Part of a good application to medical school is showing that you have real medical experience. They want to be sure that you know what you’re getting into before you apply. I’ve been to Africa and Mexico on medical trips, have shadowed in Joplin’s ER, and followed a couple of Freeman’s doctors around, but wanted to get real volunteering hours as well. So I applied to volunteer at Norman’s hospital, NRHS, to do stuff in the Emergency Department. I had to go in for an entire afternoon of training, and take tests and buy a uniform and all sorts of stuff. I assumed I’d be making beds and pulling charts and such. But little did I know. I sent this e-mail off this morning:
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I was riding my bike down the South Oval to my dorm this week. To get back home, I have to cross one street, with a traffic light east-and-west and a crosswalk north-and-south. The crosswalk light shows a white light of a person walking when you can cross, and an orange hand when you can’t. After the white walk sign, the orange hand blinks 15 times before turning solid orange to give you time to cross (15 seconds).
I was about 20 feet from the street and looked up to see that the white walk light was on. I had at least 15 seconds to cross, since the orange light hadn’t started blinking. I looked back down to make sure I wasn’t going to run over anything icky in the road (it was wet) when all of a sudden a car almost hits me! I looked up and made a “ahhh what are you doing you almost hit me!” face. I finished getting across the street, when all of a sudden, a police officer jumps in front of my bike and starts yelling to stop!
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Yesterday I loaded up and drove to Tulsa, where I met Mom and Dad and we came the rest of the way home to Joplin.
Today, we left about 10am for Springfield, arriving just after 11. They dropped me off at the Prometric Testing Center to take… the MCAT! I had been studying quite a bit ever since Christmas break started, so I felt pretty ready. The test took about four and a half hours but honestly it was pretty fun and I enjoyed taking most of it. All except the chemistry– I hate chemistry 
Background on the MCAT: it’s the exam needed to get into medical school in the US; you take it the year before you apply (your penultimate year of university). The test comes in 3 and a half sections. Physical Sciences includes physics, inorganic chemistry, optics, E&M, and electrochemistry. Biological Sciences includes human biology, genetics, organic chemistry, and vertebrate anatomy. Verbal Reasoning has reading passages and associated questions. Each section gets a score of 1 to 15 points, where 15 is the best. The “half section” is essay-based; you write two short essays in 30 minutes each about a provided prompt. Some highlights:
- I really decimated the Verbal section… I missed practically none. I’d say no more than 2.
- Having switched to Colemak, typing the essays was kind of a beast. I practiced QWERTY for about 10 minutes before starting the writing section timer. I had to look at my hands the whole time but I got it done
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- I really should have studied more chemistry.
- Tutoring at ZAP really helped my Biology.
I think I did pretty well but scores come back in a few weeks, so we’ll see! Yay for it being over!
I present you with my schedule for the Spring 2008 semester:
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I didn’t get as much done this break as I’d hoped, but I still made good headway on studying for my MCAT that’s coming up at the end of January. The MCAT is the test you take that serves as a standard measure of how qualified you are to enter medical school; schools look at your scores as well as your GPA and application when determining whether to offer you a spot. The MCAT is divided into three sections: Biological Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Verbal Reasoning; there are also two short essay questions. Chemistry can be found in both of the science sections (organic chem vs. physical chem), and everything is very passage-based so critical reading skills are a must. A perfect score is 45 (15 on each of the three sections), and I’d like to shoot for the high 30s at least to present a competitive application to med school. I got a 30 as a freshman when I took a practice MCAT, so I think that I’ll do much better with 4 years of college behind me.
I leave for OU tomorrow morning, right after church. It’s always nice going back when I have people riding with me, and Andrew Whiteside and Adam Junk are both coming. I certainly won’t lack for entertainment as they talk more than most anyone else I know. I have no clue how I’m going to fit all of Adam’s stuff in the car tomorrow, but we’ll see what happens. My laptop gets to ride in style in my new messenger bag I got for Christmas, which I’ll have to blog about sometime because it’s kind of a big deal 
I’m ready for a new semester to start.