Just keep swimming

My undergraduate graduation was awful. The whole experience felt like a proverbial heaving of my weight across the finish line before inevitable collapse. Though my GPA wasn’t so low it endangered my graduation, I was a far cry from “med school ready,” and emotionally I felt like I barely made it and I definitely didn’t get any honors. I used to feel a lot of shame around these facts, but when I look back on it all now from here, I can’t help but feel proud of myself.

During my undergrad, I survived multiple family emergencies and deaths, a head injury with sequelae that changed my entire life in ways I’m still uncovering, a mutually toxic relationship, social ostracism due to various factors, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, sexual assault, and substance misuse. No wonder I was completely exhausted.

As I realized there was no chance in hell I was getting into medical school straight out of undergrad, I searched for meaning in my life and my already crippling depression finally won. They’d all told me I had to do well in my undergrad to get into medical school, but I’d barely made it out alive. That reality confirmed my already low self-esteem & self-worth and drove me to even deeper depths of darkness and despair.

In 2018, after 3 years of dejectedly working multiple part-time jobs and contemplating any other alternative route I could take in my career, I had an intense spiritual experience that guided me back to the path of medicine. I realized that the only thing stopping me from that path was my own lack of belief in my abilities, and so I took a leap of faith and enrolled in post-bacc classes at GT to finish the rest of the pre-requisites needed to apply for medical school. I figured if I didn’t do well in them then I wasn’t meant to move forward.

Much to my surprise, I did fine in those classes and set my sights the next hurtle… the MCAT. In 2019, I signed up for a September time slot before I went through one of the most horrific traumas in my life and had a difficult choice to make… Forfeit money I didn’t really have and further delay the future I kept dreaming about indefinitely by melting into an incapable puddle of existential pain and woe, or take a final stand against the weight of my experiences as if to finally say, “no longer will I let you delay me from my dreams. I have suffered enough from the experiences themselves, I can’t bear for them to punish me for the rest of my life by never amounting to what I know I can be.”

I went cold-turkey sober from everything, even cigarettes, and declined all social gatherings so that my schedule consisted of nothing else but work, exercise, cooking good food, and studying. I decided if I really wanted to be a medical student, I needed to start acting like one. It was the most disciplined and kind I had ever been with myself and the results yielded an MCAT score that didn’t require another try… phew! Because of this experience, I very strongly believe that to achieve our dreams, it’s important to take periods of time to encourage devotion and discipline.

Without getting sucked into all the minutiae and this turning into an autobiography, I had life align in a very synchronistic manner that led me and my partner out here to the PNW where I was able to enroll in an a year-long Master’s program in Medical Science at the very medical school I had put at the top of my list. This Master’s program served almost like a year-long interview with the medical school—one in which I was able to intimately get to know the school I wished to attend while they also got a front-row seat at how I performed as a student.

After half a decade in the healthcare profession as a Life Skills Counselor, Neurobehavioral Counselor, Certified Brain Injury Specialist, Medical Advocate, & more, this Master’s program provided the most perfect bridge to my doctorate dreams… better than I could have even imagined.

Not only did I get the acceptance I’d been dreaming of from the medical school of my choice, I’ve already taken and credited out of one of the fastest-paced classes in our first year medical curriculum, am signing up to be a paid tutor for that class this Fall, found a paid research position with the school focusing on intersectionality in specific health disparities and physician empathy, and already found a house and know the best places to shop in the town I’ll be spending at least two more years in!

I look back on my life and all the obstacles I’ve had to overcome to get here and am filled with an immense sensation of gratitude within my heart. Though the road has been anything but easy, I realize how it all would have remained impossible without each small step in faith and sacrifice I made each day of my life, from the very beginning.

Last graduation I barely made it to the finish line, overcome with burnout and unresolved pain. This graduation I graduated summa cum laude, highest honors, with my dream of med school directly on the horizon for this August.

Let this be your sign: You can heal. You can achieve your dreams. It’s never too late.