Medical

Diary of a Procrastinator

/ Nate / 2 Comments

I am a 24-year-old young person. This means that I am still within shouting distance of college, and since I just spent the last year taking more classes I can credibly claim to do what all twenty-somethings credibly claim to do: procrastinate like a boss.

My procrastination, though, is especially nuanced this month. As I’ve written before, the MCAT is a mere five days away (May 31!), and my desire to avoid studying, paradoxically, has steadily increased as the fateful day nears. A semi-true to life chronicle of the last few weeks is below, as dictated to a fictional diary.

(I DO actually have a diary, but I only write things in there when I’m emotionally compromised. This means the vast majority of the entries consist of transcribed feelings. Gross. It is the single most depressing collection of words in existence, including the Oregon Trail you-have-died-of-dysentery notification, letters of rejection from employers, and even the old UNC ticket email that begins, “Hello, you have NOT been selected to receive tickets to the Duke game, rendering your weekend completely worthless.”) Continue reading →

What It’s Like To Take a (Practice) MCAT

/ Nate / 6 Comments

You’re ready. As countless people have told you, this entire year has been preparation for this. You are prepared to prepare for the MCAT, the test that will determine your medical school admission chances. Well, that, and whether medical schools are willing to overlook that bio lab grade. Um.

You’re motivated. Your final exams are over, you unwound with dinner and drinks, and your batteries are recharged. Time to tackle this five-hour bastard head-on and show it what you know. Continue reading →

The MCAT Begins to Loom

/ Nate / 2 Comments

We’ve started our review course for the MCAT. I wrote about the MCAT back in October, where I attempted to defuse my fear surrounding the test by referring to it as an actual cat. Unfortunately, I have to treat it like a real thing now, with books and studying and practice tes- oops, I just vomited a little bit. The overwhelming scent of failure is nauseating.

If you remember the SAT Subject Tests, the MCAT is sort of like 5 subject tests all mashed together. It covers general chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, biology, and verbal reasoning/essay-writing. It’s about five hours long, computer-based, and evil. Continue reading →

M-Cat

/ Nate / 3 Comments

I have a physics test tomorrow. We’ve all been studying for it for far too long, as evidenced by the following story:

During a morning conversation with a few other postbacs about how screwed we all were, which somehow involved talking about someone’s dog, we got to talking about pets. A brilliant idea surfaced: We should get a postbac pet that can roam the halls of the continuing studies building (okay, perhaps not the best idea).  We were talking about what we should name this hypothetical pet, and the thought suddenly popped into my head:

“We should get a cat and name it… <dramatic pause> M-Cat.” (aka medical college admissions test, for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about)

My friends smiled, laughed a little, and moved on. I, however, could not. The idea of M-cat began to root itself in my brain and expand, firm in its own belief that it was the Funniest Thing Ever. I came up with a hundred jokes in the next twenty minutes:

  • I’m gonna get a cat and name it M-Cat. Then I can be honest when I say I’m allergic to the MCAT. (The last time I visited a friend with a cat, named Cosmo, I had to take so many Benadryl that I couldn’t make a sentence with more than one clause).
  • The cat needs to be very friendly at first, then when you say the wrong thing to it start scratching the hell out of you.
  • We should take M-Cat and throw it around. Then we can say we passed the MCAT. In fact, we can paint it, then say we passed it with flying colors.
  • We can… okay, I’ll stop now.
You get the point. The rest of my day has been completely ruined. Case in point: during our seminar discussion on the American healthcare system (syllabus: everyone is fucked), I thought of an M-Cat joke – I won’t spell it out, but it involved getting a couple of kittens and calling them Practice M-Cats – and nearly had to get up and leave the room for fear of being overcome by giggles.
I know, I know, I’m procrastinating and should be studying instead of writing on my blog about things that no one actually cares about. Fine. I’ll go read my study materials: The instructions on the cat food I just bought in preparation for M-Cat.

Medicine Dress Code

/ Nate / 4 Comments

“Wear a short white coat, your ID, and decent clothes.”

The above is a standard email we receive for pre-shadowing instructions in the university hospital. In our first seminar here, our medical director told us we’d need to acquire a white coat, specifically one that reached about to the waist. Why? Wouldn’t you think that a white coat is a white coat? Continue reading →