Waiting

Waiting to hear back from medical schools is horrendous. Like seriously, it’s terrible. Now I know I’m not in the best place to complain since I’ve heard back from, and thanks to God have been accepted to, three medical schools thus far. Nonetheless, I can comment on this because I’ve done it, and am doing so right now. At this point I like the schools I’ve been accepted to; however, I really like two of the schools where I most recently interviewed, Case Western and Loyola, but have yet to hear back from them. Now there are two types of waiting in this instance: just waiting without any idea when you may hear back and waiting for the “magic” date when you were told you’d hear back. No doubt it’s hard when you have no idea when to expect a response, but there comes a point where you let go and you get over the daily anxiety of “could this be the day.” The worst, I think (or maybe it’s just because I’m currently in this situation), is when you are told by the school when their committee will make decisions, but the decision letter doesn’t come as soon after that.

I interviewed at Loyola on February 12, 2011 and loved it there, so it was exciting when they told us we would here back soon after our interview. The committee was meeting the following Monday (February 21). The schools I have heard from so far have sent out emails and letters with admissions decisions, which means students hear on that very day the committee looks over their files. But that isn’t the case with Loyola. By Wednesday I still hadn’t heard anything and was beginning to get a little worried. That is why the wait is so bad: your mind begins to run. I started to wonder if maybe they only emailed admitted students and if regular letters were sent to rejected students. But then I remembered that most of my communication with Loyola has been via telephone or regular mail, they don’t do much email. And on and on the thoughts went (I’ve talked to a lot of my friends who are applying to med school and they say the same thing, the anxiety is terrible and the thoughts/worries/speculations that run through their heads only make things worse). The past few days have been so hard for me. Since I still hadn’t heard from Loyola three days after the committee met, I couldn’t wait any longer. I didn’t want to be “that student,” but I need to at least know when and how I would hear back from them so I could relax a little. I sent the admissions office a quick email and they said decisions letters went out via regular mail that Wednesday (February 23). Well, Chicago isn’t very far so I thought I would get that letter soon after but Thursday came and no letter. Friday, no letter. Saturday, still no letter! Come on post office...don’t you realize what this letter says? Can’t you hurry up with my letter? (This whole process can really make you think the world revolves around you. Thankfully God and my wonderful friends and family remind me each day that it doesn’t.)  It’s Monday and I’m pretty confident that the letter will arrive today…but who knows? I can tell you this though, if it doesn’t come I’ll probably come up with some crazy, pessimistic rationale for why I haven’t heard yet and how that probably means I wasn’t accepted.

It’s funny how much I worry and how anxious I get sometimes. I think a lot of us do this throughout life. And it’s so easy to do. But why? What does it mean? Well, I know it’s because I’m not depending on God fully, resting in His will, and placing my confidence in the fact that He is in control…but that sure is easier said than done.

A Short Reflection

As I look back, I can’t help but think about how sometimes God takes us down a road, away from some “thing” that we deep down believe we need to leave, only to find ourselves back at that same “thing” days/months/years later. In my case, I now know exactly why He did this. You may have caught earlier in one of my posts that I said “I quickly began to uncover my motives for becoming a doctor” at the end of high school. During that time and the first few years of college I realized that I wanted to go into medicine for all the wrong reasons. As the first college student in my immediate family, I wanted to really blow the top off and not just go to college…but go to college for as long as I could. I also wanted to make my parents proud because of all they had done for me. Finally, I knew the pay would be nice (little did I know that it would take a 12 year, ~$500,000 educational investment to get to that point). But this time, as I wrestled with switching to premed midway through my college experience, I realized that God completely remolded these motives. Sure, I still wanted to make proud those who had supported me and I knew the job/financial security would be nice, but this time I was passionate about pursuing medicine so that I could serve those who has no voice—specifically children and Spanish speakers. Also, my experiences with the Hispanic and urban communities birthed within me a desire to bring needed resources to those who are so under resourced in our country.

So that is my “enlightenment” in a nutshell. It’s amazing to think about how I’ve arrived where I am today and how faithful God has been to me. It’s also quite humorous trying to put all my thoughts into words because this whole processes was so much more than just words; I spent days and nights thinking about whether or not this was what God wanted for my life. I worried whether or not I could take, and succeeded in, all the science courses required of me since I hadn’t taken a science class in almost 3 years. But as I have learned in my few years on this earth, God is faithful. If He places something on our hearts and we have the courage to follow that lead, He will provide. 

The Switch

So back to my story: towards the end of sophomore year I began to ask myself what I really wanted to do. I wasn’t really enjoying my education classes, I had taken most of the Spanish classes I need toward my major, my CORE classes were quickly dwindling, but I still had two years of college left. Then one day during summer break I was driving in Grand Rapids through a poorer area that has been determined by minimal resources, opportunities, and hope. As I looked around I saw a ton of people, many young people in fact, who were just doing their thing. I began to think—Alex, you’ve been given the valuable opportunity that only about 63% of high school graduates in our country have: the opportunity to go to college. Even more so, God had provided me with the financial resources to afford an amazing college education at Calvin where I was challenged and stimulated me socially, spiritually, and academically. I had been given such a big blessing and I completely missed it. What was I doing? I thought back on my last two years and while I had grown and learned a lot, I had been pretty lazy. I realized something that I didn’t see before. You see, I did very well in high school and was quite proud of myself; there’s nothing wrong with that, right? However, when I got to college, the pride swelled up and I thought I was all set for life. I subconsciously decided I didn’t want to work hard anymore and would find something that, for me, would be easier. Now that’s a TERRIBLE idea for someone who has the opportunity to go to college—a place where you should be working your tail off and expanding your knowledge tenfold! As these thoughts began to enter my mind, something from the past crept up out of nowhere: what if I had stuck with the premed program? Could I have excelled in those classes? Didn’t I want to be a doctor when I was younger? And so it happened. The “what ifs” turned into reality. I met with some wonderful mentors at Calvin, shadowed some doctors and Physician Assistants (to see which field I wanted to pursue), and mapped out how I would take 3 years worth of medical school prerequisites in a year and a half. 

Passion

So after Honduras I knew I loved Spanish and I enjoyed being able to answer questions and teach, so I thought why not be a Spanish teacher? I’d be able to better my Spanish and teach, and I had already begun the course sequence for education…sounds good. (Now there’s one small detail that I have to add at this point in the story. When you are young and in love, you’ll do anything. You see I thought I might want to teach, but I sure didn’t feel called. The only reason I had taken an education class prior to going to Honduras was because I wanted to take a class with the girl I liked—the one who is now my girlfriend—and she happened to be an education student. So that’s really why I “decided” to be an education major). That semester I did some classroom observation and saw the behind-the-scenes work that teaching involves. While I enjoyed the experience and still love to teach, I felt teaching high school Spanish was not what I wanted to do the rest of my life (and I noticed that I wasn’t very creative; every time I had to come up with a lesson, my first thought was lecture-style instruction…not very ideal for antsy high school students). I also quickly realized that I was not deeply passionate about teaching.

I’d like to digress for a moment. You may have noticed that I use the word passion/passionate a lot. I love it…so let me spend a few minutes on it. My generation has been taught to “do what you love to do,” which is both a blessing and a curse. I call it a curse because finding what one is passionate about does not happen overnight. A quick search on the web shows that the average number of career switches for my generation is about 7! This is very different than most of our parents’ experiences. They, instead, pursued where the jobs were. It didn’t matter if you were passionate about that job; it was about working hard, rising up, and supporting your family (thanks mom and dad!). That’s not so much the case with my generation. Now it’s a blessing, however, because we have the opportunity to enjoy what we do; we are able to find what we are obsessed with and do that (hopefully we don’t find were obsessed with something creepy…). We have the hopes of finding a job that we actually LOVE (not just like or bare).

Ask someone who knows me and they’ll probably tell you I am a very passionate person (well, at least I hope so…otherwise I just lied to you). Just watch me and you can see. If I’m working on something I really care about, I give it my all. But give me a project that doesn’t catch my attention and the end result will be subpar at best (though I’ve learned how to make it look like I’ve been working hard…). As a Christian, I believe that my purpose, my vocation, in life is to glorify God by using the skills and talents He has given me. Or in the most Calvin Collegesque words I can think of, it is to usher in shalom through good stewardship of my skills and talents. Unfortunately, this idea of glorifying God through your work tends to get misunderstood. People sometimes think this means they have to pursue a “Christian” job—pastor, missionary, worship leader, etc. However, God created life for us TO ENJOY, and I believe He wants us to glorify Him doing whatever it is that we enjoy doing. So how does that translate into glorification? Passion. We carry out this life mission by finding our passion, pursuing it ferociously, and translating it into an impactful service to others in God’s world. So it doesn’t matter if you are a doctor, teacher, landscaper, or stay-at-home mom—if you’re passionate about what you do and serve others while doing it, I believe that glorifies God.

Where to begin...

The summer before I started at Calvin I met with the premed advisor and was ready to begin my premed experience. However, my wonderful college thought it would be a nice idea to hand me a course catalog. Now to you that might sound quite simple, but a course catalog can be a dangerous thing when you’re a young, overzealous freshman with many interests and a desire to explore new things. In the end I decided to go with my competing interests and not take the science courses I would need for medical school. To be honest, I was essentially letting go of my dream to become a doctor…but God was not. (Little did I know that what was about to happen the next few years was his way of refining my motives for studying medicine.) I wasn’t sure what else I wanted to study, but I knew for sure I wanted to take some Spanish classes. I was so sick of everyone thinking I spoke Spanish because my last name is Cortez that I decided I needed to learn to speak Spanish. In fact, when I took my placement test the summer before starting at Calvin, one of the proctors came up to me and said something along the lines of “oh, we know you’ll do just fine on this test,” as if I was a native speaker and would hop right in to the upper-level Spanish courses!

To make a long story short, I floated between many majors the first two years of college. Spring semester of my freshman year my Spanish professor, Maria Rodriguez, “tricked” me into going to Honduras. I say trick because she told me just to fill out the application to see what would happen and the next thing I knew I was reading an email that welcomed me to the fall semester’s study abroad group. (My wonderful girlfriend Annie was not too excited when I, out of nowhere, told her that I wouldn’t be around next semester…but thankfully she forgave me by going to Spain and making me endure a semester at Calvin all alone). My experience in Honduras was amazing and it really shaped me into the man I am today. When I got back from Honduras, I felt very comfortable with my Spanish and began to think about what I would do the rest of my life. Now that I was competent with Spanish, I recognized that my profession could extend itself to an even larger community. However, what discipline was I passionate about enough to study for the next few years, and would also result in a resource I could offer to others?

Was this something I really wanted?

The first sentence of my story is similar to that of many doctors: I always dreamed of becoming a doctor when I was little. Well, not exactly. When I was about 8 years old I cracked my head and had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance. And while my mom was freaking out and my aunt was cleaning up the mess, I was LOVING the experience. I thought it was so cool that the paramedics had me wear a little nose “plug” that shot oxygen up my nostrils; that they got to wear cool uniforms; and that they could ride in the back of the “car” while facing the rear and not wearing seatbelts. From then on I wanted to be a “health man” (at that age I didn’t understand the difference between a paramedic, a doctor, a nurse, and the many other jobs in health care). As a got older, I decided I wanted to be a doctor but I never really began to pursue that as a tangible goal. The only time I really brought it up was when I was asked what I wanted to do when I got older.

Once high school came to an end, however, I was forced to think seriously about this dream because it would affect the college I would attend. Also, as any high school senior will tell you, adults have this odd habit of constantly asking what students want to do for the rest of their lives, as if an 18 year old has any idea! For me, I quickly began to uncover my motives for becoming a doctor. I also realized that it was easy, and quite gratifying, to tell all adults that I wanted to be a doctor. I mean, it’s a pretty respectable profession I thought, right?

Why I want to do what I am about to do

MD… Medical Doctor. Many of us know doctors, or know people who know doctors. And when they are referenced in conversation, it usually goes something like this: “Oh yea, my one friend is an endocrinologist.” Or “I met a woman who was a cardiothoracic surgeon and...”In just a few words a physician can be described; however, it took more than just a few years for them to acquire those two letters following their name. I hope what I am about to do is not seen as a pat-on-the-back for the profession I am entering, or a petition to praise the many who have chosen to study medicine as if they were better than others. Rather, it is a story; and more particularly, it is my story about my journey.

After 16 grueling (though I’m afraid the meaning of this adjective will quickly change over the next few years) months of nearly nonstop studying, it came time for me to finally apply to medical school. So much work had been invested and now I was ready to share with medical schools why I thought I was a good candidate to study medicine and become a physician. As the application process progressed, I quickly realized how unique this experience was. Many students begin undergrad as “pre-med majors,” (a commonly heard phrase, but one that makes no sense considering there actually isn’t a specific pre-med major), but less than half make it to the day when they can click submit on their AMCAS (American Medical College Application Service) applications. While my mind was consumed with anxiety and apprehension about whether or not I would get accepted, I found a small crevice of space left to reflect on what I was doing. And, after meeting and interacting with others in my position, it became clear that becoming a doctor is a journey not easily explained.

One thing you should know about me is that I love telling stories; another, however, is that I hate writing. As you may now be thinking, this is a bad combination for someone who wants to share his thoughts and experiences without having to verbally repeat them 956,403 times. I once half-jokingly told my English-major friend that he should write a book about people becoming doctors, starting from undergrad, because it is such a unique endeavor (and the book would probably sell because it would be read by either the thousands of students who dream of becoming a doctor or the bazillions of “preoccupieds” who want to know where everything comes from—their food, their clothes, and even their doctors.) Unfortunately, my friend didn’t take me seriously and so this is what I set out to do—to share my journey with you over the next 7+ years. I’m sorry to say that I did not begin writing this at the start of undergrad (I’m sure you’re quite upset), but I hope to spend a short time recapping my past four years, as it relates to my getting into medical school and beginning my medical career, and then continue on a regular basis as my medical education progresses. So, do what I will be doing for the next 6 yea…9…11...no, for the rest of my life: sit back and grab a cup of coffee. This is going to be a long ride.