My First Post - SMP Year in Review

Where should I even begin?  I suppose this is not your typical blog post since I am attempting to squeeze a year's worth of events (or lack there-of) into a couple paragraphs.  I told myself, however, that I would start a blog to document the next four years of my life in our nation's capitol, where the temperature has no sympathy for pale white boys like myself.  And these next four years would mean nothing without reflecting on my last.  From there, I figure that writing about my experience in DC could lessen the burden on my parents.  I hope they enjoyed talking to me every day for the past 10 months, but even I would get tired of 25+ phone calls per day with Croom, Lawrence on the caller ID.

For those of you who don't know anything about me, don't worry, you're not missing out.  It took me three tries to get into medical school, but I finally did it.  Barely.  I owe almost all of the credit for this to a one-year master's program at Georgetown University where I proved to myself and a few medical schools that I could handle the tough curriculum presented to medical students throughout the country.

Does everyone have to do this?
No.

Why did I have to do this?
Because I used to think banging 6-irons and Drivers off the mats at Diversey Driving Range in Chicago was more important than reviewing Professor Vandelay's review questions for tomorrow's test.

To be honest, my phrase "used to think" should more honestly be worded as simply "think."  But I did realize one day that my "good" GPA for some was considered to be "below average" for those matriculating to medical school.  And to make a long story short I decided to attend Georgetown's program as a last-ditch attempt to get in.

Looking back on it now, packing up and moving to Washington was a great decision.  I didn't know anybody living there.  My closest relatives lived a 5-hour drive north in New York.  I didn't know anything to do for fun, my cell phone had no service in my basement apartment,  and my oven didn't exactly work.  Basically, the only thing I could do to kill time was STUDY.  And study is what I did.

Georgetown's Special Master's Program in Physiology and Biophysics was built for rejects like myself who had trouble getting accepted into medical school.  There were various exceptions to this just as in all aspects of life.  My classmates and I were to take six out of the ten first-year medical classes with Georgetown's medical students along with eight graduate-level classes with my fellow classmates (3 of which were nice, automatic A's).  If we wanted to get an A in a medical class, we had to beat 85-90% of these M1 studs on our tests.  To get an A-, our grade had to match the next subset percentage of medical students, and so on and so forth down the grading scale.  It was virtually impossible to get below a B- because medical schools hate to report that their students are failing.  But if you stunk it up bad enough, you could realistically fail  a class.  Most of both classes (my SMPs and M1s) received a B (or "Pass" for the medical students).  We were encouraged during our orientation that "Getting a B is a good thing.  It means you are keeping up with medical students."  I honestly had no idea what kind of potential I had at that point.  I had struggled through three MCATs and just did not know if I could really keep up with this suicide mission.  I did know one thing.  I was going to give it my best effort and see what happened.

Driving out to Washington with my parents in late July, 2010 was a blast.  The highlights of the drive were a Big Boy in Maumee, Ohio and a speed limit sign somewhere in Maryland.

Alas, we finally made it to Georgetown and got myself moved in.  Here is a picture of Healy Hall, an old building on campus that looks like it is straight out of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  This is taking much longer than I originally anticipated, and since I am now on "The Summer of Kevin" I am going to call it a post and resume later with something that will hopefully be more interesting to read.