a young classmate asks you how you are prepping for the MCAT and you say you have the ExamKrackers Audio Osmosis on mp3 right here on my, and you WALKMAN instead of iPod and you cringe…
and the young classmate looks at you with a blank stare and asks “what’s a walkman?” and you think “whew, I missed that embarrassment”…
then you remember when walkman’s came out and how much better they were over your 8-track tape player…
and you then you realize that you are so old that walkman is WAY before these kid’s time, 8-tracks are in museums, just how old am I and WTF am I doing here?
sorry its late and i need a some an aqueous solution of ethanol mixed with dissolved carbon dioxide gas cooled to approximately 5 degree centigrade by the addition of solid H2O
(1) Instead of just being a passive patient whose doctor doesn't explain anything, you go online to Amazon.com and actually BUY Netter's Anatomy and two others, and an orthopedic text as well.
You are quite ecstatic to spend your hard-earned $300 bucks.
When the package arrives a few days later, you are enthralled to read all about it! Now you know as much as your doctor, or so you hope -- or you will someday!
(2) You vow that you will be the kind of good doctor with great communication skills and compassion for your patients so the patients will never need to order medical texts from Amazon.com in order to learn all about their health condition, because you will already have explained it to them so well ...
When I got in motorcycle accident on vacation last March and mentioned to the ER doc that I was going back to school in the fall to start pre-med he and the surgeon who patched me back together made me a much more active part of my care and actually went into detail and spent a bit longer explaining everything that was going on. Of course, this also bit me in the ass when I came back home and the ortho doc wouldn't let me out of my cast as early as they normally would because "we take care of our own and I'm going to make sure you're 100% before I take that cast off so you can't go back to work and screw up your hands".
TL;DR If you go in for major medical issues, tell the docs you are pre-med and want to learn as much as you can from them.
When you explain to the traditional students that you have your A in OChem because you sepnt all day in the library the weekend before the test and they say “I Don’t have time for that.” And you roll your eyes…
When the baffled traditional students ask you how you have the highest grades in both biology AND chemistry, and you patiently explain, “I read all the text and do every practice problem” and they look at you like you’re speaking a foreign language.
Bailey–you are singing my song!!!
When you can finish all of the above AND still take your 4 year old daughter to the park to enjoy a beautiful Saturday, because that’s just how we roll…(meanwhile the traditional students with no children and no job wonder how we have time to do it? Wow…)
When you steal a conference room at the office to read chemistry every day over lunch…
When you watch a crime show on TV…correction…when you listen to your family watching a show on TV while you are reading biology…and you get excited because you recognize that the crime lab guy is isolating DNA, and you know what enzymes are required to make that happen.
You might be an OPM’er if you take your old sliderule into an electronics store and show the guy behind the counter what functions you can do on the slide rule, that he does on the TI whatever, and his response is “What is that called?” and “That’s amazing, what will they think of next?!”
HAHAHAHA! I am cracking up, because I actually made the back to the future reference the other day in Chem lab, too… My lab partner asked me what the charge of something was, and I said, “1.21 Jigga-watts!”
....The last time you registered for class it was with a timetable book, or in person.
OMG....do you remember having to dial into an 800 number and punch in all of these codes. And you would hit a wrong number and have to start all over....Good Times
You make an obvious "Back to the Future" reference in Chem lab and your lab partner looks at you with a blank stare.
Hilarious!!
We just covered flux in Physics II. While we were discussing a particular circuit I asked the professor what effect a "flux capacitor" would have on the current.
This was of course after class. Being a child of the 80's himself, he appreciated the Doc Brownesque curiosity.
You might be an OPMer if you mention listening to NPR to your physics lab partner, and they look at you with a blank stare, and ask you if that’s a new band.
what would have been ridiculously funny is if your lab partner looked at you, and said with true, genuine curiosity, “what the hell is a jigawatt??” I would have dropped.
What a fun thread!
I hope all who are reading these, and new to OPM are considering the convention. What a great weekend for learning about the process.
Ok… my best one all week: If you find yourself studying for a chemistry exam at 2am and decide to take a break. Your break? A practice test for the Bio Science part of the MCAT. Because completing 77 questions (just for kicks to see how you’d do) just kinda…sounded…fun??
Yes. THIS is why I am sitting in my office this morning with toothpicks propping up my eyelids. Somebody shoot me!
I love these posts! So true! I’m a 34 yr old single mom flirting w/ pre-med classes (I’m techncially a nursing major but my heart is in medicine so I’m taking the more challenging classes to meet my premed reqs but still qualifying for the nursing reqs, too) while working 32 hrs/week, too.
When my daughter broke her arm last year, the ER doc asked me if I was in medicine because of how much I knew. I just smiled and said “no” but that I was working on it. He treated me with just a bit more “professional” respect after that and used more technical terms w/ me to my delight!
I tell you, the traditional students DO NOT UNDERSTAND how us non-trads ace our classes while juggling everything else. No wonder many med schools are becoming more and more open to non-trads. We are “mature” and experts at multi-tasking, not to mention determined and without the luxury of wasting time!
The soap crayons? Love it! I’m stealing that trick. I have some around for my 2.5 yr old.
I have little time to stalk these boards as most of us do, but whenever I do I am sooo encouraged and convinced I can do this and follow my dream into medicine.
