Hello all!

One of the main goals of this blog is to document my journey to becoming a physician. That means a lot of moving, simultaneous parts, which you may know – I THRIVE on! I love being busy and having a purpose to get up early and stay up working on my goals.

That said, here is a current project list and things that I want to be constantly growing and improving on. Some are academic, some are for fun (even if they don’t seem fun to everyone). Hold me accountable and let’s keep learning how to be the most productive peeps we can be!

I am a Graduate Student

I am currently getting my MS in Genomics. Whoa. This is something I’d never thought I’d say and I have specific goals in mind for my time as a graduate student including grade enhancement, more hard science exposure, and more research exposure. I will say it is a lot of reading, like…. a lot. And a lot of writing papers and too many presentations on mitosis. C’mon people, we get it by now, right?

Medical Scribe

I work for a medical oncologist as a scribe. Yes, a scribe like Kim Kardashian has. I work in a cancer center and basically follow this man around as he sees patients and I document everything he does revolving around touching, thinking, prescribing, treatment plans, etc. I can’t tell you how fun this can be and how informative. I’ve learned more about medicine and myself in this role than many of my other jobs (which is many – more on that later). All of this learnin’ has made me think that maybe I’m suited for specializing in med onc? hmm. We will see about that. The doc I follow around is from Hungary and has a great accent, great printed socks, and is an all-around awesome/brilliant Yalie graduate.

MCAT

In order to get into medical school, you must take the dreaded MCAT. This test is a doozy. 8 hours in a hard plastic chair with a wet-erase board (seriously? wet-erase for a timed test. ugh!). This test is about 3 years of undergrad courses all rolled into one. So, yes, everything you learned about the Krebs cycle, social interactionism, government, physics, trigonometry, and what feels like a million other things are in one test. Kill me. But after I get that 528!

More Research

As mentioned above, I wanted to spend my gap years getting more research because the small amount I was exposed to in undergrad was….well, not for me. That said, the research I’m doing now is also not so glamourous and not always fun, which tells me that I will likely not be a researcher when I grow up. Currently, I am doing research defining rare diseases, writing a qualitative paper on Huntington’s Disease, and researching genes in mouse brains that are associated with the hunger/satiation complex via a Harvard Lab (also cool!). I would say that is the most complex because I’m currently learning how to read slices of a mouse brain and what structures you can see in each slice – way out of my wheelhouse! The most glamourous (and bloody) of all, is a case report for a gunshot patient in NYC (cool!).

WIS

I am on the board of a non-profit that helps support women in STEM fields. This is a lot of different jobs rolled into one. Some days I’m fielding new volunteers, some days I’m editing blog posts or re-working some wonky website change. This is mostly a lot of zoom meetings.

College Student Mentor

Let me just say – how do you mentor a student while being a student? Ok, but also how do you mentor someone through undergrad when you feel like you barely slid through? It is hard. I love my mentee! It is a fun experience so far.

Fun

People often ask: “When do you have time for fun things?” I don’t. And I like it.

Running

I used to be a runner. I got burned out on this a long time ago but recently felt that maybe I should reincorporate some running without the intention of a long race. We will see how this goes. Pray for my knees.

Learning Spanish

Okay, so I have wanted to learn several languages for some time now. Starting with Spanish and so far, it is hard and not always productive. I can’t say I’ve dedicated solid time to this yet so it could improve. Perhaps I’ll go to medical school in Puerto Rico and this will come in handy.

Reading

I pretty much exclusively read non-fiction. I am obsessed with productivity books and anything I can get my hands on to increase that and help me create better habits that contribute to my long term goals

Piano

Again, this is something I used to practice daily in middle and high school. Since college started, it sort of dropped off my goal list. Why? I got busy I suppose. I want to get back into it. I have a new shiny keyboard and some books. Let’s see if I can remember how to read music and make pretty noises. HA!

I think this is enough things… for now. I’m always adding more things to the menu. I’ll keep you posted on how each of these fails and thrives as I go.

Stay tuned!

M