I’d like to tell my story today and get some advice. So I graduated high school in 2012 and attended a 4 year university as a pre-med majoring in Biology(surprise surprise) Towards the end of my first semester I got in a pretty bad snowboarding accident that resulted in tearing my ACL and MCL. This caused me not to be able to finish that semester and resulted in some pretty subpar grades. Then in the spring semester I thought that I would be able to do well despite the injury. Right before the spring semester started I had knee surgery to repair the damage. Well this semester did not go as I thought it would. The chronic pain and physical therapy 3 times a week definitely took a toll on my grades. I was also having to work my way through school and could not work due to my injury. This resulted in not having enough money to continue school and having a large amount of medical debt.
After I was completely healed I decided to join the Navy. I tested high on the ASVAB and became a Nuclear electrician serving on submarines. Instead of getting a signing bonus I decided to have all of my medical debt paid off to have a clean slate. Now fast forward to 2020. I am getting out of the Navy this year and starting back to school in the fall, again as a premed majoring in Biology (surprise surprise). I am very worried that my past academic history will affect my GPA so much, that I will be overlooked even with an upward trend. For me, being a physician is my life calling and even though my path hasn’t been normal, I have to do this. I am wondering if anyone else had a similar situation or looking for some advice moving forward in my premed journey.