Well, that worked out well...

So I’m just about finished with my second quarter at UC Davis and yeah doing it while doing P-school has certainly not turned out for the best.


I think for upper division microeconomics, I’m sitting at about a B-, upper division macroeconomics is easily an A, maybe an A+, and upper division systemic physiology is an abysmal C+ at this point. With physio, it may or may not have a curve at the end but its not in the syllabus so I have to assume C+ it is. Those letters will be unlikely to change since all thats left are finals and I’m too busy gearing up for cardiology in P-school to spend as much time as necessary to study for Davis.


Anyway, I’m curious as to how it will look later if I do decide to go to medical school as far as having an extremely strong academic record with a piss poor quarter in the middle of it? I know that they look for trends, but when there’s no trend to go off of and just an anomaly, how will that be viewed? What about if I finish the rest of the classes for economics strongly and then take my pre-reqs at a CC since I plan to take most of them for fun (while not being pre-med per se, just for my own benefit) and therefore don’t want to spend 1,000/class just for fun? I’m not sure if explaining that I was in paramedic school at the same time would be beneficial since it could be a show of poor judgment (although I admit it was). The only consolation prize I have is over 3 months of classroom and practicals, I’m holding a 95% at the top of the class, but I don’t think med schools have much of an idea of the rigor of medic school so I don’t think that would be an adequate explanation.


I’m starting to realize just how limited paramedics are, and becoming more so every year thanks to some medics making colossal mistakes and getting drugs/procedures yanked out of the scope of practice, and I’d prefer to keep my options as open as possible after the dust from this quarter clears.


Can’t say I regret medic school though…at this point, I think I’d have the perfect job if I did airway stuff all day like intubations, etc. Dunno why but I just really like intubating. Using pharmacology to relieve pain would also be a plus. Definitely changes the focus of which specialty I’d be interested in for medicine.


Edited to add: As an afterthought, I have withdrawn from Davis to focus on (and finish) P-school so this problem will not repeat itself for another quarter in case anyone was curious about that. I plan to apply for readmission after I finish the medic program and finish out my economics major at Davis. I’ll be in good academic standing with a 3.8 GPA so I figured at the time I withdrew that that would be my best option.

Congratulations on a responsible decision. If you are taking a break at 3.8, I don’t think you should sweat the C+. You’re being hard on yourself calling it abysmal. Plus, you have a perfectly reasonable explanation for a less-than-optimal quarter. True, medical school committees mostly don’t have any idea how challenging paramedic education is - few outside of EMS do - but since you didn’t pull a full-throttle nose dive, being overextended for a brief period is a situation to which many successful, motivated individuals can relate.


It sounds like you are really enjoying medic school, and you seem to have the right motivations. Enjoy Cardiology, it’s truly the core of pre-hospital medicine. And, using pharmacology to mitigate cardio-pulmonary emergencies is really cool. God speed!

  • ViceroyPlain05 Said:
Congratulations on a responsible decision. If you are taking a break at 3.8, I don't think you should sweat the C+. You're being hard on yourself calling it abysmal. Plus, you have a perfectly reasonable explanation for a less-than-optimal quarter. True, medical school committees mostly don't have any idea how challenging paramedic education is - few outside of EMS do - but since you didn't pull a full-throttle nose dive, being overextended for a brief period is a situation to which many successful, motivated individuals can relate.

It sounds like you are really enjoying medic school, and you seem to have the right motivations. Enjoy Cardiology, it's truly the core of pre-hospital medicine. And, using pharmacology to mitigate cardio-pulmonary emergencies is really cool. God speed!



Charles, thanks for the kind words! It actually apparently turns out that it won't be as bad as I anticipated. I found out today that there is a curve for my physiology class, which makes a lot more sense since they only ask 22 questions per midterm which makes for a very thin margin of error, so I'm not nearly as poor off as I anticipated as if there was no curve. They won't give us any info on the curve or how they determine letter grades but they did say the class avg/mean is the C+/B- cutoff. The first midterm class avg was 13.6 and I got a 17/22 on it, and the second midterm class avg was 14.2 and I got a 16/22 on that one, so I'm definitely above the class avg so I'd imagine if I stay above the class avg for the final then I will at least probably get a B so maybe worst case scenario if I continue the trends I have in each class, get a B for physio, B- for microecon and A or A+ for macroecon...that should be fine.

Obviously not optimal since it seems like everything about this process screams numbers but I personally don't care if I get a B here and there. At this point, since I have a 3.8 with in excess of 100 quarter units, that overall GPA isn't going to move much. Well, unless I just start drinking captain morgan every day and partying nonstop, which is about as likely as the NHL championship game being hosted in hell. So yeah finding out about the curve is a huge relief...maybe calling a C+ "abysmal" is a little extreme but I've never gotten a C in my entire college career so to me it'd basically be a reminder of letting myself down. Hell when I was 100% pre-med I would consider even a B a failure...I've toned down a lot now and just don't really care as long as I keep it above 3.5. Yeah, maybe that won't get me into Harvard, but I never planned to apply to one of the big name schools since I want education not a name.

I am definitely enjoying medic school a lot, yes. I've pretty much decided I /will/ apply to medical school in several years but it has nothing to do with being a medic and everything to do with the fact that medics are still quite limited in what they can do simply due to the nature of the beast. We don't have labs, we can't use MRIs, X-rays, CTs, ultrasounds, arterial blood gas samples, or the massive amount of other diagnostic tools you can use in hospital which of course limits our treatment since you usually can't treat what you can't assess in the first place. I don't think I'll be content to simply following protocols my whole life, giving NTG/ASA/MS for chest pain, albuterol for wheezes, etc. but I will /love/ doing it for the time being.

I just started reading the cardiology section today...the Brady books do a pretty horrid job of explaining lead placement and how the leads themselves work, but as far as learning the rhythms, at least tentatively it doesn't seem that bad. Every rhythm I've reviewed so far looks pretty distinct from the next. I think I'm going to enjoy cardiology the most as far as P-school goes but I may be bias since cardiology is why medics exist in the first place and its where we can do the most good.

There's definitely some stuff I'm not looking forward to though. I'm aware of how adenosine works and what it does when it's pushed and it scares the crap out of me. I'll be more cool, pale & diaphoretic than the patient while they're flat line on the monitor until I see the flat line convert to NSR or at least some sort of electrical activity.

Just a note about that good ol’ adenosine - I had a stress test with adenosine - those were the longest 6 seconds of my life… I felt sorry for every patient I treated who presented with chest pain! OMG - that was painful!!!

  • lpressley130 Said:
Just a note about that good ol' adenosine - I had a stress test with adenosine - those were the longest 6 seconds of my life... I felt sorry for every patient I treated who presented with chest pain! OMG - that was painful!!!



Eesh, so it hurts like hell for the patient too? Bleh, well good to know that's probably a normal drug reaction then if I come across it. I'm actually starting to find cardiology very interesting...sure intubation is fun but not much thinking involved there. Cardiology, on the other hand, seems to involve a massive amount of problem solving which is a type A personality's dream come true.

Two thoughts:

  1. Medic school was an incredibly busy time. I cannot imagine taking more than maybe 1 class at the same time, and it would have to be lower division for sure. Kudos to you for even trying!

  2. Pushing adenosine is just as scary. Those seconds of asystole last FOREVER! I thought I had killed the patient.
  • ffaust Said:
Two thoughts:

1) Medic school was an incredibly busy time. I cannot imagine taking more than maybe 1 class at the same time, and it would have to be lower division for sure. Kudos to you for even trying!

2) Pushing adenosine is just as scary. Those seconds of asystole last FOREVER! I thought I had killed the patient.



Yeah well, I've had a lot of people tell me they admire the hell out of me for doing it but it's so not worth it that it just makes me shake my head I even considered it. This was seriously one of the worst mistakes of my life.

I don't look forward to pushing adenosine if I ever have to because I'm going to think the exact same thing. I'd just assume never have a patient who has PSVT that's refractory to vagal maneuvers or associated with WPW.

I don’t know. The adrenaline rush you get is awesome. There is something inside me that goes “COOL!” every time I do something like that.


At the same time, it is really scary.


I think I associate scary with fun.


But enough of my psychopatholgy! Have a nice day, good luck with the rest of P-school.