Finals. Finally.

Wow. This has been a stressful few weeks.

Almost done. Almost done. I keep telling myself this in the hopes that I will believe this and find comfort. Tomorrow morning at 8 am I have my organic chemistry final. I am on the edge of having an A or a B in this class, so if I do really well on my final I will get an A. If not I have a REALLY good chance of getting a B. I am trying to resign myself to being okay with a B but I am REALLY not.

Tuesday night I have my embryology final. There is NO way I can get an A, but I can EASILY get a B.

And after that, I am DONE. I am going to the fat farm to get put on Adipex. :) Time to lose this school stress weight! ;)

Death and Families

I came across this on another blog:



I felt that it needed to be shared here. This comes from the blog - Asystole is the Most Stable Rhythm.

This is especially appropriate because I lost my beloved grandmother last week. She was 90 and in good health. Her death was very sudden. She had a DNR about 12 years ago, but WAS resuscitated at the hospital because they couldn't find her paperwork. Later she admitted that she was glad that they couldn't find it-  and she had several WONDERFUL years left in her. She passed away Wednesday morning, in her own home, under her own terms. Family members wanted to see her live in an independent living type home, but she insisted on living in her own house, and she got her wish. I am grateful for her life, and for her guidance throughout my life, and I will miss her dearly.

Registered for Spring!

Our school had open registration for juniors at 5 am this morning. (Yesterday was seniors and grad students, tomorrow is sophomores, etc). I set my alarm for 4:55 and got up and registered. It went pretty quickly because I had my class numbers all ready to go, so I just entered the numbers of my preferred classes and it registered me. I did try to register at 4:59 - and the website reminded me that I was not allowed to register until 5 am. I had to log out and log back in. Talk about being eager!

So Spring Semester I am taking Organic Chem 2, plus the lab, Immunology, Cell bio and the lab, calculus, chapel and resistance training.

This will be my last semester of math, chapel and PE! Very exciting to be moving ahead and getting to those real "pre-med" classes.

Summer semester is physics 1 and 2 and the MCAT.

And then I will take histology, medical physiology, gross anatomy, neuroanatomy, all of those fun classes. :)

I'm ready.

Frustrated. . .

My grades have not been what I expected this semester. I have had more Bs than I would like and I have found it a struggle to get even those. Math (which has been my easiest subject in the past) is a struggle this time, and I have met with my professor twice outside of class, plus I visited the Math Tutoring Center this week for extra help on my Trig test today. I will find out what I made Friday, but I am pretty sure it was a B . . .or lower. My first test in there was also a B. I am trying to resign myself to these Bs but it is not easy for me.   Then there is genetics. Yesterday was our first test in there, and I left that room feeling pretty good. I was POSITIVE I had made an A.  Today he posted our grades and OH no, it was not an A. It was not a B. It was not a C. I have a D. The class average was a 58 and I earned a lovely 64. I hyperventilated outside of his office. He tried to reassure me that I would still end up with an A in his class. I left feeling panicky and shaky. This was NOT what I expected. I work my butt off and these are not the grades I want to be getting.

A part of me wonders: am i smart enough for this? Have I bitten off more than I can chew? What would I do if I wasn't doing this?

Midterm Fun.

Ugh. I have 2 tests and a quiz this week. I should be studying genetics, but i am posting here instead? What is wrong with me?

I almost feel burnt out on the studying. And I know that I have SOOO much more studying to do, and that next semester is going to be really really hard compared to this one, and that I need to figure out how to force myself to buckle down in order to do this. But sometimes I JUST DON'T WANNA! :(

I stayed late at school today to go to the math tutoring center for a little extra help for the trig test Wednesday and then to a Chemistry seminar that was WAY over my head. Basically it was about the substances that the grad students at another university are synthesizing and how they made one crystal with Zirconium and a different crystal with palladium. We got to see the crystal though and that was pretty interesting. The seminar was worth 2 extra points on our midterm. Always a good idea.

My midterm grades were about what i expected- I have an A in everything except Embryology, where I have a B. Luckily my last test was an A so hopefully I will be able to bring this up and finish it out with an A.  I have a quiz in there tomorrow night so hoping for good numbers (maybe bonus points???)  that class is more detailed than I thought it would be. I keep telling myself that it is good practice for those later biology classes with tons of memorization - like  physiology or gross anatomy . . . those classes scare me. I am excited to take them but scared nonetheless.

Anyway, a test and a quiz tomorrow, better get some sleep. . . .

They Make Me Cry. . .

I have a problem. I read blogs. Medical blogs. But not the medical blogs that are written by doctors. Those are distant, and technical. The blogs I read are written by Moms whose Congenital Heart Disease babies have died. Moms who are grieving the loss of babies that they had prayed would be healed. Moms whose babies were born with broken hearts and whose hearts ended up broken when those babies were taken from them too soon.

My heart aches for these mothers. It breaks my heart to read their pain. I have never myself suffered the loss of a baby that was born at term- only a 1st trimester miscarriage. I don't personally know the pain these women are suffering. As a mother myself, I can imagine.

This is why I want to work in the NICU. This is why I want to be an pediatric cardiologist. This is what inspires me.

Amazing Experience Job-Shadowing

This week I had a fall break at my school. I spent it job-shadowing a pediatric ENT. It was an amazing experience. I saw a ton of surgery - I saw two different kinds of ear tubes, a tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy, lymph node removal, bronchoscopies. . . .just so much stuff. It was amazing. It wasn't just seeing the surgical procedures that reinforced my desire to be a doctor, but seeing the doctor's interaction with his patients, and the confident way that he carried himself, and the way all of the different patients and their families respected him. I was so impressed with this doctor. He was very helpful and encouraging to me, and even got me in to see an adult sinus surgery and introduced me (by NAME!!) and said that I was an "excellent MC student". . . words cannot even describe.

Anyway, now I have a renewed passion for my studies. I have a renewed desire for a career in medicine. I went to Borders today to study for my Organic Chemistry test Monday; I got there at 10:30 this morning and left at 5:30 this evening. Insanity. I see my goals so much more clearly now.

Wednesday I had to participate in a Writing Proficiency Exam for school. Mississippi College requires that all of its students pass this particular test to guarantee that their graduates have some writing skills. Anyway, the test was through ACT, and it took about 2 hours. The multiple choice part was very easy, but the essay part was interesting. There were 2 essays and we had 20 minutes apiece to complete these. The first one I tried to write a thesis and brainstorm some ideas before I started writing, but the 5 minute warning came and I hadn't finished my thoughts. I scrambled to finish my last paragraph and BARELY finished in time. So for the second essay I decided to scrap the idea of brainstorming and just write. I was able to finish this one but barely. I felt that the essay section was harder than the multiple choice by far. I am just glad that is over, and I am pretty sure I passed.

Pre-Med Students - Like or Dislike?

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/04/top-5-reasons-t/

According to this article in wired.com, the Medical School application process causes pre-med students to act in a way that they dislike.

I will admit, the Adderall thing - I have been tempted. I have not gone that route, because I know that I would like it. A lot.

The point about pre-med students trying to get that A by any means necessary, and choosing classes because the professors are "easy", yes, I can see that. Although I will admit that I took inorganic chemistry 1 with a tough professor, and worked HARD for my A, but I felt like that class really helped me learn. I try to keep in mind that all of these subjects WILL come back to haunt me on the MCAT so I should try to learn them well so that it will be easy to recall them when I need to.

I thought this was an interesting article. I have definitely seen the things they speak of. :) I may have even been guilty of these sins from time to time. I DO believe that I try to learn because of my curiosity. I am VERY naturally curious.

So Much Studying To Do!

I have a test Tuesday. In Embryology - which is a class that requires a lot of memorization. So I have a lot of memorizing to do. :) Tomorrow I will be heading to Borders with my brain turned on and ready to study study study! Hoping to get the majority of this memorization done there. Of course, my friend Jennie asked me if I would help her with her chemistry too. Here's my thought process on helping her with chemistry. While yes, it does take me away from studying for my own class, it DOES cause me to review inorganic chemistry, which is a good thing for the MCAT. And if it is good for the MCAT it is good for me, right? So I will hopefully get Jennie on the right path with her chemistry quickly and easily and then memorize my heart out.

I was one of the smartest kids at my community college. I am so frustrated because now that i am in a school that really caters to the pre-med students, I don't feel like one of the smarties anymore. I feel like I am behind. I feel like there are people there that are so far ahead of me and that i will have to spend the rest of my life memorizing just to catch up. *sigh* I was a straight A student at the community college and so far at MC I have made Bs on all of my tests. VERY frustrating.

Stress and regrets...

At some point last reek I realized that if I want to apply to med school for the 2012 school year i would have to take the mcat this summer!! Meaning 2011. Okay, so I have less than a year to take the most important test of my life, the test that will determine where I will go to med school, where my family will live, oh yeah, and if I get into med school at all! It seems incredible that things are moving this quickly.

I met with a professor at school about job shadowing a doctor. I told her that I was interested in pediatrics so I will be following a pediatric ear, nose and throat specialist October 4th and 5th. The 4th he has surgery in the morning and clinic in the afternoon, and on the 5th he just has surgery. I am excited that I will get this experience. I feel like right now I am doing a lot of the extracurriculars right-volunteering, and job shadowing, but I do regret not taking one more science class this semester. I really really wish I had taken cell biology and the cell and genetics lab. That is just one more thing I am going to have to add to next semester. Apparently there are a few other classes I need to think about taking before mcat. I am taking physics 1&2 over the summer, and then Tuesday someone told me that I should consider taking medical physiology before the mcat because that is sometimes on the test. Fun! Med Phys is a 5 credit hour class.

Sooooo, right now for the spring I have to take cell bio plus the cell and genetics lab, med phys, calculus, organic chem 2 plus the lab. That's not including any electives! That is 17 hours. I feel like I should be taking at least one science elective, like virology or something. Starting to get stressed.....and I really wish I had taken cell bio!!!! :(

Classes Have Started!

Now that classes have started I am only volunteering once a week. Which is perfectly fine. :)

I am taking 15 hours this semester - Genetics, Human Embryology, and Organic Chem are my science classes, and I am also taking Trig and Chapel and a PE class. :)

So far so good. I have had 2 quizzes and gotten a 100 on both of them. I have found that my time is much more full now. Even when I am not in class I am almost always at school because my breaks aren't long enough to come home and then come back.

Tuesdays are a long day for me. I have Genetics at 9:25 am and then Chapel and then a break and then PE. Then I have a LONG break and I have Embryology at night. Well today during my LONG break there was a picnic at one of the Chemistry professors' home and it was free food so of course I had to go (being a poor college student and all!)

I didn't know any of the other students at this picnic. I have only been back in school for a week after all! I am obviously much older than almost all of the other students there. I met one girl who is a freshman, and she started asking me questions about my life. Eventually I told her my whole life story I think, or the life that began when I met my sweet husband at Longwood University, that led to me becoming a pre-med student at 28! I thought I would share this story on my blog!

I went to college at Longwood University in Farmville, VA in 1998. I was not a pre-med major at this point, I was an elementary education major. I met my husband there. We both ended up dropping out and we moved in together. We were engaged at this point, and had set a wedding date for May 22, 2000. Soon after that we found out that we were pregnant with our first child, due May 8, 2000 so we moved the wedding date up and ended up getting married in Nov of 1999. Our first daughter was born in May of 2000 followed closely by another one in December of 2002 and yet ANOTHER daughter in June of 2005. Yes, if you did the math correctly that means that i had 3 children by the time I was 24 and at that time I had my tubes tied. I chose to stay home with these children until the youngest went to school, and I loved every minute of it. I breastfed my babies and enjoyed them as babies so much - and was able to take care of them while my sweet husband worked full time AND earned his bachelor's degree.

While my husband was in school and I was home with my babies I noticed that I was jealous. I really wanted to go back to school myself. I had a very strong desire to continue my own education. Unfortunately we couldn't afford for both of us to be in school at the same time, plus we needed one parent to be available for the children. I talked about this occasionally with my husband but nothing came of it and we never really talked about it. He graduated in 2008 and I started taking online class in January of 09. At that point my youngest was still at home with me during the day. I took 12 credit hours Spring of 09, 9 credit hours summer of 09, 12 credit hours fall of 09 12 credit hours in spring of 10 and 12 credit hours in the summer of 10, before I transferred from Hinds Community College to Mississippi College. My GPA at Hinds was a 3.902.

I'm sorry if some of this is a repeat from a previous post, I am just trying to be thorough.

Right now I am absolutely positive that I want to be a doctor "when I grow up". When I was 18 I did not know what I wanted to do with my life. I knew I wanted children to be a part of my life, and then i had my own children. Now that I am working at the hospital I am considering specializing in Neonatalogy. I love the NICU and love those babies. It all goes full-circle, and I may end up in a Peds department as a doctor rather than an elementary school classroom. It all goes to show how much you learn about yourself as you get older and have more life experiences. And it is fun to share those life experiences with others who are not there yet.

Volunteering Up A Storm!

I volunteered at the hospital/Med School twice last week and again today. I LOVE it. :) Today I was given the honor of being asked to train someone else in this position. When I mentioned to one of the nurses that I was considering a specialty in neonatology she called in one of the doctors to talk to me. It was SO awesome to get to talk to someone that has been in my position.

1 more week until school starts for me! I am getting nervous.

Making progress!

Yesterday I went to the hospital to start preparing for volunteer work. I had to get fingerprinted, have my picture taken for my ID badge, and have a TB skin test. Tomorrow i go back to the hospital to have my TB test read.

Monday, Aug 9 my girls start school, and I will have time to start volunteering. I am excited to get some volunteer hours under my belt before my fall classes start. This is a good process for me for med school. I feel like everything I do is in preparation for med school! This is getting more and more exciting every day!

Summer Classes 2010 are done!

And I finished with 4 As! WOO HOO!! One semester closer to realizing my dream!

I now have a 3.902 GPA. I am thrilled! Looking forward to the start of the fall semester - Orgo, genetics, embryology, trig, chapel and water aerobics. Its going to be challenging.

Tuesday I go to the Medical School for my fingerprinting and TB test for my volunteer work. I also need a new wardrobe for this - a professional wardrobe. I own nothing of the sort. I am excited about the volunteer work though - planning on volunteering in the womens' hospital, rocking sweet babies in the nursery.

Thinking About Med School . . . . A Lot!

This has been on my mind so much lately. I have been stalking the pre-med forums at Studentdoctor.net and thinking about different options, different med schools to apply to, and where I would like to move in 2 years.

Its getting nerve wracking! I know that all I can do is keep taking those classes and keep acing them, and preparing for the MCAT! I am excited!

Halfway Done!

With summer semester that is! :)

This week I am taking my midterms and writing my paper for my New Testament class. I am excited about this - week 4 of my 4 8-week classes. So far I have STRONG As in all 4 classes - of course every test so far has been open book and I have been on top of completing every assignment because I am crazy like that! HAHA. Very excited about these classes coming to a close.

There is some talk of my mom coming for 4th of July weekend, and then my classes will end July 25. My girlies go back to school August 9 so we have been discussing a beach trip after my classes finish in July. Then MC starts August 25. . . :) I have 3 weeks off! WOO HOO!! :)

Anyway, that's the news with my pre-med journey - just working my tail off on these summer classes, and taking time to go to the pool with my girls. Hoping to take them to the library this week as well. Should be a busy week - I have 3 proctored exams to take on 3 different days! :)

A New Semester

Monday I started a new semester - summer school. I am taking 4 classes this summer. So far everything I have turned in has gotten an A - but 4 summer classes is a LOT of work. There have been moments where I have been completely overwhelmed. And then I remind myself that when I get in med school I will REALLY be overwhelmed and I need to just tough it out.

I am taking New Testament, Old Testament and sociology which are all required coursework for Mississippi college. I am also taking Medical Terminology which is not a required class but will count as an elective and is a good thing - will help me in later classes.

Thursday I went to Mississippi College for orientation. Parts of orientation were incredibly boring. They fed us a nice lunch - baked fish and vegetables, and salad and bread and chicken cordon bleu and cheesecake for dessert. There were speeches by the President of the school and then they split us into small groups and did "group building" activities with us. The good thing about the small groups is that they take you to another building so the walking around helps you get your bearings about the layout of the campus. Then more speeches and FINALLY they let us register for our fall classes.

I had a pretty good idea what I wanted to take. The group I was with was all pre-med students and we went to a computer lab in the science building (again, good for those of us who need that extra practice figuring out where everything is on this campus! :)) The advisors were all professors who teach the upper sciences - all of them have their doctorate. My particular advisor is Dr. Graves but the person who helped me the most during registration was Dr. Dunagan. My intention was to take Organic Chem, Physics 1, Trig and PE and then whatever science I could get in there. Well Organic Chem and Physics are offered at overlapping times and when I told Dr. Dunagan that I was frustrated with the registration process she advised me not to take Organic and Physics at the same time. She asked me what my grades were like and then enrolled me in her Human Embryology class! :)

SO - this fall I am taking Organic Chem 1, Human Embryology, Trigonometry, Genetics, and PE. And chapel - I have to have 2 semesters of Chapel. It is a total of 15 hours and is 3 sciences and a math! :) Gonna be a busy girl for sure!

One downfall to this schedule is that I will have to quit my job - it just happens that the 8 hours I work taking care of babies falls into the time slot that I will be taking Organic Chemistry.

So there it is - my life for the next 6 months all planned out. Finish the 4 classes I am taking now, have a MONTH break! WOO HOO! and then start at MC and ace the 5 classes I will be taking there! Very excited about starting this new chapter in my journey.

Blog Reader . . .

I read many medical blogs at this point. I feel like the more I get to know about the medical field - what it is really like for those who are really in the trenches - the more prepared I will be when I finally get there myself.

One of my good friends is married to a resident, and I enjoy hearing her stories about being the wife of a resident, even though hearing about the long hours SCARE me. I am glad that when I make it there my kids will be quite a bit older and I will be quite a bit wiser! I just want all of the info as I go along so nothing will come as a shock.

Tomorrow my family and I are leaving for our Disney World vacation. When I come home I will be jumping right into the 4 summer classes I am taking. So this is my only break! Looking forward to starting the next batch of classes though!

Thinking Ahead.

Right now I am reading a book called "Match Day: One Day and One Dramatic Year in the Lives of Three New Doctors" by Brian Eule. It is about Match Day - when Medical School graduates are placed with the hospital where they will do their residencies. I am in the part of the book that talks about that 'Dramatic Year' - the internship year. I read about these brand new doctors visiting their patients, making decisions that will either help a patient or hurt them, and I feel a little bit jealous - because that is what I want to be doing - and a little bit scared. Okay scared isn't a big enough word - maybe terrified is more like it! What am I getting myself into?

When I read that laws have been put in place recently to limit a residents' workweek to 80 hours and guarantee them 4 days off a month it is a little disconcerting. And when I read that they are one of the most underpaid jobs, because when you divide what they make by the hours that residents work . . . .well it makes me wonder why I am doing this.

Then I remember that this is my dream. This is what I have been working for. Someday I will be one of those residents, just trying to survive on no sleep and save some lives, and reduce people's pain and it will be worth it in the end.

Nerdy Science Girl

Today was a "me" day. For Mother's Day I got a gift card to the day spa. I had a pedicure, facial and massage. YAY! Super relaxing and wonderful.

Afterwards I was walking around Anthropologie and I found BEAKERS!! They look like real glass beakers! So of course I bought 2 and put them in my bathroom. I haven't decided if I want to use them as flower vases or as a storage item for cotton balls and q-tips. . . . hmm. . . how should a science nerd use decorative beakers?

Obsessed.

I have been buying books on becoming a doctor. This has become somewhat of an obsession for me. Right now on my bookshelf there are 3 books on taking the MCAT (which is a year away for me), a pack of anatomy flashcards and a pack of medical terminology flashcards, a dictionary of medical terms, "Match Day" by Brian Eule, "The Best American Medical Writing" by various authors, "Hot Lights, Cold Steel" by Michael J. Collins, MD, and "Just here trying to save a few lives" by Pamela Grim.

These are all recent purchases. I have other books from previous trips to Borders and Barnes and Noble. I have books on my Kindle, such as Body of Work, which I LOVED.

This is my obsession. I may even be addicted. :) I think this is a good problem to have.

Another note on books - all of my textbooks for my summer classes have arrived! :)

Two Years In, Two Years to Go!

This has been an amazing journey for me. I am not a typical pre-med student, I am almost 30 years old, I have been a stay-at-home Mom for the last 10 years and devoted all of my adult life to being a wife and mom.

Last year, as the date my youngest child would start pre-school approached, I began thinking about what I wanted to do with myself. My husband has always said that eventually he wanted me to get a job - preferably when all the children were in school. I have worked for a small church preschool Mother's Morning Out program for the last 6 years, and have always been home when my children needed me. I have gone to every field trip, every school party, every event.

And then: my baby was almost 4 and I was thinking about what I wanted. And this dream kept surfacing, this dream of being a doctor. I wanted to do something wonderful with my life. I wanted to make a difference in the world. I wanted to do something that would make my children and husband proud. So in January 2009 I registered for online classes through a community college to work towards my prerequisites, and I have never looked back!

My first four classes were Advanced Comp 2, Public Speaking, World History 1, and Computer Concepts. I received As in everything except Public Speaking, where I got a B. I began to feel anxious about my GPA and my ability to really do this. That summer session I took Intermediate Algebra, World History 2, and American Literature 1. Again all As except for a B- in American Lit the minimum grade for an A is a 95 . . . and i just missed it. Fall of 2010 I entered a real classroom for the first time in 11 years. I was scared to death - I felt sure I would be the oldest student in every classroom, that if I told people I was pre-med they would laugh at me. I entered these classrooms and discovered that not only was I not the only "older" student, I was also not the only pre-med student at this small community college.

Fall of 2009 I took Biology 1 and lab, Chemistry 1 and lab, World Literature 2 and College Algebra. I found taking classes within a classroom setting - for the first time in a long time - to be much easier than the online courses. I received all As in those classes, and felt a surge in my confidence.

I was invited to join an honor society called Phi Theta Kappa - and was inducted during the fall semester of 2009. I applied to a local college that has a very high acceptance rate into Med school - Mississippi College. I still had doubts about getting accepted, this constant feeling of not being good enough. But finally I received my acceptance letter and also my scholarship letter! I am receiving $4,500 worth of scholarships - the maximum allowed for students who are not living on campus. I will be starting school there Fall 2010.

Spring 2010 I took another 4 classes - Chem 2 and Lab, Bio 2 and Lab, statistics, and art appreciation. All As again. :) I now have a 3.868 GPA.

This summer I am again taking online classes through my community college - Old Testament, New Testament, sociology, and Medical Terminology. I am excited about taking online classes again - because I will be home with my three girls for the summer, and not putting them in child care.

My plan - to take a full course load at Mississippi college in the fall and spring, as well as next summer (child care for my girlies - boo!) and then take the MCAT next summer. I want to finish my bachelors at MC in 2 years - that is my goal and my plan. I am so excited and want to share my journey with others who may be thinking about becoming the doctors of the future!