Hi fellow SDN population,
I have been following these forums for several years but have not felt the need to post anything until now. Like many others on here, I am a premedical student who has dreamt of becoming a physician for most of my life. Currently, I'm finishing my spring semester of junior year and plan to take the MCAT in either June or July. I've had a few valuable clinical experiences, and my cumulative gpa is somewhat competitive at 3.56. But that is where all the similarities of myself and a typical premedical student end.
Now to tell you all about why I am truly unique and different than 99% of every other applicant and human being in general.
In February 2011, I became very sick midway through spring semester of my sophomore year. I was hospitalized and found out that I had the lifelong disease of Ulcerative Colitis, a form of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. My symptoms were very tough to deal with and very painful, yet after a brief hospital stay and diagnosis, I managed to return to my studies and complete my sophomore year. In the same month that I finished my finals, I achieved remisssion and I traveled to Ecuador for a medical internship to help sick and poor people throughout Ecuador's capital city Quito. While there, my disease flared up and caused me to become incredibly sick, and I had to return home to the states after 3 weeks abroad. At home, I remained critically sick for the whole summer and ended up missing my whole Junior year (Fall 2011-spring 2012). During fall of that year, I reached the point of my disease where I was truly withering away. I lost more than 50 pounds, and I went from a 145 pound healthy human being to a weakened 95 pound skeleton. None of the medications that I was taking were clinically effective, and each of them produced their own deleterious side effects on my body and mind. The months of hospitalizations, lab tests, and intravenous infusions had left me bedridden by October, 2011; unable to complete the simplest daily tasks like showering or brushing my teeth. It was time then to make the hardest decision of my life; try the remaining few very harsh immunosuppressant drugs, or have a surgery to remove my diseased large intestines and rectum. I was tired of being a guinea pig with all of the harsh drugs so I felt inclined to choose the latter.
I had my initial surgery on December 12th, 2011 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania with the chief of gastrointestinal surgery, Dr. Daniel Dempsey, as my surgeon. The surgery itself lasted 6 hours, and was more excruciatingly painful than anything you can possibly imagine. I experienced several side effects and ended up having a second surgery 9 days later to fix an intenstinal obstruction and endured about a month-long hospital stay. My surgery basically was to remove my entire colon and rectum, create a new ileoanal reservoir out of the end of my small intestines called a Jpouch, and to create a temporary ileostomy to divert stool out through my abdomen into an external waste applicance as the internal JPouch healed. Once out, I struggled daily with learning to cope with my new ileostomy and had to undergo both physical and occupational therapy for about a month to regain my strength. But my strength did come back, and the pain did diminish, eventually.
In May, 2012, I was truly enjoying my new life and had finally acclimated to the ileostomy bag. However, it was time to undergo one final surgery to reverse the ileostomy and reattach my intestines to my newly healed JPouch. It was a much easier surgery than the first one and resulted in a one week hospital stay. It was tremendously difficult to get used to the newly functioning JPouch and to basically re-learn how to excrete waste from my body. It has been a journey that I still face today as I have since then returned back to college and onto my life's path once more. Adapting to the new lifestyle has been a real challenge for both my body and mind, and I still currently deal with ocassional small bowel obstructions that occur from excess scar tissue forming in my abdomen.
Now, here I am working on submitting my Pre-health evaluation application at my university and back focusing on my studies. I write this post as I am wondering whether medical schools and others will believe me to be a competitive candidate or not. Then I remind myself that since returning to college, I have worked hard and last semester, I ended up getting a 3.91 GPA while also taking the hardest classes yet of my college career; including A's in organic chemistry, molecular biology, and genetics. I believe that the fact that I did so well and still want to become a doctor after experiencing such a tremendous obstacle in my life is a testament to my resilient nature.
After all that has happened in the past two years, I am able to recognize that this whole ordeal has not been just a negative experience for me. The clinical consequences of my experience has given me a unique perspective of medicine and what it means to be a true patient. This perspective, I believe, gives me a huge advantage over each and every other medical school applicant. After everything that has happened to me, the physical pain, the emotional anguish, and the ever resonating traumatic aftershocks, I still find it in my heart and soul to sacrifice my health and my life to the care of others who are sick and need help. I want more than anything, to be able to share and use my experience to aid in comforting and the care of others who find themseleves in a similar situation. I don't think, I know that I would be an amazing doctor and that I have a lot of love and help to give to those who need it. Now, if you don't believe that I am an ideal person to go to medical school, please, show me a better applicant...
I truly thank those who took the time to read through this post and I wanted to see whether anyone else would tend to agree with my reasoning on why I am unique as an applicant or not.
Thank you,
Mhg26
I have been following these forums for several years but have not felt the need to post anything until now. Like many others on here, I am a premedical student who has dreamt of becoming a physician for most of my life. Currently, I'm finishing my spring semester of junior year and plan to take the MCAT in either June or July. I've had a few valuable clinical experiences, and my cumulative gpa is somewhat competitive at 3.56. But that is where all the similarities of myself and a typical premedical student end.
Now to tell you all about why I am truly unique and different than 99% of every other applicant and human being in general.
In February 2011, I became very sick midway through spring semester of my sophomore year. I was hospitalized and found out that I had the lifelong disease of Ulcerative Colitis, a form of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. My symptoms were very tough to deal with and very painful, yet after a brief hospital stay and diagnosis, I managed to return to my studies and complete my sophomore year. In the same month that I finished my finals, I achieved remisssion and I traveled to Ecuador for a medical internship to help sick and poor people throughout Ecuador's capital city Quito. While there, my disease flared up and caused me to become incredibly sick, and I had to return home to the states after 3 weeks abroad. At home, I remained critically sick for the whole summer and ended up missing my whole Junior year (Fall 2011-spring 2012). During fall of that year, I reached the point of my disease where I was truly withering away. I lost more than 50 pounds, and I went from a 145 pound healthy human being to a weakened 95 pound skeleton. None of the medications that I was taking were clinically effective, and each of them produced their own deleterious side effects on my body and mind. The months of hospitalizations, lab tests, and intravenous infusions had left me bedridden by October, 2011; unable to complete the simplest daily tasks like showering or brushing my teeth. It was time then to make the hardest decision of my life; try the remaining few very harsh immunosuppressant drugs, or have a surgery to remove my diseased large intestines and rectum. I was tired of being a guinea pig with all of the harsh drugs so I felt inclined to choose the latter.
I had my initial surgery on December 12th, 2011 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania with the chief of gastrointestinal surgery, Dr. Daniel Dempsey, as my surgeon. The surgery itself lasted 6 hours, and was more excruciatingly painful than anything you can possibly imagine. I experienced several side effects and ended up having a second surgery 9 days later to fix an intenstinal obstruction and endured about a month-long hospital stay. My surgery basically was to remove my entire colon and rectum, create a new ileoanal reservoir out of the end of my small intestines called a Jpouch, and to create a temporary ileostomy to divert stool out through my abdomen into an external waste applicance as the internal JPouch healed. Once out, I struggled daily with learning to cope with my new ileostomy and had to undergo both physical and occupational therapy for about a month to regain my strength. But my strength did come back, and the pain did diminish, eventually.
In May, 2012, I was truly enjoying my new life and had finally acclimated to the ileostomy bag. However, it was time to undergo one final surgery to reverse the ileostomy and reattach my intestines to my newly healed JPouch. It was a much easier surgery than the first one and resulted in a one week hospital stay. It was tremendously difficult to get used to the newly functioning JPouch and to basically re-learn how to excrete waste from my body. It has been a journey that I still face today as I have since then returned back to college and onto my life's path once more. Adapting to the new lifestyle has been a real challenge for both my body and mind, and I still currently deal with ocassional small bowel obstructions that occur from excess scar tissue forming in my abdomen.
Now, here I am working on submitting my Pre-health evaluation application at my university and back focusing on my studies. I write this post as I am wondering whether medical schools and others will believe me to be a competitive candidate or not. Then I remind myself that since returning to college, I have worked hard and last semester, I ended up getting a 3.91 GPA while also taking the hardest classes yet of my college career; including A's in organic chemistry, molecular biology, and genetics. I believe that the fact that I did so well and still want to become a doctor after experiencing such a tremendous obstacle in my life is a testament to my resilient nature.
After all that has happened in the past two years, I am able to recognize that this whole ordeal has not been just a negative experience for me. The clinical consequences of my experience has given me a unique perspective of medicine and what it means to be a true patient. This perspective, I believe, gives me a huge advantage over each and every other medical school applicant. After everything that has happened to me, the physical pain, the emotional anguish, and the ever resonating traumatic aftershocks, I still find it in my heart and soul to sacrifice my health and my life to the care of others who are sick and need help. I want more than anything, to be able to share and use my experience to aid in comforting and the care of others who find themseleves in a similar situation. I don't think, I know that I would be an amazing doctor and that I have a lot of love and help to give to those who need it. Now, if you don't believe that I am an ideal person to go to medical school, please, show me a better applicant...
I truly thank those who took the time to read through this post and I wanted to see whether anyone else would tend to agree with my reasoning on why I am unique as an applicant or not.
Thank you,
Mhg26