Viva La Osteo-stache

By way of explanation: apparently the second year students at ATSU have been growing osteo-staches as part of the festivities in welcoming in the new first years. Apparently I decided to join in.

Ever Wonder What Med Students Do For Fun?

Hey look, more studying!

New Favorite Medical Term

As per Wikipedia: Coccydynia is a medical term meaning pain in the coccyx or tailbone area, usually brought on by sitting. Read: coccydynia is a medical pain in the ass.

What Have I Been Doing The Last 2 Months?

So this might be a long post, as I haven't actually put up anything about my actual life in a while, though I did make a brief reference. Summary version goes like this: got married on the 17th of July (picture me doing some version of a happy dance); honeymoon for a week; back to work for 2 days; driving to Boise, Seattle, Semiahmoo, and Victoria for 5 days; my wife flying to Houston without me for 4 days (probably the hardest thing I've ever done right there); me flying down to join her in Houston for the weekend; one week of me working while my wife packed all my stuff (since we never really had a chance to unpack her stuff); babysitting for 2 days, including on the day we checked out of the Utah apartment; 24 hours of driving (which we split up over 2.5 days to get to Kirksville; starting med school orientation 3 days later. I'm kinda tired just from writing it all down.

I'm not a huge picture taker, but I know I have pictures of some of the described events, so I'll post them later. For now, I'll post some wedding pics at the end.

Since the end of the first paragraph, my life has been all about med school. Orientation here at KCOM was stretched out over 3 days (Fri, Sat, Mon) and the Tue that classes started was mostly non-testable ethics and professionalism lectures plus one hour of BioChem. After that, they turned up the speed and it feels like we've been cranking along non-stop since then. I keep thinking they can't feed us information any faster, but I get proven wrong every week so far. Despite the speed, so far I do seem to be doing relatively well and getting good scores on most of my graded assignments.

And now for what people really want:

Med School Questions Other People Thought Of

OK, so first, I am not leaving for Missouri tomorrow. With classes starting in August, I figure the first of August is probably the earliest possible departure, but I probably won't know for sure until when I'm leaving until April or May.

Entertainment in this part of Missouri is hunting, camping, fishing... there is an 8 screen movie theater, a Wal-Mart, and Truman State University in town, but frankly, its the kind of town where focusing on studying really won't be too hard.

A couple things that made A.T. Still University the best option in my mind. First, its the oldest D.O. school, A.T. Still being the founder of osteopathic medicine. Locationally, I had preferred going to AZ, but they are a very new school, doing some very new things with their training. I liked what their philosophy is and think it will become more prevalent, but I decided I would rather go somewhere more established, feeling this gives me better opportunities to get into whatever specialty I eventually choose. LMU DCOM is the other school I got accepted to; it is a new school, and in travel time is a bit further from 'home' than Kirksville. I flatly did not like Nova Southeastern. I'm sure its great for some, but I'm not one of them. The University of Toledo would be a good fit for me, except that I have been thoroughly converted to the osteopathic philosophy.

And lastly, for those who don't understand what osteopathic medicine is, that last link is has a pretty good explanation, I recommend it.

Look Out Missouri, Here I Come!

So the decision has officially been made, I will attend A.T. Still University Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine! I get to send in my signed acceptance letter along with my savings account later today. I know I told plenty of folks that I wanted to go to school in Mesa, but the school there just didn't match up with what I think I want from my medical education (as if any prospective med student really has any idea what medical education should be). So I'm excited enough that I'm know I'm not really answering a lot of the questions y'all are likely to have about how this whole process goes, but all the fun starts August 21st. And for everything else I've completely failed to address, please ask!

Choices, Choices

I got a call today from AT Still Kirksville, offering me my second acceptance to medical school! After three years of famine, the feast seems to have arrived!

And The Down Side Is

$2,000. Yep, $2,000. That's how much LMU wants as a non-refundable deposit to hold my place in the next entering class. And they want it in 14 days. I would really like to have a chance to hear back from some other schools before making a wicked monetary choice like this, especially since I can't get any of that med student loan money until the fall.

In other news, I finished my weekend of way too much travel without any incidents, major or minor. I interviewed Monday at the University of Toledo, one of the schools I interviewed at last year. I feel like I did much better there this year than last, but still don't feel like I did nearly as well as I did at the LMU and Kirksville interviews. All told, I'm still pulling for Arizona, but I want another one of the schools, specifically Kirksville, to accept me so that I can still hold a spot somewhere without paying for it while I wait on Arizona (where I don't interview until Friday).

Let The Good Times Roll

So I'd say this picture pretty much sums up my week. Obviously the med school acceptance was a huge deal; I get a pretty good emotional high from completing my short term goals, so having this three-year-way-to-many-thousand-dollar investment pay off was exponentially more satisfying. I'm still going to the other interviews because as cool as acceptance to LMU is, Harrogate, TN just isn't the most happening place on the planet. I think I liked the atmosphere in Harrogate better than Ft. Lauderdale, so were I to have a choice there, I think TN wins. I'm a bit torn over Harrogate vs. Kirksville. They both require a lot of time to get to (though they're not so remote as what my sister deals with since they both have Wal-Marts), but after having visited Kirksville and finding out how strongly the LDS church is represented in the student body, its a harder to say that TN is clearly higher on the list. So that's med school.

I also went on something of a last minute date last night, and she's not 17! So now that we've got that question out of the way... I'm seriously impressed by this girl. My cell battery will attest to the fact that I very much fancy this girl. I think I need new words between like (something that belongs on the note passed in elementary school) and love (cause we abuse this term to avoid 'like' when we, and in this case I, very much don't mean it). For the high points, she's a lady that allows me to be a gentlemen (you guys all know you dig that), extremely intelligent (which translates into very enjoyable conversation), doesn't let that intelligence interfere with her faith, and she 'fits' (sorry Emily, I'm wasting my height again). Lest I sound obsessed, mom, this still belongs in the 'getting to know you' category of dating; everything I've learned just happens to be positive.

Med School Here I Come!!!!!!

I got in! I got in! I got in! I got in! I got in! I got in! I got in! I got in! Can you tell how excited I am?! I got a call from the Dean of Lincoln Memorial University-DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine in Harrogate, TN, informing me that he had just signed my acceptance letter and wanted to congratulate me. So that whole trauma over just getting to the school turned out to be worth it!

Ever Wonder Who That Was

Ever been sitting in the airport when they were paging someone for immediate departure and wondered who that person is and how they would up having to be paged? Myself and 6 or 7 other passengers on my Ft. Lauderdale to Atlanta flight got to be those people while we sprinted from Gate B3 to B31 (about a half mile run). Nothing so interesting as the last interview, but still more excitement than I look for in my travels.

The interview itself was OK; I'd rate it not quite as good as LMU-DCOM from earlier this week.

Things Not To Do

1 - Lose your driver's license.
2 - Do #1 while traveling.
3 - Do #2 on the outbound leg.
4 - Do #3 when you have to rent a car for a 90 mile drive.
5 - Pack a suit but not a tie.

I case there's any doubt, I managed to do these thing on Sunday. I discovered the license to be missing when I landed in Knoxville, and promptly talked to a airline agent. They called the desk in Detroit at the gate where I had waited for my connection, and told me it was found at would be on the next flight in to Knoxville. Five hours and three flights later, no license. At this point I just had to get out to Harrogate, so I got to a couple cabbies to bid on my 90 mile drive. I do recommend making the drivers compete, but I do not recommend needing a 90 mile taxi ride (it costs too much even when they have to compete with each other).

The next morning I realized I had failed to pack a tie... just plain dumb. There was a Wal-Mart across the the street from my hotel, so that turned out fine. After buying a new tie, I talked to everyone in the hotel lobby who was wearing a suit, until I found another student there for the interview and who was driving back through Knoxville. He saved me the pain of another 90 mile cab ride.

When I got back to the airport, I went to the airline desk to inquire about my license again, but they had no new news. They did give me the desk number for the gate in Detroit so I could pursue things further myself, but of course, the agent at the desk had to refer my inquiry to a supervisor and told me to call back after at least an hour. So in the mean time, I checked in for my flight home.

Apparently a student ID with picture and signature line combined with multiple credit cards can get you checked in to a flight and through security; if you agree to allow them to search you and your carry ons as though you walked up and told them your a drug camel. OK, it wasn't that bad, it was even really funny to hear the security guy tell me the S's on my ticket meant I had been 'randomly' selected for additional security measures. Yep, random.

So its at about this time that I learn my flight to Atlanta is delayed. Not a big deal. About every ten minutes they added another five minutes to our estimated departure time. By the time we get on the plane, its already going to be a close call on catching my connection to Salt Lake, so I've also been given a provisional booking on a later flight. The earlier flight would get me to Salt Lake at 8:30, the later at midnight. As I'm telling this whole story to the girl sitting next to me, she makes a joke, something about Murphy's corollaries and how there's no way our plane will get to Atlanta in time for the early connection. Sure enough, the pilot then comes on the intercom and says we're #1 for take off but can't leave because the airspace around Atlanta has no windows to add us to their traffic pattern...

Atlanta is a big airport, so landing at 6:12 for a 6:15 flight that's 3 terminals away just doesn't work out all that well. The upside of suddenly having a three hour layover is that I get to call Detroit again. The official report from the supervisor is that no one ever found my license and they have no idea why Knoxville thought they had. Lovely. I called the Detroit airport main line and talked to their lost and found, and as I should have expected, no dice there either.

So there you have it. Oh, almost forgot, the interview itself actually managed to go fairly well, and I actually got a very positive read from one of the interviewers :D

Score Another One

So I got home last night from playing video games around 1am, and since I'm retarded I thought it would be a good time to check my email. Well, turns out the late night check was worth it, cause I had another interview request for AT Still Arizona waiting for me! So hurray for me! I'm pretty excited to about all these interviews; the first one on Monday just can't come fast enough.

Wahoo!

The whole med school application process has been a minor nightmare for me, but this third round has some good things going for me. This morning I finalized the date for my fourth interview in January. So I have Jan 12th in Harrogate, TN at Lincoln Memorial University-DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine, Jan 15th in Fort Lauderdale, FL at Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine, Jan 22nd in Kirksville, MO at Kirksville School of Osteopathic Medicine, and Jan 26th in Toledo, OH at The University of Toledo.