My Pre-premed Background: I’m a 34-year-old dad with 4 kids (12, 10, 8, 3) at home and a super supportive FT-working wife. We’re low income, but we have an incredible support-community and a milieu of good attitudes and great work ethic.

I struggled with a broken family and mental illness during high-school. I moved country and became a digital media manager and business owner in my small city of 40k people. During that time I also became a part-time pastor/preacher. Both media/marketing and pastoral leadership include a fair amount of on-the-go psychology training. My media/leadership role in the community put me in a position of influence. I felt like my influence was beyond my credibility and competency (I was influencing the psychology of 200-2000 people weekly.) So, when COVID struck and the opportunity to pivot came up, I decided to make the leap from media to medicine…

It’s a big leap! But not out of the blue. As a pastor, my circle of close friends included MDs and PhD’s who urged me to seek higher education. After some soul searching I knew I wanted to be a physician.

Having dropped out in 2004 with no high school transcripts, and a family/mortgage to manage, my pre-med years consist of piecemeal BCMP and psych courses at my local community college. And as much extra-curricula stuff I can sink my teeth into in the midst of a pandemic.

Why an MD? There’s a lot of psychology in media/marketing. Pastoral care involves some quazi-psychotherapy. (Psychotherapy is really where my passion lies.) But clinical psychology is not where I want to land. Because of my background in mental illness in a family context, I’m passionate about being able to treat the young father who just experienced his first psychotic episode of schizophrenia and needs help avoiding an event that will traumatize his family. Or the mother who is trying to find the balance between her bipolar medication and her motivation to persevere with loving her children. Or the ADHD student who waywardly ventured into illicit drugs and needs help to stabilize and take advantage of the opportunities available to him.

I realize it’s a long and unusual journey before me. But my mind’s made up. And I’m so blest to have such a supportive family that are keen to join me in making this dream a reality.