From comment/message to post June 2015

Just found your blog (I'm sitting for the summer exams and was having a crisis of faith so was google searching for non-trads) and wanted to say that I felt really inspired by your posts!   I'm kinda in the same boat (but a bit farther behind on the river, LOL). Best of luck on your path!!!

It absolutely never EVER ceases to amaze me that when I'm in my darkest hour for whatever reason (and I've got a multitude of them going on now), one of my readers drops a few lines at just the right time to remind me to stay on course. And this was the case with the message quoted above from one of my readers.

So in the interest of "keeping it real" I have to admit that I've more than a few moments in the past few months where I considered nursing school, yep I said it, nursing school. Or maybe I should specify the DNP program. But between the fact that I'm not interested in the slightest in the nursing model of medicine and I work better in environments dominated by men (a lesson I'm reminded of now as I type this), I'm certain that a clinical career as a Physician is in my future.

And I don't have words for how laser focused I am on this goal, I understand with great clarity more than ever that there's a reason why my current clinical research work with Physicians is so enjoyable and fulfilling! I want to someday answer the questions they're asking, helping patients in the same capacity they are. And I obviously want to ask/address the same types of research questions too. Plus there's a TON of work to do in my new favorite area of medicine, GI or gastrointestinal. No, I never quite imagined performing a colonoscopy on someone one day, but there are many questions to be answered in this field. Not to mention that work in this area could include Peds, I think this may be a good premedical student/health disparities match! :)

Lastly, I want to publicly thank the reader who sent me the message, I hope you don't mind me publishing it!

From comment to post: December 2014

There's a saying that goes something like when you don't get the thing you hoped for, it means God is preparing you for something even bigger...I think that applies here, cause I can definitely see much bigger doors opening for you in the near future!

Amen and amen again!!! :)

Next week I meet with my new PI to discuss the project I'll work on until I matriculate as a graduate student in the Computer Science department. Now I've talked MANY times this semester about research gigs I'd been offered that never came through. But I'm not worried in the least about this one because while I don't know this PI well at all, I'm not worried one bit about her "going left" with her decision to bring me on board. I know without equivocation that she "has my back" for reasons I'll discuss in more detail in the future.

The biggest irony of all is that this gig/school is located in the town we recently decided to relocate to before ANY of this other stuff came into play. In other words, if I had been offered a gig in the city we just moved from, my commute would have been over 2 hours one way. But I would have sucked it up and did it if I needed to like I always do. But now I don't need to. Now how cool is that? More importantly, I know for sure that the reason God didn't allow any of the other gigs to come through is because if would have been hell commuting back and forth everyday. So I should have just maintained the faith "that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose (Roman 8:28)". And this is all topped off my med school options that have students in their 40's in our new hometown!!!

Now as Christmas is approaching, we'll be busy making our new place a home, with everyone in our family looking forward to the future!! But no one more than me!! Moving forward, I must remember to "count it all joy.........it's going to get better"!!!

From comment to post, July 2014

"Seriously though? I freaking love your blog!!!! Always a good source of the realities of life, humor and information......................I know all too well about being one of few women of color and also the surface support that we sometimes receive from people. You know the kind,  where words are encouraging but actions are not. People giving you the side eye when you are successful in an area where they underestimated you.............
..............................Ive been stressing myself out about the whole med school process. It is taking so long  for me to get there it feels as if its never ending. The journey is always easier when it feels as if there are others traveling with you. Thank you for posting so consistently and so honestly."

So I recently received  an email from a reader which makes up this month's "From comment to post" post, redundancy noted. :). Okay, it's not really a comment per se, but I thought I put it out there anyway. I sincerely hope the person who sent it, doesn't mind me sharing, because I think it's good to share these kinds of perspectives especially given that the numbers of URMs pursuing STEM and medical fields is shrinking. YIKES!!!!

That said,  I've thought about that "surface support" comment a LOT especially as I consider my current academic department and doing so, reminds me of my first college experience. I matriculated at a southern university with a still dismal record of producing URM STEM graduates, but that year they admitted a record number of Black students. Not long afterwards, they "dumped us" and left us to our own devices to "survive". Now in their defense, I did not seek the support I needed like I should have. However, that's where the diversity office at this school should have stepped in. You see the one thing I noticed about my clients who are mostly Asian/Indian is that both the parents AND grandparents are ALL up in their kids academic business. ALL. UP. IN. 'DERE, and stay there until their kids finish college. So it's not a surprise that kids from these families excel academically. But for folks who come from families where there's very little support for whatever reason, those folks need help. 

Movin' on, I've tentatively decided on an MCAT test date for next year, April 17, 2015 and I say tentative because I have no idea how "mad" the rush is going to be to sign up for this first test date. I also added a ticker tape to my blog and the character I choose is a kid with a baseball bat. I choose this icon because my plan is to ""knock the MCAT out of the park", hence the baseball metaphor!!!

Well, I'm going to end this post with this song by TLC, because when it comes to pursuing the MD/DO, PhD, or MD/PhD, you really need your friends to make it through!