Need to level up

Its really been hitting me recently that I'm now half way through 4th year. We are now clearly on the downhill portion of my medical school journey. But it also means less time to get those required experiences checked off my list.

My post-grad group has been very popular especially lately. I've managed to secure some great speakers to run info-sessions on getting into various English speaking residencies and inspired one member to start a spin-off group for those who want to pursue residency in German.

But I've also been attending some of these sessions too, because I also have a lot to learn and recently a friend of mine did one on the USA. He really reinforced how much the average med student as accomplished before even getting accepted into medical school and how these are the people we are competing with for residency. I mean, it's not that different in Canada.

And as much as I'd love to be able to say "HEY! I graduated med school with three kids!"  its really not going to be enough. I need to push myself to do more, to improve my CV and overall experiences.

I've started to work on a research paper on the attitudes of medical students in Poland towards abortion. I found a great mentor to help me, but I'm still waiting for approval from our school's ethics committee. I heard they can take ages though so I thought I'd just start doing the analysis and write up of the report. My mentor suggested that I present it as an abstract at a medical student conference coming up in May so I want to try and finish my preliminary work for it in the next few weeks to meet the deadline.

Next my husband suggested that since I've received both doses of the covid vaccine already, that I volunteer at some local clinics. I've called two of them already and have received a very positive response and will hear back soon as to when etc they need me. I told them I'm willing to help out in any fashion.  To be honest, I have been feeling a bit guilty, for lack of a better word, that I was able to get the vaccine so early. I think its a bit crazy for us med students to get it, when most of our courses are online. And also a bit pointless - I contacted the IM department at my university to see if I can finally complete my mandatory IM summer practice that I was supposed to do last summer, and was still told I can't because of COVID, because they still don't know if we can transmit the virus to others Sigh. So I'm just sitting at home, with all my classes on MS Teams for the next few weeks. When I mentioned this to my husband he told me to try locally instead. And that way I can both be useful, close to home and potentially include it in my CV, even if it won't count towards my practical experience requirement. 

So thats my plan for now. That and reaching out to all my contacts to see what I can do to maximize my chances of landing a Canadian residency. I have a call with the son of a good friend of my dad's who is a family doctor in BC. He already mentioned he talked to his program director about me and will tell me everything he knows. 

I'm really hoping that I'm able to do an elective rotation somewhere in Canada this September. From my talks with other IMGs this seems to be one of the main keys to having a shot. And the more I can do, the better. Especially if I can score a strong letter of recommendation out of it. And fingers crossed my vaccinated status will allow me to skip the quarantine so I can maximize my time doing rotations and hopefully, see my parents and sisters finally! Its now been 1.5 YEARS since I saw them last. 

Another thing I want to do is subscribe to a question bank for the first part of the Canadian medical licensing exam. One tip I learned, that makes sense, is to start doing the questions NOW, even though I won't be writing the exam for like a year and a half. The guy recommending this said that it will just make me that much more familiar with the style of questions and the patterns - so even if I don't KNOW that topic yet, it will prepare me much better than simply studying the content. 

So that's me for now. Lots to do. 

Words of encouragement

I'm funny when it comes to being encouraged. I mean, I love being encouraged, knowing there are people rooting for me and am flattered by people when they say they think I can do something. However, it really doesn't hold much water with me if they don't know much about what they are encouraging me for. For example, with this MD pursuit, hearing "oh, but you'll get in for SURE" is actually a little annoying because the majority of people who say it clearly have NO idea how competitive it is (on the flip side though, I think that is still better than hearing "Well, I don't mean to discourage you but I don't think you'll get in" like my grandmother said to me, also have no clue about the process but just to be negative). But  I much prefer hearing "Good for you for trying this - I really hope you get in".

That being said, I recently received some amazing words of encouragement from my family doctor, who I've been volunteering for in his clinical trials research and helping out as a physician's assistant. He not only told me that he's very proud of me but he really thinks that I'll make it - and when I do, he said he wants me to work with him in his practice! He was very sincere about it all and reminded me to get him to write me a letter of recommendation. He also mentioned that his is an associate professor at two universities in Ontario (one of which is one of my top choices) so this gave me a lot of hope that it will really stand out.

What he said to me meant so much because he has been through it all and he's a current medical student teacher (he teaches the family medicine rotations for two universities). He knows what they look for in students and he thinks that I have what it takes. This is the first time that I've had encouragement that has real depth to it and its incredibly motivating, especially since I have incredible respect for him as a physician. He is who I hope to channel if I become a family physician.

On that positive note, I'm going to sign off. Unfortunately, today I have to take Tubes back to the children's hospital for a follow up ultrasound of his bowels. I'll write about our little scare last weekend with him later.

Volunteering

One of the requirements for a strong medical school application is some sort of volunteer work. Although there is no magical number of hours required or places for volunteering, from what I've been reading (and honestly its common sense too), consistency is better than haphazard volunteering, and there are better and worse places to volunteer for sure. Experience where you can get hands on experience dealing with patient or really, just people in general, is much better than sitting in an office or doing administrative tasks. Areas that give you a glimpse of what it is like to be a doctor are also good because it will give you real experiences to mention when asked in an interview  "What do you know about what it is that doctors do?".

Anyway, in So you want to be a Doctor, eh? The author also notes that its important to get a meaningful experience out of the volunteer work. So in researching places to volunteer, I definitely kept this in mind. My mom made a great suggestion that I should look to volunteer at this Polish independent living and long term nursing home. Its an excellent choice (at least, I think so) because a) being of Polish background and speaking the language fluently will make me useful - plus it makes it more meaningful, b) it will give me the opportunity to deal with the residents there, most of whom will have some sort of medical issues (they can't help it, they are old) and c) its close to my house.

I went there today and met with the volunteer coordinator who was very excited for me to join. She was incredibly nice and was very enthusiastic and supportive of my desire to be a doctor. I was honest and told her that I'm looking to get this experience because I need it to apply to medical school but also because it will be a great way to see what it is to deal with sick people. To be honest, this will be the first true test for me to see if this really is something that I want to do in practice and not just in theory. Luckily she completely agreed with me and said that they will write me a very strong and positive letter of recommendation too (and she volunteered this without even my asking!).

I'm really looking forward to it actually. On Friday I go for orientation and then I was asked to attend a lecture on palliative care on Saturday morning, which should be very interesting.

And so it begins!

Whew! The last few weeks have been a real whirlwind. But....I'm DONE with work! I have to admit it took me a while to decompress and de-stress after that last week. I'm always like that. I remember even in University, after mid-terms or finals were over, I never felt that instant relief of being done...it always took a few days at least.

But I'm done, and have started full steam ahead with my prep for getting into medical school. Yesterday I finally got a chance to do my first lab for my Bio course. It was a lot of fun actually and I can't wait to do the next one. I've given myself a fairly aggressive schedule and timeline to finish this course because 1) its just a 1/2 course and I need to complete it to start the second half, 2) I signed up for a "hyperlearning" MCAT course that begins in less than a month and 3) I also need to sign up for another Life Science course. So my goal is to write the midterm by November 8th/9th if possible and the final before Christmas.

So I'm going to be busy. My mother-in-law asked me what it feels like to be a "lady of leisure" the other day but to be honest, I don't know because I just have so much on my plate.

Next up are finding some volunteering opportunities. There are two things that I really want to do. The first is to volunteer at this Polish nursing home. We have a family friend who is there and he is the nicest man. I'd love to go there on a regular basis even if just to see him and make his day a little less boring. Being of Polish background myself may also be a big bonus. The second is that I really want to shadow my family doctor, who is also a great guy. He also has a research company and am hoping that he might have a few projects that I could help him out with. Third is that I want to get in touch with some people who I would like to ask for a letter of recommendation. Even though I'm pretty much a year away from applying, I don't want to spring this huge request on these people who I respect and admire - and also want to have time to find a back up in the event that they can't or don't want to do it.

So...I'm really excited to finally be able to focus on this!