Road Trip: MD/PhD pre-interview.

So I'm pretty certain that the title of this posts catches some of my readers by surprise (especially the cynical ones, I see you "miss negative anonymous"), but some plans really aren't worth speaking about until after the first step has been taken. And my pre-interview is the first step in my plan to be accepted MD/PhD for the class entering medical school in the Fall of 2015.

Now you're probably asking the question, what in the world is a pre-interview? It occurs when you make an appointment to speak to MD admissions personnel about being admitted to their program. But after talking to you, they refer you to a member of the admission committee for the MD/PhD program without you having to ask. This person was clear that my undergrad GPA would be a problem because they use computers to screen MD applicants, but that my graduate work combined with no computer screening for the MD/PhD program makes that my logical choice for a multitude of reasons. AMAZING!!

So I go meet with the MD/PhD adcom member and I got the traditional questions, what type of research have you done, what are you doing now, why the combined program, ect. ect. Then I got this question, " have you thought about where you're going to be when you're done?" Which I translated to mean "have you thought about how old you're going to be when you done, lol??" And because I was prepared for this question, not only was I NOT angry about it, I had the BEST answer EVER: "Yes, I have thought about where I'm going to be when I'm done, I'll be 6-8 years older with an MD/PhD!!"

And from that point the "interview" was conversational and quite frankly a LOT of fun. I talked about my daughter which is a significant change from before when I felt that talking about being a Mom could count against me, I talked about my current research and how I hope to be able to apply it to a PhD program, and how all that ties to my desire to work with and conduct research beneficial to underserved populations. Blessedly, I was told that I was a competitive applicant and to apply early to their program, but to make sure to apply to other programs too!

Needless to say, I was beyond excited because quite frankly, I didn't really expect a "traditional" student favoring, highly ranked program, to give me the time of day. But they're open, and I'm glad!

So the moral of the story here is that anytime you meet with someone who may have an influence in your career, it's an interview, point, blank, period!!! Second most important lesson is to not exclude ANY school because the school you least expected to support you actually does just that!!