

2º App Received

2º App Complete

2º App Mailed out

# of LOR Req.

Types of LORs required

LORs sent

Interview

Accepted?
Howard University

$45

      

2

 2 science faculty      
University of Maryland

$70

      

3

 2 science faculty / 1 non-science faculty      
Morehouse University SOM

$50

      

3

 2 science faculty / 1 other      
University of Cincinnati

$25

      

3

 2 science faculty / 1 non-science faculty      
Loma Linda University

$75

      

3

 2 science faculty / 1 non-science faculty      
Mayo Clinic

N/A

      

N/A

        
Emory University

$80

      

3

 2 science faculty / 1 non-science faculty      
Virginia Commonwealth University

$80

      

3

 2 science faculty / 1 non-science faculty      
George Washington University

$100

      

3

 2 science faculty, 1 from someone who knows your personal traits      
Meharry Medical College

$60

      

3

 2 science faculty, 1 other      
Georgetown University

$115

      

2

 2 faculty and anymore you desire to send      
AMCAS TOTAL: $460

Continue to keep Brittany and I in your prayers during this application process.
SECONDARY TOTAL: $700
TOTAL: $1,160

I talked to the lady at Hopkins, and she told me that housing would cost around $1,483 for the summer. I just had to laugh at that..because there is no way I’m spending that much to stay on campus when I could just spend about $400 in gas to commute. I also just talked to my dad, who graduated from Maryland’s school of Social Work, which is right beside the medical school. He told me that the commute isn’t actually that bad either, because everyone is actually going the opposite direction into D.C. So if I a lot around $50/week for gas, for the whole summer it’ll come out to about $400.

Anyway, I don’t have much more to say….so au revoir.

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more SDN writers…yeah!

April 6, 2006 by DoctaJay

Man, there sure has been an explosion of SDN writers lately! I like it though, it makes me write more so I won’t be at the bottom of the list! Anyway, some interesting things have happened in the past couple of days. First, my school had there annual Honor’s Convocation where they honor the students who have done well academically in front of the whole school. By God’s grace I made the Dean’s List, but the Lord blessed me with even more. For a while I’ve been complaining to God that its just not fair. So many of my classmates are having sex, drinking, smoking, etc., and they end up getting $10,000 scholarships from UNCF or other programs. While me, who is hardly home because I’m doing so much mission work, and despite having done well academically HAVE NOTHING. And FAFSA is useless to me, because they think my parents have money, even though they don’t. Well at the Honor’s Convocation, each department chair got up and gave out awards to specific students in their department. I along with 2 other people ended up receiving a $500 scholarship from the department on my bill. After all the department chairs handed out their awards, then President Baker (the president of the college) got up to hand out awards to the student in each class with the highest GPA. Honestly to my surprise, I ended up having the highest GPA out of all the juniors! I don’t know why the Lord keeps lifting me up like this, but I know that I can only attribute these successes to Him. Anyway, all the awardees for that award received $500 on their bill also. So I got a $1000 scholarship this past Tuesday! The Lord always does things better than I could have asked for.

I COMPLETELY failed my Gross Anatomy quiz today. The written section definitely and most of my practicum. I was pretty broken up at first because I had never failed a quiz before that I pretty much felt ready for. But a good friend of mine Darla gave me some encouraging words. First of all, how could I even get mad, after all the blessings from this past Tuesday?! I was forgetting already how far the Lord had brought me. Darla reassured me that this quiz is like a speck in the whole spectrum of things, and she was right. Its just one quiz…and its probably good that I failed it, so I can study the right way next time, instead of being over confident about the quiz.

My basketball intramural team is in the championship!!! Basketball is the one physical activity I still do when I’m not studying. Its always good to get the blood pumping. We had to play a pretty good team tonight to advance to the championship, but it worked out in the end. I hardly got any playing time, and at first I was kind of mad, but I tried to be more of a team player and cheer the team on (lol, as lame as that sounds).

Hopkins e-mailed me today about their summer program, and told me that housing wasn’t free, lol. So I decided that this summer I’ll just live at home, keep all my $4,000 and make that commute to B-more.

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This past Friday I went on a field trip to Meharry Medical College in Nashville, TN

April 2, 2006 by DoctaJay

This past Friday I went on a field trip to Meharry Medical College in Nashville, TN. The trip was actually pretty informative, and I’ve decided to add Meharry onto my list because of it. When we got there it was raining pretty hard, but we jumped out of the bus and went into the student center, which was pretty empty (I guess all the students were studying). When we sat down we were greeted by Mr. Atwater (I’m not sure what his title is, but I know he gives tours). We were also greeted by all the current Meharry students that graduated from Oakwood College. The testimonies of those students were very encouraging. One of the students, Lauren Lewis is on full scholarship at Meharry, and she was just telling us how much Oakwood College actually prepares us for med school. She told us that the same books we use for Gross Anatomy and Histology, they use at Meharry and most med schools. She also told us that Gross Anatomy is actually slightly harder at Oakwood because the practicums at Meharry are multiple choice while at Oakwood you have to write the answer in. That was actually pretty amazing to me. I wonder if Gross Anatomy practicums are like that at majority medical schools? After writing in my answers for the practicums, multiple just seems way too easy. Anyway, I’m sure that they have to know way more than we do, but that was encouraging. Also, some other Oakwood grads were encouraging us that no matter what score we receive on our standardized tests, or what GPA we have, we should still apply. One guy who was a current 2nd year said that he graduated from Oakwood not really being serious about anything, so he decided to teach science for a little while. Then he decided to take the MCAT after 2 years of teaching. He bought a little Kaplan book, studied, got a 22, nailed his interview, and got in with a 3.0 GPA. Things like that are encouraging to many students who do have lower scores. Anyway, it was just encouraging to see how well the Oakwood graduates are doing in medical and dental school at Meharry.

We also got a chance to tour the campus. I’m not sure how it as most medical schools, but all the classes you have in your first two years at Meharry are in one building, and I think really in two lecture halls. The freshman have their classes in one lecture hall, and the sophomores have their classes across the hall in another lecture hall. The tour guide said that all medical schools are like that, but I would like to confirm that. Anyway, the facilities for kind of drab and old but I’m not used to the newest stuff anyway at Oakwood, so that didn’t bother me too much. The whole Basic Science building is connected wirelessly, so that excites the computer geek in me. We also got a chance to see their anatomy lab, which was pretty cool. 

Overall, I truly did like the school, and the tour convinced me that Meharry is a good enough school, and that they would give me a good education. I don’t like the fact that its in the south, but Nashville is city enough that I should feel alright. So when I add Meharry to the list, that is going to make 10 schools I’m applying to. I was already going to add Georgetown onto my list to make it 10, but I’m going to replace Georgetown with Meharry. Oh yeah, something that I DEFINETELY didn’t like about Meharry is that they have you in class from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. That is outrageuos to me. There is no need for all that lecture time when most of the learning comes from your books anyway.

I’ve given my teachers up to May 1st to write my letters of recommendation and mail them into Interfolio. I want to be certain that all that stuff is squared away before I leave school so that come July when secondary apps are rolling in, I’ll be ready to send them out.

My classes are going well at this point. In Gross Anatomy, we are studying and dissecting the different triangles of the neck and studying the eye, which is actually very boring to me. I guess really nothing will compare to studying the brain and the cranial nerves. But I need to get over it, because I can’t just study what I’m interested in and be a good doctor. Its getting close to crunch time in Photography class. My teacher wants seven 8 x 10 prints by Wednesday, so I need to go in the dark room today to work on that. I love the class…I just wish I didn’t have to study so much so I could just spend a whole day out in the forest shooting.

As you all know, George Mason University made it to the final four. Tony Skinn is one of the starters on that team. I played with him on our varsity team in high school. I’m actually kind of happy they lost because I didn’t like him at all. I was a sophomore on the team and he was a senior and he was just very mean to me. I don’t know if he felt he needed to break me in as a youngin on the team, but I ended up disliking him a lot. I didn’t think he would get so far in basketball, but I guess he did. Anyway I just wanted to mention my dislike for him.

Alright, so I’ve talked enough…until next time……Peace.

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On this past 17th, I had a pretty good day. I had an interview with Dr. Nyirady, the

March 25, 2006 by DoctaJay

On this past 17th, I had a pretty good day. I had an interview with Dr. Nyirady, the Dean of Admissions at Loma Linda SOM. It was basically our interview before our real one next semester. It went remarkably well, and he said in so many words that he doesn’t want me to apply to any other school but Loma Linda. Since where I go also depends on where Brittany gets in, I really couldn’t confirm that at all. But he really liked my stats, and more importantly, he loved the mission work I’m a part of. There are still a couple of things that are slightly unsettling to me about Loma Linda. I’ve heard just a little too many stories about prejudiced people there. My Aunt graduated from there, and she said that the only way she survived med school was by banding together with the rest of the black med students. I have a play uncle who is now an emergency medicine doctor. When we was applying to med school (this was back in the early 80s), Loma Linda told him that maybe he should consider another profession because they didn’t think he could handle medicine. Well, 2 weeks later he was accepted into Georgetown University’s School of Medicine, so I guess he wasn’t too shaken up about it. But too many people have given me the impression that Loma Linda only accepts Oakwood students because they need black people. Honestly, I think more highly of Loma Linda than that, but it troubles me that so many people have this mindset. Anyway, I’m still applying, and I will still be excited if I get in. School next year is going to be pretty crazy. The only way I and 3 other juniors were able to take Gross Anatomy was because we promised to be lab instructors for the class next year (something that the teacher rarely has, since its usually a class for seniors). Well, I guess because of the number of lab instructors they have this year, they teacher expanded the class size from 27 to like 50!!! On top of that, our lab coordinator (the lady who runs the lab) is leaving to get her Ph.D in anatomy. It doesn’t look like they are bringing anybody else in, so its looking like it will be up to us 4 lab instructors to set the quizzes, tests, practicums, to help students dissect, and to dissect whatever students don’t get to. This is pretty exciting, because right now I’m learning the information, next year I’ll be teaching it and helping other students learn the information, and 2 years later I’ll be taking it in medical school! This past Friday was so tight!!! For OBMA (Oakwood Bio-Medical Association) we had a panel. The panel consisted of a Internist with a DO, a General Surgeon with an MD, two graduate students from Yale, a recent Oakwood graduate in her first year of graduate school at UAB, and a recent Oakwood graduate in her first year of medical school at University of Cincinnati (Nicole Haughton, who is a new diarist on the Med School Diary page). This panel was so inspiring and so informative. To point out a few things that happened…I was really enthralled with the General Surgeon. He was actually late because he had just gotten out of surgery, but the guy was very down to earth. He’s one of the only two black surgeons in Huntsville, AL and he explained some things to us. First he told us about his day yesterday. He told us that his day started at 5 a.m. on Thursday, and ended at 4 a.m. Friday morning. He told us that at 4 a.m., he went home, snuggled with his wife, slept for about an hour and a half and then had to be back at the hospital at 7:30 a.m. He told us this to tell us that you can’t go into fields like surgery and expect to have a 9 to 5 lifestyle. He said that you must be willing to make the sacrifice and truly love what you are doing. As stressful as the day was, he said that he loved every second of it. Someone asked him if they should major in business instead of Biology, and he told them no, but he did say that he wished that he had asked more doctors about the business side of medicine more when he was coming up. That would have helped him understand more about the difference between running a solo practice or working with a group. He said that the main problem with most black surgeons is that they don’t want to band together in practices. All of them want to be solo, and that means overheads for all of them, personal to pay for all of them, etc. The med student, Nicole Haughton encouraged us a lot. One of the most encouraging things she said was that at Cincinnati, when people asked her what school she was from, and she said Oakwood, they automatically pegged her lower because they had never heard of the school. She also said that many of her classmates had scored 39s on their MCATs. With all this though, she was one of the only students out of her whole class that had seen and worked on a cadaver before they got to medical school So when they started dissecting, and she knew where everything was, they started showing her much more respect. This is encouraging, because its showing me that all this studying I’m doing now for gross anatomy will pay off in medical school. It also shows me what a privilege it is for Oakwood to have 4 cadavers for us to dissect and learn on. I’m just really excited about getting this whole medical school app process started. I’ve already hit up my current World Literature teacher for a recommendation, and Monday I’m going to give her the Interfolio sheet so she can upload it online or send it in. My plan is to have all my recommendations submitted to Intefolio before the summer starts so when it comes down to secondary time come July, I won’t be held back at all. I have some advice for those that are trying to get a non-science recommendation; its better to get it from a teacher who is teaching a class you are currently taking. That way you are fresh in their minds, especially if you are doing well in the class. Since my school doesn’t have a Pre-Med Committee, my two science LORs will come from the chair of my department, and another faculty member.

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This past Friday I had a pretty good day.

March 19, 2006 by DoctaJay

This past Friday I had a pretty good day. I had an interview with Dr. Nyirady, the Dean of Admissions at Loma Linda SOM. It was basically our interview before our real one next semester. I went remarkably well, and he said in so many words that he doesn’t want me to apply to any other school but Loma Linda. Since where I go also depends on where Brittany gets in, I really couldn’t confirm that at all. But he really liked my stats, and more importantly, he loved the mission work I’m a part of. I’m really excited about that, but I know how much of a crapshoot medical admissions is, so I’m not getting my hopes up. School next year is going to be pretty crazy. The only way I and 3 other juniors were able to take Gross Anatomy was because we promised to be lab instructors for the class next year (something that the teacher rarely has, since its usually a class for seniors). Well, I guess because of the number of lab instructors they are going to have this upcoming year, the teacher expanded the class size from 27 to like 50!!! On top of that, our lab coordinator (the lady who runs the lab) is leaving to get her Ph.D in anatomy. It doesn’t look like they are bringing anybody else in, so its looking like it will be up to us 4 lab instructors to set the quizzes, tests, practicums, to help students dissect, and to dissect whatever students don’t get to. This is pretty exciting, because I would really be learning everything better because I’m teaching, but its going to be challenging too, since we will be also taking other challenging classes, and applying to medical school. Today I went to open lab for anatomy, and because it was a Sunday, the place was empty. I was in HEAVEN!!! I grabbed a chair, lined my 3 books on stands around me (Rohen’s Atlas, Netter’s Atlas, and Grant’s Dissector), took the brain out, and studied both the brain and the floor of the cranium. I’m really realizing how interesting the brain is. I identified most of the cranial nerves. Some I just couldn’t find because they were butchered as someone took the brain out (it wasn’t me I promise, lol). I’ve heard so many different way’s to memorize the cranial nerves, but this way works for me:


Ooo: Olfactory bulb
OooOcculmotor
Ooo: Optic
To: Trochlear
Touch: Trigeminal
And: Abduscent
Feel: Facial
a
Very: Vestibulocochlear
Good: Glossopharyngeal
Very: Vagus
Accessible: Accessory
Human: Hypoglossal

I know there are better ones out there, but this works for now. I like it because some of the words actually tell what the nerve deals with. All this anatomy has me really excited about medical school, even though its really far away for me. Harvard University Grad came to speak to OMBA on Friday. They were very down to earth and nice, but just nothing would make me want to live there (except a full ride).

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I praise the Lord that we can’t actually see in the future,

March 16, 2006 by DoctaJay

I praise the Lord that we can’t actually see in the future, because if we could, we probably would never get out of bed, knowing the kind of day we would have. This whole week has just been crazy. The teachers truly see that they haven’t taught enough, and they are just piling it on. You know, my gross anatomy class really isn’t hard. I can memorize all that information, but the problem arises when I have stupid papers to write in World Literature, or projects in other Gen. Ed. classes to complete. Then it gets much harder to actually focus on the class, and you end up trying to memorize the stuff the night before. I was feeling kind of down after my gross anatomy midterm, but you know, the Lord is always faithful. I ended up scoring an 18/25 on my written exam (which I’m not too proud of), and a 68/75 on my practicum. So really it didn’t turn out too bad, which I can only attest to divine blessing.

In terms of dissection…..I’M LOVING IT!!! This week we sawed off the calvaria (which is the skull cap), and removed the brain!!! I’m telling you, this stuff was so cool that it was probably better than sex. Although I didn’t get to cut the skull open (I will next year as a lab instructor), I did have to pry the stupid thing off the rest of the skull. Taking that calvaria off reminded me once again about how wonderful and awesome we were made. After chipping off the remaining bone at the cut site with my probe, I tried to pry the skull cap off and it wouldn’t budge. This was due to the dura layer being stuck to the inside of the skull cap. Man I had my foot on the gurney and I was pulling with all my might to get the skull cap off. All I heard as ripping and tearing and I was just sure that I had completely destroyed the dura (which means hard mother by the way, lol). After about 7 minutes of battle, the calvaria came off and the dura layer laid there on top of the brain, completely intact, except where the saw cut it. I could not believe it. That dura layer is so tough, yet very easy to bend. You just have to know that a loving, caring, intelligent God created us. Once I had reflected the dura layer and part of the arachnoid layer, I got to start cutting the different cranial nerves and other structures that were attaching the brain to the bottom of the skull. The teacher made me stop because class was over, but I really would have stayed for another hour doing that stuff. All that dissecting of the brain made me truly think about neurosurgery, but that residency length scares me. In fact, it was all that learning about the brain at the MITHS program when I was in high school that got me interested in all this doctor stuff. Anyway, who knows what the future holds, only time will tell.

The post that Nicole left in my last entry (I tried to comment by its not working for me for some reason) was truly God sent. Brittany and I are going through a little uncertainty, which we haven’t really felt before. She’s retaking the MCAT, but so far the practice tests don’t seem as promising as we want them to be. That poses a problem…because “OUR” plan was to apply to med school, get into the same medical school, get married, take a year of to do mission work, go to medical school, become doctors, have kids, etc. The whole Brittany not going to medical school thing would truly throw a wrench in all that. Now I’m not losing hope, because so far, all the practice tests have been Kaplan tests, which I stopped taking because they were depressing, and unlike the real tests. I stuck with AAMC tests, and was alright. I just haven’t thought of the prospect of both of us not being in medical school. Anyway, we had plans, but God may have others plans for us. And where God wants us to be, is where happiness lies, so we’ll go with the flow. I guess will know what’s up once she takes the April MCAT. But I’ll be praying big time for her (I want her to get higher than me), and I want you all to pray too.

Today, we had a double whammie for the Oakwood Biomedical Association. Representatives from the University of Illinois School of Medicine and Dr. Nhiradyi, the Dean of Admissions from Loma Linda School of Medicine came to speak today. We held two separate programs for them, and I attended the Loma Linda one. You know, its weird, the more and more Loma Linda gives presentations at Oakwood, the more I seem to like what I hear about the school. In his presentation, he highlighted their Step 1 passing rate, which hasn’t fallen below 97% for a good while, and which was actually 100% in 2003, and their average board scores, which were around 220. They also showed us a Clinical Skills test that all the California medical schools undergo, to see the caliber of doctors they are putting out, and Loma Linda has won for the past 12 years, beating out Stanford by almost 10 points!!! They also had 97% of their students match their first time. Some other interesting tid bits of information include the fact that Loma Linda graduates make it into high positions also. The chair of the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) is a Loma Linda SOM graduate who is an Adventist. The chair of the American Medical Association (AMA) is also a Loma Linda SOM graduate and an Adventist. This I guess reveals that Loma Linda graduates go on to great things. I really like the fact that Loma Linda stresses their service, more than anything. They have so many avenues for service that its just amazing. I also found out more about their mission work program that I was interested it, but I’m going to have to do more research myself.

Tomorrow, an Oakwood College graduate who went on to Harvard University, the to The Hill is coming to speak, which should be interesting.

Many more things are happening, but my fingers are getting tired. I’ll write in a couple of days. Peace.

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Hey everyone. The school year is winding down and I’m clamping down on my time.

March 11, 2006 by DoctaJay

Hey everyone. The school year is winding down and I’m clamping down on my time. I’ve failed (well by my standards) my last 3 quizzes in Mammalian Anatomy and I know I didn’t do so well in the Mammalian practicum. Its not because the information is too hard that I didn’t do well, but I just did other things and studied at the last minute. I HAVE TO KICK THIS HABIT. My study habits are pretty good, but I know they aren’t up to medschool standards yet. I really want to train myself to study diligently. The last day of school is April 28th, so from now till them I’m really going to focus and try to do well. For all those still wanting to see the video of my engagement, its on a couple entries back. I changed it so that it would stream from Google straight into SDN diary, so view it if you have fast internet.

I happened upon some more pictures from when I did research and doctor shadowing at University of Cincinnati. They are posted to the right.

The application time is approaching fast and I’m working on getting my recommendations together before the school year ends. I want to have everything in order, so when its time to fill out the AMCAS and my secondary’s there will be absolutely no delay. When Brittany and I were home, an engineer that we know posed a question to Brittany and I that I really hadn’t thought of before. She asked us what was our plan B if we didn’t get into medical school. I know this sounds stupid but that honestly never crossed my mind. I’ve just had such a confidence that the Lord is going to send me to the medical school of His choice that I haven’t even thought of a “what else”. When I think of it now, the only other thing that comes to mind is teaching science or getting my master’s in clinical research or something. I honestly don’t think any premed wants to think of the “What Else” question, but I guess it is important. I’m honestly haven’t givin too much thought to it, but the lady’s questions has made me try to figure out some things. Also, our Mammalian anatomy lab teacher asked Brittany and I what we were going to do if we didn’t get into the same medical school or medical schools that were very close. That’s also something that Brittany and I just haven’t fathomed as possible, as stupid as that may sound. We have a confidence that God will work it out, and crazy as it may sound, we believe that we will either get into the same medical school or close ones. And that confidence comes not from our own greatness, but from faith in God. But yeah, to actually answer that question, if Brittany and I weren’t close together medical school wise, then I would just apply again the next year. I couldn’t do a long distance marriage.

Dr. Paul just came back from Zambia and he showed us a video of what the famine was doing over there. It truly broke my heart. NAPS in Zambia was feeding hundreds of kids and they just kept coming. There is a possibility that when Brittany and I take our year off for mission work that we will be sent overseas to Zambia for the whole year. That would be more amazing than I can imagine. Thats truly where my heart is.

Also, I’m just praising the Lord because NAPS just received a $30K grant from ASI to build schools and churches for the African Indians in India. I praise the Lord because before this, they had no schools to call there own, now they will have more than 3!!! The work is continuing and I honestly just can’t wait to finish all this undergrad crap so I can go out and do some mission work full time.

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Man, it sure seems like no one is leaving comments now that they have to register

March 7, 2006 by DoctaJay

Man, it sure seems like no one is leaving comments now that they have to register. Lol, well I guess its for the best anyway. I hope that the good people continue to comment. I hope that even those with criticisms still comment, just not those crazy people. I’m back in school now and I’m truly hating it. I don’t want to study, I don’t want to be at school, and I don’t want to be in Alabama anymore. All I want to do is be home, watch TV, surf the internet, be married, and have money to buy all the gadgets I want. Is that really too much to ask? Meeeehhh….I guess I’m just tired. What I’m realizing is that most of my classmates are very smart, the only difference between many that make it and many that don’t is that when they are feeling like I’m feeling, they actually go along with their feelings, instead of sucking it in and finishing their work. So yes, even though I’m sick of everything, and I just want to slouch off for like 3 good years, I know in the end that I will do my work. Sometimes you just have rant. I have realized though that the time for BSing is completely gone. Its getting too close to the end of the semester for me to keep on doing things last minute. If I really hit it hard for these last two months, I may actually come out alright. I gotta make this transcript look good for the medical schools.

The Dean of Admissions for Loma Linda School of Medicine is coming next Thursday and Friday to interview Juniors who will be applying this summer. This interview is actually pretty important because its almost like a pre-interview. We get to show our faces, give him our unofficial transcripts, and learn more about the school. I will probably have to wear a suit and tie for this (which I ABSOLUTELY HATE). Brittany only gets me to wear suits at banquets, but I guess I’ll have to for this interview; I need to put my best foot forward. Although I’m not all that happy about the prospect of actually attending LLU, if they really sell me on their mission work program, I truly think I’ll go there if they accept me.

The euphoria of being engaged is wearing off, and now the stress of planning has begun. We’ve set the date for July 8, 2007 so we have a little over a year to plan everything. Its going to be a little hard since we go to school in Alabama but the wedding will be in Maryland, but it should work out. I’m working on a wedding web page for us, and it should be finished soon. So far its looking like each of us will have 9 people in our wedding parties. If you get to know me, you’ll find that I truly hate traditional stuff. And since I’m in charge of the invitations, I want to make it truly different and nice. I’m thinking of a DVD invitation, and online RSVPs. I want to make each DVD slightly personalized depending on who we are sending it to. All my plans are truly in their infant stages, so I’ll post more when I figure out exactly what I want to do.

I’m really quite busy right now with school. I have to develop 4 rolls of film in the black room for Photography class, I have a Mammalian Lab mid-term on Thursday, some papers due, a group project on Wednesday, and lots of episodes of 24 to watch (I missed some episodes). Other than that, nothing too interesting is happening.

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Changes in SDN site

March 3, 2006 by DoctaJay

I LOVE the new site!!! Things are much better now. There are still some ways for people to exploit the comment system which I’ve pointed out to Dan; so hopefully he’ll take care of that and everything will be straight again. I’m kind of sad that all the comments that have been left on all my previous posts are gone. That’s a lot of history that is gone, but oh well…I guess those are necessary compromises. Anyway, this past week has been just a whirlwind of activity. Our spring break started last Friday, so my fiancé and I (lol, it feels so weird to say that now) drove up from Huntsville to Maryland. It was about a 11 hour drive but I really wanted to be home, so it didn’t feel that bad. Of course my mother (who is very eccentric and emotional) had a engagement Sabbath dinner for us, and my face hurt from smiling so much. People couldn’t wait to see the DVD I had made of the whole event. It’s basically the same thing that I posted in my last post but it has all the other events that occurred at the banquet. For all those that might be a little confused as to what the video was all about, I’ll give you a little background. Every year my school has a Valentine’s Banquet, and at this banquet they announce the winners for the OC awards which are voted on a couple of weeks before the banquet. I knew I wanted to win the best couple award so I prayed, and it happened, and the time was just perfect. She didn’t expect a thing and I’m am so happy that she was surprised. So yeah, we are still on cloud 9, and have begun the whole wedding planning process. I’ll keep yall posted on everything.

My spring break is almost over and I’m sad. I didn’t accomplish half of the things I wanted to accomplish, but I relaxed which is good. I’m truly getting senioritis at this point and I have to really motivate myself somehow to finish on top. This is the last semester that the med schools will see, so I have to put my best foot forward. I’ll start to post a little more regularly now.


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I’m engaged

February 20, 2006 by DoctaJay

I’M ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lol, as you can see I’m a little excited.

No Comments / Posted in Non-Academic Life

I’m pretty much full swing into school and I seem to be doing alright.

February 10, 2006 by DoctaJay

I’m pretty much full swing into school and I seem to be doing alright. I wanted to respond to Medschool2010’s comment in my last post. In my last post I had said that I was removing Georgetown and George Washington from my list because they are too stuck on numbers would probably reject me as soon as they cashed my secondary check. Well, my perception of those schools has been changed from really browsing the www.mdapplicants.com website. This site gets a lot of flak because there are so many people on there with 4.0’s and 38’s on their MCAT, but it honestly depends on what you look for. I searched for applicants ages 21-25, with an MCAT score below a 30 who were accepted into medical schools and the results WERE AMAZING. There were so many people with 26s on their MCAT and 3.6 GPAs who were accepted into good schools like GTown, GW, HARVARD, Yale, Mayo, etc. The most common reason these applicants with “lower stats” posted as to why they got into so many schools was that they applied outrageously early. Meaning they had all their secondary’s completed by the beginning of August. I’m going to really try to do this, so I can get a quick acceptance out of the way and chill out a little. This site kind of reminded me (along with medschool2010’s comment) that although numbers are important, truly they aren’t all schools look at. Still, all that being the case, Gtown and GW are too expensive, and although they are close to home, if I got into either one of those schools the possible debt would greatly deter me. I’m happy with my 8 schools :-). Classes are going well for me. We had another clinical case for gross anatomy class and it actually made me mad. It made me mad because there was absolutely no way I would have figured out what the problem was unless someone told me. I did A LOT of research, and everything was pointing to a femoral hernia, but I later found out that the answer was actually an avulsion of the adductor longus muscle, which is what caused the lump that I mistook for a femoral hernia. Upon talking to my mom, she reassured me that as a physician, I would run into this a lot. She told me that 3 doctors may look at the same patient and diagnose him/her to have 3 different things, but only one is right, and the good and wise doctor is the one that chooses the right one. It almost discouraged me and made me feel like I would never be a good doctor, but then I slapped myself and reminded myself that I was a junior in college and that I would learn this stuff when I’m in med school and residency.

Dr. Moore, the Chief of Emergency Medicine from Nashville General Hospital @ Meharry came to give a presentation to the Oakwood Biomedical Association (OBMA) today. It was pretty interesting and inspiring to see a previous Oakwood graduate have accomplished so much. He was pushing Meharry big time but I just don’t want to go there. On top of interesting board scores, I just don’t think I would feel happy there (in terms of location, environment, etc.) I like Howard and Morehouse more. Anyway, soemthing pretty interesting that he mentioned (he was giving us the history of emergency medicine) was that the University of Cincinnati actually had the first emergency room. Now I could take two things from that. Either Cincinnati is a very violent city, or their emergency room is very experienced and good. And actually from shadowing Dr. Spight the summer after my freshman year @ UC, both may be true.

Back to the whole Gtown/GW thing, I have to admit that my reasons for wanting to apply to those schools weren’t very good. The truth is that both, especially Georgetown are in very rich sections of D.C. In Maryland, when someone said that they lived in Georgetown or even bought something there, you knew that they were in money. I guess I was into the whole status of the place. Being able to tell my friends, “Oh yes, I attend Georgetown School of Medicine, in Georgetown, .D.C, right by Chevy Chase.” I’m glad I have a g/f to check me at times to make sure I’m not going crazy in this whole process. I just can’t wait to hurry up and apply. I want to get it over with, lol. I have to be honest though; you get a sudden confidence when you realize that all your steps are ordered by God. Of course I’m going to get a normal amount of anxiety, but since I know that I couldn’t have gotten to this point without God, I know that its His plan to get me to medical school. Knowing that the God who spoke the science we study into existence is working to get me into medical school is comforting, VERY COMFORTING.

Anyway, that’s life for now. Mayo Clinic graduate school is coming next week, and holding interviews. I may go just to get some face time, but I’m not too interested in grad school. The Oakwood Valentine’s Banquet is also next week Sunday, so I’m pretty happy about that. Although I hate wearing suits, especially ties, I like seeing all my friends dressed up and taking pictures. So, next time I post will either be after the V-day banquet or after Mayo comes.

P.S.- Oh , by the way, Brittany and I will be having our 3-year anniversary on the Valentine’s day, Tuesday, the 14th. I’ve actually been with her for almost 3 ½ years, but I didn’t date her all that time. Anyway, I’m happy for milestones like that. My life would have been a lot more wild and ungodly if I hadn’t settled down early. Praise the Lord, who knows what you need and when you need it.

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Dr. Tran really helped me out with all those questions I had about the app process.

February 5, 2006 by DoctaJay

Dr. Tran really helped me out with all those questions I had about the app process. Thanks once again for that. For me, classes have been trudging on. Even though I have more free time, I seem to be wasting it by looking at phones, going on Facebook, and just surfing the internet in general. I must say that my Mammalian Anatomy class is much better this semester. I’m getting a better hang of memorizing all the different structures of the body and recognizing them on the cadaver. We just finished the gluteal region, learning all the muscles and nerves in that area. The sciatic nerve is so bloody thick; its like the size of my pinky. Anyway, what makes this semester better is that we got a new teacher for the lecture, and this teacher although trained in Microbiology, took the Gross Anatomy class at Loma Linda University before she came to teach us. So basically she is teaching in the same style that I would be taught if I went there. What also makes this year better is that this new teacher believes in multiple choice tests, which my teacher last semester didn’t. It kind of makes life better, plus it better prepares you for med school since many of their tests are multiple choice. One of the coolest things we do in class now are the Clinical Correlates. Basically, depending on what part of the body we studying and dissecting, we get a clinical case, along with a bunch of questions we have to answers. Its cool because you actually get to apply your factual knowledge, and you kinda feel like a doctor in the end when you figure out what the problem is. For instance, here is the last case we got:

Following a major operation, a patient was place on a course of antibiotics, which were to be delivered via intramuscular injection to the buttocks. After on of these injections, the patient complained of more pain than usual in the region of the injection. Later as the patient was taking his afternoon walk in the hall, the nurse noticed that he was walking with a limp that had not been present before—his hip dropped every time he lifted his left foot off the floor, but on the right side, his pelvis remained level when he lifted his right foot. The doctor was called and after a brief examination, she concluded that the injection damaged a nerve that resulted in muscle weakness, which caused the patient’s unusual limp.1. Based on the vignette above, which muscles are affected? On Which side
2. If these muscles are affected, which nerve must be damaged? Where is this nerve located in the buttock and where does it originate?
3. What other structures in the posterior hip/buttocks region might be damaged by an inappropriately administered intramuscular injection or other penetrating injury
4. Based on your knowledge of this anatomy of this region, where is the best location for administering intramuscular injections to avoid damaging any important structures
5. Why might an intramuscular injection be used instead of a subcutaneous or intravenous injection?
6. What is the clinical name given to the symptoms the patient displayed following the injury and what other conditions might cause it?

In case you were curious, the clinical name is Trendelenburg sign/gluteal gait, and its caused by trauma to the superior gluteal nerve which supplies the gluteus medius and minimus muscles. The sagging of the hip on the lifted leg shows weakness in the gluteus medius and minimus muscles on the supporting leg. Anyway, I don’t care what ya think; I love this stuff!!!

My photography class is very interesting but more work than I thought. There are just too many numbers to memorize when taking a picture. I could literally take 10 minutes making sure I have all the right setting on my camera to get the perfect picture. I’ll probably get better with practice, but I’m feeling lazy right now.

Brittany and I talked last night and went over our medical school list (I posted it in the last post). We decided to make one last change. We took off GW and Georgetown from the list. We did this for a couple of reasons: 1) The amazing amount of debt you leave with 2) The volume of applications they received 3) Their average MCAT scores 4) Other things. We were really only applying because it was close to home. Its actually too expensive to live around those schools, and the amount of debt we would end up with would hinder us from doing mission work. Another pretty obvious region was that we were going to spend $100 for GW and $115 for Georgetown secondary application fees and probably be rejected as soon as they got our checks (just based on stats alone). I didn’t waste money. So yeah, we are only going to apply to 8 schools, and trust in the Lord. The total amount of money I have to spend for AMCAS apps and secondary apps at this point is $795, which aint bad at all.

My goal is to have all my needed LORs submitted to Interfolio from my teachers before this semester is finished. That way, come secondary time in July and August they’ll be ready to be mailed out. I’m truly taking the advice of Ms. Hicks from UMD to apply early. Basically, I plan on submitting my AMCAS on the first day possible (June 1st), mailing in my transcript on May 1st, having a 1 week turn around on all my secondaries, having all my LORs mailed the second I receive the secondary app, and hopefully receive interview invites as early as August / September. I know my stats aren’t superb, so I’m making sure that I’m at the top of these rolling admissions. What I’ve noticed, especially from upperclassmen at my school is that they may have like a 25 MCAT with a 3.5 GPA, and yet they miss vital deadlines in this app process. If you don’t have a 4.0, and a 39 on your MCAT I would definitely suggest that you apply REALLY early. One girl I knew had a 25 on her MCAT, but applied REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY early, and was accepted really early. Where as other students who applied latter but had better stats had a harder time getting in.

Anyway, things are going well. Until next time; peace.

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Man, I’ve been gone for awhile and I just came back and read all these comments on

January 30, 2006 by DoctaJay

Man, I’ve been gone for awhile and I just came back and read all these comments on my diary and Richard Tran’s diary. All this stuff is truly ridiculous. It truly makes me laugh when I hear all this talk about numbers. No one knows why Rich wasn’t accepted by more schools; so speculating on why is stupid. The fact is, is that he IS GOING TO MEDICAL SCHOOL. That’s good enough for me. When I go and see my doctor, I don’t ask him what his MCAT score was, what his Step 1 board scores were, how many schools he applied to, how were his clinical evaluations, etc. I don’t ask those things, and NO ONE asks those things. You know why? Because they are unimportant. In the end, everyone is the same: Mr./Ms./Mrs. XXXXX, M.D. It really kind of hurts me that many of my classmates in medical school will look at me thinking that I took a more qualified applicants spot. But in the end, after working with me in the hospital, they will realize that the makings of a good doctor is not based on numbers, but on a melting pot of different attributes. Anyway, stereotypes will be stereotypes, and people won’t change how they feel until they meet someone who changes their perspective. I just hope that everyone looks at everyone with an open mind. If my classmate is Asian, I shouldn’t automatically think that he/she is the smartest in the class. If my classmate is white, I shouldn’t automatically think that their parents are rich. If my classmate is a minority, I shouldn’t automatically think that they got in because the medical school was trying to fill a quota. When I have these different classmates, I look at them for what they are. They are fellow medical students trying to pass just like I am. Anyway, life has been good for me so far. My schedule is quite light actually. Its good because I actually get to read ahead rather than playing catch up all the time. I dropped Photoshop class for photography class and I am really happy. There are so many things you can do with a camera that I had no idea about. I’m walking around and seeing possible pictures from things I wouldn’t even have noticed before. Its also really good to take an elective that is actually fun. I would recommend every premed or even just every undergrad student to take a class that would just be fun to them. You’ll take enough frustrating classes, and sometimes you need something to balance everything out. After prayer and research I’ve finally narrowed my medical school list down FINALLY. Here it is:

Howard University
University of Maryland
Morehouse University
University of Cincinnati
Loma Linda University
Mayo Clinic
Emory University
Georgetown University
Virginia Commonwealth University
George Washington University

I had to take out Johns Hopkins University because from reading the MSAR I found that they require 6 hours of Calculus. Meaning that I would have to take Cal 1 and Cal 2. I usually get A’s in math classes, but I don’t feel like going through the stress of another math class. I know I could apply and just take it my senior year, but I already got my calculus credit, and I’m happy. I was going to apply to Harvard just to see if I could get in, but then I realized that I’d be using my money to apply, so my mind changed, lol. I added Georgetown and GW because I really want to apply to schools close to home. I realize the competitiveness of a lot of these schools, and I guess I’m not too scared because I kind of already know where the Lord wants me to go. I truly think He’s sending me to Loma Linda, because of the possibility of doing mission work there. They are really focused in doing service, which is what I want to dedicate my life to. Anyway, I prayed and told the Lord that whatever school both Brittany and I get accepted to, that’s the school we’ll go to, and I’ve been getting way too many hints and nudges towards Loma Linda. But I’ll wait until the time comes. Honestly, my first and absolute choice is University of Maryland. I love my home state, and I really love the in state tuition. If I got into Georgetown and GW but not the others, I would actually be slightly disappointed, because I would be doomed to serious dept, which would end my chances of going overseas.

So yeah, these are the schools I’ll be applying to come AMCAS time this summer. I already priced everything and the total I’ll be paying for my AMCAS fee is $430. The total I’ll be paying for secondary applications is around $565. Which comes to a total of $995. My school is sending me to Hopkins to do research this summer, so the $4,000 they pay us should cover all the applications costs.

I’ll be proposing to Brittany very soon, and I’m kind of nervous. Too much planning has gone into this, and I want everything to be perfect. I’ll post when I actually do it.

I’m literally hooked on the show “24”. For most of my life I wanted to be a CIA agent, lol, I know it sound kind of crazy. So this show is like the coolest thing to me. Ok, I’m rambling now. I’ll try to write more regularly so readers can truly get a sense of what my classes are like day in and day out. Peace.

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Boy, a lot of time sure has passed. I’m sorry I haven’t been writing like

January 5, 2006 by DoctaJay
Boy, a lot of time sure has passed. I’m sorry I haven’t been writing like I should have been, but I’ve just been kind of burned out lately. All in all, everything is fine. Right now, I’m on a NAPS Christmas mission which just happens to be in Maryland. We’ve raised about $38,000 so far, and have done a lot of community service and presentations at schools, so overall the mission has been a success. Brittany and I made a pretty major decision a couple of weeks ago. Due to the fact that I’m a junior and I’m already getting senioritis and medical school doesn’t allow for a lot of free time to do mission work, both Brittany and I have decided to defer a year before we go to medical school, and do mission work during that year. I know personally after I graduate from undergrad I’m going to be sick of school just about, so a year will give me a chance to rejuvenate, also I really want to do as much mission work as possible before I get locked down by the rigorous environment of medical school. So this year off thing to me is like the best thing since sliced bread. So yeah, I’ll be working with NAPS during that year either organizing things from the main office or heading a mission overseas. Either place I’ll still write on SDN. Also, my grades have been posted for this past semester. Here they are: Art Appreciation: A-
Introduction to Research: A
Plant Biology w/ Lab: A
Mammalian Anatomy I w/Lab: A
The Gift of Prophecy: A

I’m quite surprised about Plant Biology. I put no effort into the class and thought I was going to have a C, but the Lord protected me for some reason. He must have some plan for me; I can’t wait to see what it is. I know I got an A in Art Appreciation, but I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I don’t have the strength to contest grades anymore. As long as its not a C, I’m happy.

My upcoming semester will be a lot more relaxing than this past one. Since I KILLED myself my freshman and sophomore years, my junior and senior years are kind of chill. I’m actually taking an extra class I think I will like, Adobe Photoshop. I already know how to use the program pretty well, but it’ll be fun learning how to do more stuff with it (I know, I’m a computer geek).

I’ll be proposing to Brittany pretty soon. I can’t say too much more because she and some of her friends sometimes read this journal, but I’m pretty excited to get the ball rolling. Her mom is already getting excited calling different caterers to taste food. Lol, that’s kind of crazy to me, I’m like, “Can I propose to her first!!!”, lol. Anyway, I truly looking forward to the married life.

Oh yeah, I bought another PDA phone. I couldn’t help it, honestly I couldn’t. Its my weakness. Other than that, please keep me in your prayers. Peace.

No Comments / Posted in Pre-Med

Time really fly’s during finals time.

December 13, 2005 by DoctaJay

Time really fly’s during finals time. The Thanksgiving mission with NAPS was great. A lot of lives were touched and I even got to preach one Sabbath. The sermon went well, but it was really scary, and I don’t think I want do it again.

The past couple of days have been harder (academically) than any other period I can remember. The Gross Anatomy final was ridiculously big and long, and I had a headache after. The plant final was just tedious. Although I feel like my GPA is going to take a hit this semester, I’m trusting in the Lord, and hoping it will work out. Well, one thing that’s good is that I got an A in Gross Anatomy Lab, so that’s a little picker upper. Anyway, I’ll probably be absent for awhile, until at least my final grades are

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First of all, I’d like to say, CONGRATULATIONS to Richard Tran for his

November 17, 2005 by DoctaJay

First of all, I’d like to say, CONGRATULATIONS to Richard Tran for his acceptance into his # 1 choice. I’m not sure if he believes in God, but the Lord has truly blessed him. Once again, congrats man. As for me, this week has been an absolute whirlwind of things to do. I start my Thanksgiving break after this week, so of course all the teachers decided to give me going-away presents this week…TESTS. I had a test in Art Appreciation, Mammalian Anatomy, Mammalian Anatomy Lab, and I have a Plant Biology test tomorrow (which I should be studying for). The art test went pretty well, I’m actually worried that I won’t get an A in the class because I didn’t do so well on some quizzes, but I’m not as mad about that as I thought I would be. The Mammalian Anatomy test was an absolute beast. Of course the teacher for this class doesn’t believe in multiple choice so everything is write in. My girlfriend and I studied pretty hard for it, and the Lord blessed. Everything we studied for was on there and everything we decided to ignore he left off the test. The only thing I messed up on was the nerves and arteries of the abdominal wall, but I made up for it, with extra credit for writing the origin, insertion, and action of the external oblique, internal oblique, and transverse abdominal muscles. As for the Mammalian lab test, I didn’t get a chance to study at all for it, so I failed it. Both the lab test and the class test were on the same day, and I chose to study for the class test since it counted for alot, and not the lab test since it counted for only a portion of the 30% that the lab contributes to my grade. Anyway, sometimes you just got to know when to take a hit.

I think I have a hernia. There’s a bulge in my hypogastric abdominal region (lol, I had to give you something from class). Now I could be hallucinating because we just learned all about hernias in Mammalian class, but I was doing really have lifting on Sunday and now I have this bulge. It’s a little early to start self diagnosing myself, but it will be cool if I’m right. I won’t have time to go to the doctor until another week or too, so hopefully (if its not a hernia) it will go down, if not then its surgery time!

For Thanksgiving, I’m going with NAPS to Wilimington, North Carolina to do fundraising and to visit juvenile detention centers and schools. So I probably won’t be able to write an entry until I get back.

I got an MSAR!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I’m really pressed about it. After reading it over and over again, I have finally made my decision about the 10 medical schools I want to attend. I’ll also list the specific reasons I want to go there. Overall I picked my schools because of location (close to home), the average debt of graduates (I want it around $100K or lower), and whether they require a thesis for graduation. I’m not sure whether the thesis should scare me off but I truly believe that medical school is hard enough, and I really don’t want to add stress to it by writing a thesis. I really wanted to put Duke on my list, but they require a thesis, so I had to let it go. The only school I have that requires a thesis is Mayo. Anyway, here they are:

Howard University: I choose this school because its close to home and it slightly serves as a safety school. My mother doesn’t want me to go there (she had bad experiences) but I feel that the school would give me excellent clinical exposure while not killing me with debt.

John’s Hopkins University: This is not really a dream school to me, but it is defiantly a reach. I plan to do research there this upcoming summer to increase my chances of being accepted, but I want to apply here because its in my home state, it provides an excellent education, and (I’m ashamed to say) because its has a prestigious name. It will also give me a variety of cases to be exposed to because of its location and the average debt is pretty low.

University of Maryland:It is my #1 choice because of the extremely low debt of instate residents, their shock trauma hospital, there great teachers, the kindness of administrators and the fact that its in my home state. I also love the fact that they give you laptops, every lecture is online, and they only have lectures for like 2 hours a day.

Morehouse University SOM: In terms of facts from the MSAR it looks like a pretty good school. I replaced Meharry with this school because it seems like it is more together than Meharry (as a black school) and I haven’t heard as many horror stories about their Step 1 passing scores as I have heard of Meharry. They also have a really small class size, like 59, and its in Atlanta, a city I wouldn’t mind living in. This school slighty serves as a safety.

University of Cincinnati: How could I not apply here? I have more contacts at Cincinnati than I have at Oakwood, LOL. On top of that, its truly a great school, with greater teachers, loving administration, and they give nice scholarships. There are also 11 hospitals within a 20 mile radius of the school so it gives you lots of exposure to different things, and their early clinical exposure it pretty good.

Loma Linda University: Well this school is part of my church and they are also very good a preparing people clinically. The debt is pretty high but my main draw to this school is their mission work program, where (if you’re Adventist) and you go overseas to do mission work for 10 years, then they will pay off all your med school debt. That program is so appealing. I really hate that its in California, so far from home, but the mission work program is enough to pull me out there.

Mayo Clinic: This is definitely a reach school for me, but it seems (from when they came) that they like me. Also my dedication to mission work fits right in with their mission statement. Also I love that fact that their student’s average debt is crazy low (like $70K), so it will give me the opportunity to go pay off my debt quickly and go overseas. I also like their team orientated teaching style. Two things I don’t like is that fact that its in Rochester and the fact that they require a thesis for graduation. If I got in though, the low debt would be worth a thesis.

Emory University: Its in Atlanta and close to family. They also have pretty low average debt. That’s pretty much it.

Case Western: I have no desire to go here but Brittany really wants to apply there so I’m being a good boyfriend and putting it on my list. It’s a great school but I’d rather go to Cincinnati.

University of Virginia: I honestly don’t know too much about the school. Just the fact that its close to Maryland (which as you can see is a huge factor to me), has pretty low average debt, and has a pretty good name.

So yeah, please don’t write me telling me my reasons aren’t logical, because it really won’t make a difference. And in the end, where both Brittany and I get in will mitigate where I will choose. If I got into Mayo Clinic and Howard University, and Brittany only got into University of Maryland, I would pick Howard, hands down, because its close to UMD, and therefore close to her. I wouldn’t be able to stand to be away from her for so long. So yeah, I’ll stick with these schools and see which one the Lord has planned for me to attend. Peace.

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Personal statement

November 13, 2005 by DoctaJay

I know this is fast, but after reading all of your comments (some were hard to swallow but all were very constructive) I decided to make some changes. I welcome more comments but after this, I will take the advice of one of my readers and not look at it until like 2 months before its time to submit on AMCAS. Then I’ll look at it again, and see if I need to change anything. So yeah, here is my updated PS (2nd revision): I have already graduated from medical school; I’m just applying to freshen up on some things. You see my mother was about 7 months pregnant with me, as she walked across the stage to accept our diploma from the Howard University School of Medicine. Needless to say, I don’t remember much because I was confined to her womb, but I am determined to catch up on all the pertinent information I missed.

When I contemplate the question of, “Why Medicine”, I realize that it can only be answered by explaining a combination of experiences that I have had. Ever since 1993, when my dad brought home our first computer, I have been a computer geek. By the time I got to high school I was learning how to program and building computers. In the summer of 2002, my interest in medicine was sparked with a program called MITHS at the Loma Linda University School of Medicine. The program’s objective was to attract minorities into medicine. For three weeks, we took medical school classes and we learned how to speed read. It was there that I found out how much I loved learning about the circulation of the heart, the anatomy and physiology of the brain, and many other aspects of the human body. When I received Rohen’s Color Atlas of Anatomy for making the highest grade in anatomy class, my newfound desire to pursue medicine was solidified and I sought out colleges with good biology programs.

In high school I found my love for the human body, and at Oakwood College, my passion for helping others was formed. My freshmen year I joined a mission group called the National Association or the Prevention of Starvation (NAPS), in which I have had many experiences that have truly strengthened my character and changed my focus. In the summer after my freshman year I went on a mission to Zambia, Africa with NAPS. In Lusaka, the capital, we visited an AIDS clinic. Seeing hundreds of babies, children and their parents lying in cots dying changed everything. I now realized that my place was there with them, and I resolved that when I became a doctor, I would come back and help prevent AIDS from destroying more lives. While there I began my future work by helping to build the NAPS AIDS Prevention Center and by participation in a march against AIDS in Zambia’s capital. In our final destination, the United Nations refugee camp in Nangweshi and Kanja, I had another experience which reaffirmed my desire to become a doctor. After working for almost six weeks feeding children and preaching, we were on our way to from the Kanja camp to the Nangweshi camp with about 150 refugees who wanted to be baptized. Sadly, many of the children did not have shoes, and the sand was very deep there. While walking, I saw a little boy on the ground crying in pain. His toe was bleeding profusely after stubbing it on a tree stump hidden by the sand. With a Wal-Mart first-aid kit I bent down to see what I could do. After I got the bleeding to stop, I began to wipe his toe with alcohol; he winced in pain but signaled me to continue with his eyes. When I put a big band-aid on his toe, he looked up and started to thank me in Portuguese; when he realized I couldn’t understand he just smiled at me, which told me more than words ever could. He got up and ran off and I sat there with a feeling I had never had before. I wasn’t a doctor, but the little I did made him feel better, I helped him. This experience reaffirmed my desire to become a doctor, so I could have this feeling every day. We also did relief work here in the U.S. When Hurricane Rita hit, I along with 30 others NAPS members left school and drove down to Lake Charles, Louisiana. The area we happened upon looked more like a third world country than an American city. Many of the older people and those in poor neighbors couldn’t leave before the hurricane hit, and were trapped inside their houses. We cut numerous trees off houses, teamed up with the Convoy of Hope to pass out ice, and distributed hundreds of pounds of food, water, hygiene products, and other necessities. This experience and many others with NAPS formed my passion to help others and have reaffirmed my desire to become a doctor to help the underserved, especially those dying of AIDS around the world.

That same summer, after Africa, I went to the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine to conduct research. The research was very exciting, and I ended up winning 1st place in the category of Neuroscience for my poster at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students, the largest research conference for minority students in the world. Aside from research, at the University of Cincinnati, I was given the opportunity to shadow a surgery resident on his trauma rotation. While shadowing, my love for surgery was formed. On top of participating in numerous procedures, I realized that surgery suited me perfectly by satisfying my instant gratification personality while permitting substantial patient contact.

All of these experiences have shaped me into the person I am now, and have led me to the field of medicine. No longer confined to my mother’s womb, I am excited about the prospect of returning to medical school to learn everything I missed. I truly desire serve others and I intend to dedicate my life to that task.

AMCAS says I have a character count of 5,293!!! Oh yeah baby, 7 characters to spare!

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Why I decided to blog for SDN

November 8, 2005 by DoctaJay

The whole reason for me asking Dr. Imler if I could be a SDN writer was because I wanted to reveal the ups and downs, and just the overall journey of being a premed, especially a minority premed. That being said, I want readers to really walk with me as I go through this journey, which includes writing and rewriting my personal statement. For all those that dont know, the personal statement is your time to really shine in your application. Its the one part of your application where you can really show what makes you an unique candidate. Its basically supposed to answer the, “Why medicine” or the “Why do you want to be a doctor” question. So yeah, I wrote my personal statement cold in about 2 hours this summer while studying for the MCAT, so the personal statement Im posting today is my 1st rough draft. I do plan to make more edits to it, but I just wanted to show the process Im going through to get it to where I want it. Although I truly do appreciate comments concerning my personal statement, I hope you understand if I dont adopt all the advice Ill get. Its very hard to rewrite a personal statement with 30 different people telling you what you should change. Anyway, here it is: I’ve already graduated from medical school; I’m just reapplying to freshen up on some things. I know it’s hard to believe, because no one really wants to relive the stress of medical school, but I just don’t remember everything I learned. My mother was about 7 months pregnant with me, as she walked across the stage to accept our diploma from the Howard University School of Medicine. Needless to say, I don’t remember much because I was confined to her womb, but I am determined to catch up on all the pertinent information I missed.

When I contemplate the question of, “Why Medicine”, I realize that it can only be answered by explaining a combination of experiences that I’ve had. Ever since 1990, when my dad brought home our first personal computer, I’ve been a computer geek. By the time I got to high school I was teaching myself how to program, building computers, dabbling in amateur robotics, and looking into colleges with good engineering programs. I in no way contemplated medicine, because my mother was a doctor, and I wanted to be unique and I figured that I was better at computers than science. It all began with a summer program called MITHS at the Loma Linda University School of Medicine. It was a program that was supposed to attract minorities into the health field. For three weeks, we took medical school classes, and learned as much as we could. I was absolutely hooked by this program, and returned from California with a second love, medicine.

I was thinking of majoring in biomedical engineering, but I decided to keep the computer side of me a hobby and major in biology at Oakwood College. It turned out that I was actually pretty good in science, and my first year was very successful. During my freshmen year I joined a mission group called the National Association or the Prevention of Starvation (NAPS). It was in this group that I realized how satisfying it was to help someone without expecting anything in return. The smiles of gratitude I received were worth more than any grade or accolade I’ve earned. One experience in particular really solidified my desire to be a doctor. When I was in Zambia, Africa with NAPS, we were working in a United Nations refugee camp filled with refugees from Angola. About 60% of the kids there had ring worm, and it really broke my heart, because that is so easily treated if there were the funds to do it. The sand is very deep there and most of the kids don’t own any shoes. One day, as we walked to the Zambezi River with 150 people that wanted to be baptized, I saw one little boy fall to the ground in pain. Of course he didn’t have shoes, and he stubbed his toe very badly on a tree stump hidden by the sand. His toe was split open pretty badly, and was bleeding a lot. All I had was a Wal-Mart first-aid kit, so I took it out and start to clean his toe first with alcohol. He winced slightly, but then signaled with his eyes that I could continue. I cleaned everything off, and put a nice big band-aid around his toe. He tried to thank me in Portuguese, but when he realized I didn’t understand, he smiled, and that told me more than any words could. As he ran off towards the Zambezi, I sat there in awe. I realized that that was what it was all about. I wasn’t a big time surgeon yet, but I took the time to stop and help someone. As I walked away I realized that I wanted this feeling everyday. I wanted to wake up every morning whether it is in the rough streets of Baltimore or the plains of Africa, knowing that I could help someone that day.

That same summer, after Africa, I went to the University of Cincinnati to conduct research. The research was very exciting, and although I didn’t publish any papers, I did win 1st place in the category of Neuroscience for my poster at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students, the largest research conference for minority students in the world. I gained more than research experience at the University of Cincinnati; I was given the opportunity to shadow a surgery resident on the trauma part of his residency. He truly became a mentor to me and allowed me to see what the life of a trauma surgeon was really like. I saw gun shot wounds, stab wounds, car crash victims, emergency thoracotomies that couldn’t save the patient, suicide attempts, etc. I was also given the opportunity suture the chest of a patient that couldn’t be saved with a ED thoracotomy, I was taught out to anestisize a gun shoot wound, I was taught how to pull a chest tube, I assisted in the amputation of a car crash victim’s leg, I was shown how to remove scar tissue in laparoscopic surgery, how to check for a cardiac tamponade, how to examine a chest x-ray for signs of a pneumothorax, and a myriad of other things.

Needless to say, my experiences in the hospital were quite a bit more exciting than sitting in the research laboratory. Because all the doctors I shadowed were surgeons, I took quite a liking to them, and even started to walk like them! In all seriousness though, the clinical experiences at UC further reinforced my desire to become a physician, and sparked my interest in surgery.

All of these experiences have shaped me into the person I am now. The mission work has had the biggest effect on me, and I’m sure it will influence where I decide to practice. Medicine appeals to me not only because of the possibility of helping someone every day, but also because it presents intellectual and technical challenges every day. Also, as I’ve seen so far, doctors get to play with lots of computers and technical equipment, which rekindles the computer geek inside me! Apart from being academically qualified, I believe that my passion for mission work will make me a very caring physician; a physician that views their patient as more than a case, or a leg, but a person. I know that medicine is the only field that fits for me, and once I go back to medical school to relearn some things, I know I will do the field justice.

CHARACTER COUNT w/ spaces (not including line breaks)- 5,971

So yeah, that’s what I got right now. I already know a couple of things I think I need to change. First off I need to be less verbose and get my character count down to 5,300 characters. I like my 1st paragraph, but I do agree that it could use a little tweaking, but in terms of content, I think it catches the readers attention and it might even draw a chuckle. I also think that I might want to shorten my second paragraph and focus more on my mission work paragraph. Anyway, I’m still thinking of it. Once again, comments and advice are well but please don’t be mad at me if I don’t heed your advice.

In other news, life is good. I’m getting senioritis, and I’m still in my 1st semester of my junior year, so I’m really trying to motivate myself. Mammalian anatomy is getting fun, especially since Dr. Hiller (a retired internist, D.O.) has been teaching some of the lectures and giving us real life applications.

Oh also, this past Sabbath, we brought a bunch of kids from the projects (like 40) to our college to see what its like and to hold children’s programs there. Usually we hold children’s programs out where they live, but we wanted to show them what their future could be if they just stayed on the right path and continued to seek Jesus. The kids really enjoyed everything but some things kind of made me sad. Most of the kids were young, like 8 years old and younger, but one of the older ones, Edward (13 yrs old) was telling me that he was really tired. I asked him why and he told me that he had been up all night trying to keep his brother from being shot. A bunch of guys got mad at their father and were trying to take it out on his brother by shooting him; they had their guns out and everything. These are things that a 13 yr. old shouldn’t have to deal with, but many are. It almost makes you feel if as if they don’t have a chance; but hopefully the work we are doing will show them a better future. Anyway, I think I’ve written enough. Peace.

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Ok, so a lot of things have happened over the course of the past two weeks.

November 3, 2005 by DoctaJay

Ok, so a lot of things have happened over the course of the past two weeks. As you know, last week I was at UMBC for their Graduate Horizons program. Basically, they were trying to recruit minorities to their Ph.D programs. Honestly, they have a really really really really good program their which I would probably choose over Hopkins (one of the students there did) if I had to. Anyway, the program really served to prove to me that I truly do not want to get a Ph.D. There is absolutely no excitement in it for me. As the different students talked to me about their research, yeah some were interesting, but they were so excited about it, and I just couldn’t see myself doing that. They actually took some shots at M.D.s saying that when you are a physician, you can only help one person at a time, but when you are a scientist, you can help thousands of people at a time. Mehhhh, there is some truth to that, but in terms of saving lives, there are very few Ph.Ds to me that are actually doing that. I could be wrong, but yeah, that’s how I feel. Anyway, in summary, UMBC is a great school that if I choose to get my Ph.D, I would go to. The Lord is really good. And I am realizing more and more that I’m really not accomplishing anything on my own. I took my plant biology test two weeks ago, and I was really down after I took it. I had written out my notes, but I waited till the night before to study them for the test, so going into the test I didn’t feel like I completely mastered the information and after the test I felt like I got a lot incorrect. Now normally I wouldn’t feel too bad, but since I missed the first test due to being on the Hurricane Rita mission, this test was going to count double on my grade. The prospect of getting two 70%s on a test was about to give me an ulcer. Anyway stress is a result of not remembering how the Lord brought you out of the situation before, so after awhile I prayed and gave it to the Lord, and it was out of site out of mind. Anyway, we get our tests back on Monday and I got a 90%!!! Then I found out that that was the 2nd highest grade on that test!!!! Now of course, I didn’t want all that, but the Lord went above and beyond what I asked Him for! Anyway, what I learned from that experience is that for medical school I’m not going to be able to cram the night before. I need to be constantly studying every night so I can grasp the information. So that’s what I’m going to endeavor to do. As you all know, this past Sunday and Monday, The Dean of Mayo Clinic Medical School, the Dean of Mayo Clinic Graduate School, and Barbara Porter the Director of Admissions were at Oakwood College. They gave us a WEALTH of information, and I’m going to share as much as I can. The first person that got up was the Dean of the medical school, Dr. Linder (I think). This is the important stuff I wrote down; he told us: Mayo Clinic is known for its multispecialty, integrated group practice. We are all about teamwork, and many of the doctors are highly specialized, so just about any case that is presented, an expert exists to give his opinion. In everything that we do, the needs of the patient come first. We believe that research and education are integral to our organization. Mayo Clinic is a NON-FOR-PROFIT health center, so all the doctors are on steady salaries. Therefore whether a doctor runs more tests, or less tests, he’ll still get paid the same. Therefore, you have less prevalence of doctors at Mayo Clinic, ordering 1,000 tests to cover their butts. This also gives Mayo doctors the opportunity to teach more because they won’t be penalized by not doing extra; they’ll still get paid the same amount of money. All in all, this ensures that the patient gets the best care. Mayo Clinic has about 160 medical students. Physicians usually make the administrative decisions at Mayo Clinic. So when important decisions are made, they are made with the patients in mind, not by business professionals who don’t know about patients care.

Mayo Clinic normally performs above and beyond other schools. Take a look at these numbers:

  U.S. Med Schools Mayo 2005 Mayo 2004 Mayo 2003
URM 8% 19% 17.5% 22.7%
Step 1 216 227 227 235
Graduate % 93.7 100 100 100
Authoring 33% 80% 80% 82%

As you can see, Mayo Clinic leads in accepting minorities, we lead in Step 1 scores, we lead in the number of students we graduate, and we lead in the number of our students publishing articles.

The average students at Mayo Clinic should expect to be about $4,500 in debt a year. (I said WOW to this). We keep out student body small so we can make sure that our students aren’t worrying about money but are free to help serve mankind. We also have scholarships for our medical students to help them if they decide to work in undeserved areas. Mayo Clinic truly tries to look beyond the numbers.

Things you should know about Mayo Clinic are our Diversity Initiatives, which include:
Diversity Scholarship Program
Prematriculation/Transition activities
URM Lunches
MCCM Multicultural Center
HBCU relationships
Active engagements with premedical advisors

Although there has been a mandate by the AAMC, Mayo Clinic will not increase the size of its classes, once again to make sure that the students we have very little debt. He said some other things, and then the Dean of the Graduate School got up to talk. I didn’t write down anything he said because I’m interested in a M.D., but something he said was really interesting. He was going down the list of things they look for in the applicant, and out of 10 items, GRE score was at the bottom at the list. And he continued to stress how much more they were interested in the other parts of your application.

Anyway, after that Barbara Porter (who is a really great lady by the way) got up to speak. The important stuff I thought she mentioned is below:
I suggest that you have a broad spectrum of schools that you apply to. Have some schools that you definitely think, based on numbers and school selectivity, you can get into, then have some schools that are in the middle in terms of your chances, then list a couple of dream schools.

UNDERGRADUATE YEARS IN REVIEW
The choice of an undergraduate institution is important, but not very (which is clear because as selective as Mayo Clinic is, two Oakwood students have been accepted into their medical schools recently. Your choice of major is important, but not very. Mayo actually likes non-science majors. Your timing is EXTREMELY important. Meaning that when you take the MCAT, think Spring, to maximize your chances. Now of course, when they change to the computer format you will have more options, but for now, think Spring MCAT. Also, in dealing with applications, APPLY early. Like the day AMCAS turns on, you should have your information ready to submit.

SELECTION CRITERIA
The overall breadth and dept of your academic profile and personal experiences is what matters. Don’t be afraid to list your academic achievements. Mayo DEFINITETLY wants to see commitment to service, humanism, and altruistic values. For example, I have to look over a lot of applications, and some times I take them home. Well one day, my daughter saw an application of a student from Harvard with a 4.0, and a 38 on his MCAT, and I was marking red all over it. She asked me why I was rejecting him. I told her that although this student has many academic awards, there is absolutely no example of him/her stepping outside his/her self and help others. This truly happened and it shows you the importance to Mayo Clinic about service.

START SCREEN SCORE/ CUT OFF SCORE
Many schools have this, but Mayo Clinic has a screen score. This screen score basically is a score that gets you into the pool of applicants that we consider for an interview. At Mayo Clinic you need to have at least a 60 screen score to be considered. To calculate your screen score you use this equation: 10 X GPA + MCAT score = screen score . The average MCAT score at Mayo is a 32, the average GPA at Mayo is a 3.8, and the average screen score at Mayo is a 70. Now remember, these are averages, so there are many below and many above.

Mayo Clinic also requires one extra class for you to apply. On top of Biology, G. Chem, O. Chem, and Physics, Mayo Clinic requires you to take Biochemistry.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES
Mayo Clinic is looking to train physicians that will serve society and be leaders. In terms of extracurricular activities, we care more about PATTERNS than CHECKLISTS. Meaning we would rather see you stick to a couple things than you list 1000 different volunteering experiences. We also care more about DURATION than QUANTITY. So once again, we would rather see you volunteer for something for 2 months in the summer than you volunteer for 1,000 different organizations. And once again, Mayo puts on value judgments on your extracurricular activities. We don’t hold mission work, over working with the Peace Corps, over doing religious medical missions.

Mayo likes to see community service, healthcare service, healthcare exploration, research, leadership, and overall breadth and depth. What else matters at Mayo is diversity, athletes (like those), relevant professional work experiences, international travel (like that), extensive worldviews, and mastery of a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th language.

As many people like to know just how selective Mayo is (we are the most selective), here are some numbers: 3000 apply
1800 make the screen score
500 advance to the secondary process which includes telephone interviews and LORs
250 are invited on site
50-60 appointments to medical school are made
Only 42 actually spots are available in the medical school, less even for the M.D. only (34 are M.D., 6 are M.D./PhD., 2 are oral maxofacial surgery studuents)

Mayo medical school is in the middle of everything on the campus, so there is no real driving around. Mayo Medical school WAIVES the grades for the first two years because they want very little competition; that’s why we have a Pass/Fail system. The fact is that everyone in medical school is smart, but someone has to be in the bottom 50% of the class, therefore why worry about your class standing when all of you will be doctors? That’s why Mayo uses Pass/ Fail. At Mayo there is no competitive atmosphere. In fact, Harvard, Mayo and another medical school are the only medical schools in the country that don’t have a Medical School Honor Socitey, for the simple fact that is counterproductive. Its counterproductive because you have to choose the top 15% to be in the Society, but in their class, you are talking about 9 people, which really doesn’t make sense.

The average debt of Mayo graduates is $60,000. If you decide to do an M.D./J.D. the tuition is waived for law school and you are given $10,000 towards room and board.

All in all, it was a very very informative day. They next day, Monday, Barbara Porter stayed back to hold group mock interviews in the Biology department. She told us that its very good to do mock interviews to be ready for the excitement of being asked questions in an interview. She also said that professionalism is very important at Mayo, which includes you décor, you dress (remember medicine is a very conservative field), talk (don’t use slang like, “Wow Ms. Porter, that’s cool.” Say, “That’s amazing Mrs. Porter”. )

Remember the three million dollar questions that you should ALWAYS have in your pocket ready to answer. 1) Why do you want to be a physician? Make sure you have succinct answers always ready. Make sure your answer goes along with personal statement 2) Why do you want to go to this X school? Please, no general stuff. Use very specific reasons as to why, and do your homework first to found out about the school. 3) Tell me about yourself. They want to know your strengths, weaknesses, goals, joys, aspirations, etc. Say all this in a very short, brief manner. Stories are always good, and it helps the interviewer remember you when he/she presents your file to the admissions committee.

Make sure you keep up on current issues like health disparities, the uninsured, biotechnology, cloning, euthasia, Terry Shiavo, etc. When you are asked a question about a current issue that you don’t know about, don’t be afraid to said that you haven’t quite researched that topic yet. Pleaes, DO NOT make up something to try to sound knowledgeable. We can see right through that.

When asked if you are applying to other schools, SAY YES. When they ask you which ones, don’t be afraid to tell you, they are usually asking this question to see how broad of a school selection you have.

Make sure you say thank you when you leave, and make sure you sand a HAND WRITTEN, PERSONAL thank you card back to your interviewer.

Mayo has 1,100 residents, and about 40% of them graduated from Mayo medical school. Mayo has about 89 operating suites and more MRI machines than the whole country of Canada. You can’t apply as a faculty to Mayo, you are only invited. The lowest MCAT she’s every accepted into the school was a 24, but this person has A LOT of extracurricular experiences.

Overall I can say that I was quite impressed with Mayo Clinic, and all the preconceived ignorant notions I had about Mayo have been dispelled. The fact that they are so dedicated to missions are reduced the debt of their medical schools to promote service really impressed me. That fact that there are only 34 actual M.D. students means that there are much more faculty to med students, which means more support when you have problems. I also like that if you decide to do a mission, they’ll literally fund the project. Anyway, I’m definitely adding Mayo to my list of schools I’m apply to. We’ll see how that goes.

Hopefully this post was helpful. I got carpal tunnel syndrome from typing it, but it was well worth it :-).

No Comments / Posted in Pre-Med

Hey everyone. Today I leave for Nashville to fly to Maryland for that UMBC thing.

October 26, 2005 by DoctaJay

Hey everyone. Today I leave for Nashville to fly to Maryland for that UMBC thing. I made another entry because I remember some other things that Dr. Hadley from LLU said. On Sabbath, Dr. Hadley was invited to the chair of our Biology department’s house for dinner. The chair, Dr. Paul, in turn also invited a couple of Biology majors to the potluck also to I guess just fellowship and talk personally with Dr. Hadley and his wife. I wasn’t there for the first 3 hours, because I was at another potluck, but when I came I did get a good amount of information. Dr. Hadley talked about a couple of things:

1) He talked about how he was at some conference in California, where the admissions deans of all the medical schools in Southern California met. He is not the admissions dean, but he was filling in for his admissions dean. Well, he had only been a dean for about 3 months, and the admissions dean from USC (I can’t remember which one) came up to him and said, “Are you Dr. Hadley, the new dean of Loma Linda?” And he told her yes. Then she proceeded to tell him how envious she was of his job. He then asked her why, since certainly, LLU didn’t have the financial backing that their school did. She told him that she envies LLU because from the beginning, it has always been very clear what kind of students LLU is looking for. What kind of values, ethics, and practices they are looking for in their students, and their clear cut focus on mission work. She said at her school, it seems like every year they are changing what kind of students they want. One year they want people with amazing life experiences, the next year, they want older students, married students, and more minorities, etc, etc. So yeah, Dr. Hadley said it was nice that the other schools looked at LLU that way.

2)He also told us that he has looked at study, after, study, after study, and he has not seen any correlation between MCAT scores and being a good doctor, or board scores and being a good doctor. He reminded us that it is possible to determine that quality of a doctor by surveying their colleagues, patients, staff, teachers, attendings, etc. But yeah, he also said that they HAVE seen a correlation between how well you do on your MCAT score and how well you do on your Step I board scores. He exclaimed that it truly pained his heart that they couldn’t actually quantify the quality of a doctor early on, but he said they still must have some cut off points. He also said that that really is what the interview is for. They are just really looking to see that you aren’t some kind of super intelligent nut job or jerk.

3) He also said that when you go to interview for residencies, they definitely aren’t looking at your MCAT scores, and they are kind of looking at your board scores. What they are really looking for he said is your ability to work with others, and your performance with patients. He said that if the deans notice that they have some kind of introvert with no bedside manners, they will usually try to guide him/her to radiaolgy, anesthesiology, or pathology.

4) I also asked him about how I would go about answering the “What’s the biggest problem in healthcare today” question. And he said that of course it’s the 40 million uninsured Americans that is the answer. And that something must be done, and he thinks that the ultimate path is going to be socialized medicine. He said if physicians could somehow offer care to all Americans, and chose not to (i.e.- wasn’t willing to make a sacrifice to make that happen) then that is morally incomprehensible. I’m not 100% sure how I feel about socialized medicine, but he does make a point. If our purpose for being doctors was to help as many people as possible, and we overlooked an opportunity to provide care to all of America, it would seem kind of wrong. Now I know that socialized healthcare isn’t as clean cut and dry as Dr. Hadley makes it seem, but it makes for a compelling argument.

5) He also said that the reason why a lot of people don’t get accepted to Loma Linda is because of their answer to their question, “Are you will to abide by LLU’s non-alcohol policy?”. He said really, all they want is a simple answer, “YES”. But he said that a lot of people, and sadly a lot of Adventists give conditional answers like, “Yes I will abide, but only if LLU continues to uphold the standards of the church”, or “Yes I will abide, but only if LLU makes sure that the other students in my class abide.”. He said that when people put things like that down, no matter if they are Adventist or not they aren’t going to take them.

6) He also said that his job is kind of hard, especially as an Adventist, because when a Adventist family’s son or daughter doesn’t get in, and they know Dr. Hadley, they will call him to ask him why their, highly qualified son/daughter didn’t get in. He said that usually it’s because that person BLEW the interview. He said that his first cousin (while he was Dean), whose last name was also Hadley didn’t get in because she blew the interview, and there was really nothing he could do. So yeah, the interview is very important .

Anyway he said some other things, but yeah I can’t remember it. On another note, this Mayo Clinic thing that is happening on Sunday at my school is REALLY REALLY serious. The Dean of Mayo Medical school is coming, the Assistant Dean of the Mayo Medical school is coming, the Dean of the Mayo Graduate school is coming, and the Director of Diversity of Mayo is coming. They will be talking about how to write personal statements, interviews, their school, and they will also be holding mock interviews on Monday. Oakwood is a very small school, and I know its only the Lord’s blessings that is opening up doors like this. I’m really just excited about Mayo’s prestige. I don’t think I would want to go there. A couple of kids from my school have done research there, and they said that first, the closest Adventist church is like 1 ½ hours away, and there are no black people with in a 50 mile radius. Not the kind of environment I want to be in. Anyway, I’ll write about my experiences at UMBC later. Peace.

No Comments / Posted in Pre-Med

post MCAT

October 21, 2005 by DoctaJay

Wow, I really do want to thank all those who gave me encouraging comments regarding my MCAT score. I was almost sure that I’d get flamed because on SDN even a 34 on your MCAT is considered low, LOL. But yeah, anyway, a good amount of stuff has been happening. I guess I really have been slacking in talking about my classes as a premed student. As you all know, I’m taking Plant Biology, Mammalian (Gross) Anatomy, Intro to Research, Art Appreciation, and a religion course. Most of these classes are pretty easy, but just annoying. The class I want to focus on is our Mammalian Anatomy class. My school, like a few other schools has been blessed to have a cadaver lab in the Biology department. What happened is that usually our graduates were failing out of medical school because they couldn’t handle Gross Anatomy when they got there. So what happened is that the chair of our department sent a teacher to Loma Linda University School of Medicine, and the teacher actually took the Gross Anatomy class there. Then that teacher came back and started teaching students the same way at Oakwood College, and not one student has failed out since (its been like 10 years). Anyway, now we have 4 bodies, and we basically go through just how it is in medical school. The teacher can’t get as deep as they do in medical school, but shoot, they sure do pack as much as they can. Over all, I’VE LOVED THE CLASS. Honestly, when it comes to doing well in this class, utilizing your atlas and OPEN LABS is vital. When you are actually dissecting (at least me) I don’t feel like I can actually learn anything, it’s just mechanical dissection. It’s during the open labs that you actually get a chance to learn stuff. We use the same books they use in medical school; for the main book Clinically Oriented Anatomy, by Keith Moore, and for atlases, we are supposed to use Grant’s, but I got the Rohen Atlas because it has real pictures of the cadavers not drawings. Honestly, the Grant’s atlas has more detail, but I love my Rohen atlas. I’ll probably end up buying the Grant’s atlas and using both. But yeah, we just had our midterm and it was massive. It covered all we’ve dissected including all the back muscles, the muscles of the chest, the muscles of the shoulder, arm, forearm, and hand, all the vessels, nerves, and veins that run through the axilla, all the bones between the skull and the two femurs, origins, insertions, innervations, blood supplies, clinical terms associated with all the above, and other crap. It’s a lot of information, and the fact that its not as detailed as medical school scares me as to what I have to face ahead. Anyway, it’s a great class, and I should be ahead of the game, because I’m taking it as a Junior, I’ll be teaching it next year as a lab instructor, and then I’ll take the class again my 1st year of medical school.

The Dean of the Loma Linda School of Medicine, Dr. Hadley, came to hold interviews and give a presentation today. He’s a really great guy. Yesterday, I actually had an interview with another admissions guy from LLU SOM, and he basically told me that although my MCAT score isn’t stellar, I’m on track to getting into medical school. They really seemed to like my GPA more than my MCAT score .

Anyway, back to Dr. Hadley. So yeah, he basically held group interviews for all the non seniors and we got a chance to talk to him. In this group interview he basically wanted to know why we choose medicine; so we went around the table answering his question. On the real, I’ve been in Adventist school since Kindergarten, so for medical school I really wanted to go to a non-Adventist school, hence Loma Linda was very low on my list, but he really sold me on LLU because of a special program they have. Loma Linda is the only medical school which still overtly pushes Christian values and education in their curriculum (at least that’s what they told me). Anyway, he told me how LLU has always focused on mission work especially over seas mission (which yall know that I LOVE). Anyway you are given the opportunity to do foreign mission work at least one weekend every month, and then you can take an extended mission trip for 2 months after your first year. After that, if you show that you are committed to doing mission work, what you do is, is that you go do your residency. And then, if you commit to do medical mission work overseas, and you do it for at least 10 years, Loma Linda will pay back your medical school loans 100%!!! Now they don’t talk about this program, because they really only allow Adventists to do it (from a theological stand point you can see why, Georgetown [Catholic] wouldn’t want to send an Adventist to do mission work, and vise versa). Anyways, they are still tweaking some things, but it sounds like the perfect program for Brittany and I. Yall know I’m interested in Trauma Surgery, and he told me that General Surgery, especially in underdeveloped countries is the best specialty to have as a medical missionary. The best thing about it is that you are required to also hold evangelistic meetings, so you get to physically heal in the day, and spiritually heal at night. And the way they do it, is that when you volunteer during medical school to do mission work, you are actually working with a doctor who is part of their “pay you back in 10 years” program. So yeah, I think it is really cool. I want to give the Lord the best years of my life, and although it seems like a long time, I’m positive that I will enjoy it thoroughly. Anyway, after hearing about this program, LLU moved to second on my list, and if I got into both UMD and LLU, I would really have to pray and fast about that one.

Anyway, during his presentation, we learned a lot about Loma Linda, and what they are doing. He talked about being a surgeon and balancing a family, and an Internist attending that accompanied him also talked on that subject. After his presentation, someone in the crowd asked him, “Dr. Hadley. If you have two applicants, one with a high GPA and a low MCAT score, and one with a high MCAT score and a low GPA, which one do you look on more favorably?” It was a good question and I appreciated his answer too. Basically he told us that no one should depend on one part of their application to make up for something else that is lacking. He said if they have a student who as done a ton of research, won a noble prize, has a 4.0 GPA, and a 38 on his MCAT, but when he walks into the interview he basically tells them that he should be accepted because he is God’s gift to science and his patients will run to see him, they won’t accept him, of course because of his arrogance. Despite his great stats, that didn’t make up for his horrible personality. In the same way he said, they really want you to have both a good GPA and good MCAT score, but they do weigh things differently. For instance he said, as a Dean, if he sees someone with a high MCAT score, but a low GPA, that tells him that this student is probably a great test taker, but he doesn’t apply himself in class. He joked and said that the kid is probably playing video games the night before a test, betting on his wit in the test to get him by. He said this may work, but when it comes time to residency, this student will be the most frustrated because when they go for interviews before the MATCH, these people aren’t so much focused on your board scores as much as they are concerned about how responsible you are, how you work in groups, how you interact with patients, etc. So in the end, if he had to choose, he would choose a high GPA, over a high MCAT score and a low GPA, but he said if someone’s MCAT score or GPA is too low, its clear that they just aren’t going to be able to make it in medical school. Anyway, it was encouraging to hear that from the Dean of the medical school.

Next week, from Wednesday to Saturday, I’m going to be in Maryland for this UMBC graduate school Horizons program. Basically, they fly minorities out to their school to show them their program, and encourage them to apply their for graduate school. I just signed up because it’s a free trip home, LOL.

Also, I’m really excited because next week Sunday, the admission director for Mayo Medical school, and Mayo Graduate School, and the Mayo Medical school director of diversity are coming to Oakwood to hold interviews and give a presentation. The Lord is really blessing us, because Mayo is big time. I think they are coming because they were so impressed with an Oakwood who did research there this past summer. Anyway, I hope they will let me interview, even though I’m a Junior. But yeah, I’ll keep yall posted on that.

At this point, that is all that is going on with me. I’ll post again when something interesting happens.

1 Comment / Posted in Pre-Med

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