Hi, I’m Terryn. Right now, I am sitting in a library, coffee on one side and water on the other, staring at my AMCAS and AACOMAS applications in a split screen view. I have mainly finished them, and to be honest, I feel content. I feel as if a weight has been lifted, still aware of the stress that is to come. For right now, though, I just can breathe. MCAT finished, primaries done, CASPER scheduled. PREview to do, secondaries to do, interviews, matriculation, senior year. All these are to come, yet I still am content.
I didn’t always feel this way. Just three months ago, I was crying to my friends about how everything felt like it wouldn’t get done, that I was running out of time, and that my dreams of going straight to med school after undergrad were going straight to the trash. I told them I was close to just giving up, that the MCAT would have to wait and that maybe a gap year is what I really needed. I didn’t stop though. As much as I pretended that a gap year was in the cards and that everything was over, I couldn’t stop. My entire life, through high school, college, and beyond, I had dreams of becoming a doctor by 30. I wanted to become the first doctor in my family, and quickly. I couldn’t just stop, not without trying first. In college, the amount of times I was told “Oh, you should just take a gap year. It will be fine, just take a gap year, everyone does it.” That put anger in me, and I was determined to prove to myself and others that if a gap year was in the cards for me, I would have to first try and see. I would have to apply in my junior year and let everyone tell me no, for me to accept that. To give up when I was so close felt like I was begging for failure before I even started, and that is something I was not ready for.
My path to medicine didn’t start with a grand epiphany, nor was it something that took me a while to figure out. I’ll be honest, I do have the stereotypical “I want to be a doctor when I grow up” story. When I was like 4, I recognized the impact diabetes has had on my family, so I ran around telling everyone that I wanted to be an endocrinologist to save my grandma and great grandma; when I was like 12, I started saying I wanted to be an anesthesiologist because of my love for chemistry; right now, I tell anyone who listens that I am interested in becoming an obstetrics and gynecologist, and that eventually I want to complete a fellowship in gynecological oncology with a focus on breast cancer. I want to open a clinic when “I get old” in an urban neighborhood to provide financially feasible services to women in underserved communities, like the one I grew up in. It’s interesting how as you age, even if you keep the same goal in mind, your why and reasoning gets a lot more specific.
I don’t want to overload this first post with information, so I will get to the exact background behind my current passion a little later. I wanted to start with an introduction of who I am, why I made this blog, and who my audience is. I made this blog to talk to those who also don’t have any medical doctors in their family, are from financially, economically, and educationally underserved communities, and need a little help and/or guidance. I have advisors, yes, and while they are extremely helpful, I can’t help but feel a little confused and lost in this process sometimes. What to talk about in essays to avoid a pity party, how to actually study for the MCAT when some of the subjects don’t come as easy to me, and just going through the application process with no family members to help guide you. I really believe this experience is common, yet it seems to be impossible to find someone who candidly talks about it. So, I want to put my suspicion to the test: are you applying this cycle too, and feel a bit flustered in this sea of applications? Or, even if you’re not at that step, have you also felt like you want someone to talk to about your experience within your identity, but are almost afraid? Let me know, and just know that I am here for you, and I hope you can find some sort of solace in knowing that I share this background as well.