I am
sitting in my 6 x 12 tile room in NYC, thinking about all of the things I have
to do within the next few months. The air is blowing on me from two
sides; it is mostly warm air from both a window and square plastic box fan that
I have grown used to during the last couple of weeks. This tiny room with
a single bed, closet, small desk & dresser represent an important part of
my journey, not always comfortable, but necessary. This is where I lived while studying for the USLME Step 1
exam.
Any
medical student aiming to practice in the USA will tell you that Step 1 is the
most important exam of their life; everyone has a story of the stress they
endured to study for this exam, which ultimately culminates in a three digit
score that will largely determine one's fate as a doctor.
The
stakes were no different for me as I finally sat for this exam on May 17, 2013
at the Westbury Prometric center on Long Island (where I grew up), after
canceling it twice. What WAS different is that I am 43 years old & never
prepared for a standardized exam (besides my social work licensing test).
As you get to know me you will come to understand why I never took the
SAT, GRE or MCAT exam. For now, I will just say that victory over Step 1
(praise God) & my passion for social justice & social/preventive
medicine prompted me on this sweaty, Saturday morning to continue the blog I
started right before my 40th birthday.
I
came back to New York from the small island of Sint Eustatius
("Statia") in the Dutch Caribbean in March 2012. I never got to walk in my basic science
graduation because I had to leave early to secure this room. My plans
were to take a Kaplan course in July after reviewing all of the videos & my
Step 1 exam shortly after. My NBME practice scores, however, told me
something very different; I had a long way to go. My first practice test
score after Kaplan was a measly 163, even lower than my final NBME during
medical school.
A low
NBME score with almost every arrow pointing in the wrong direction could not
discourage me too much because I had come so far already! At age 35, with zero science
background, I was accepted into a post-bac premedical studies program at the City
College of New York. At that time,
I was directing the Baby Steps Home Visiting Program in Harlem and living in my very own coop on Johnson Ave. in Riverdale, a section of the Bronx in NYC. I love social work but always knew a 2nd
career was in the future; I figured it would be in politics or maybe journalism
since I love to write. A lot of
medical students know early on that they want to become a doctor; I didn’t
figure that out until I was 35. As
a kid who grew up with Epilepsy, I DID want to be a nurse. When I finally got to college and looked
at the career books, I narrowed down my choices to Speech Pathologist, Nurse or
Social Worker. I wanted to help
people, like my guidance counselor helped me get accepted to college even
though I was a terrible, mostly absent student. I looked at the science requirements for both nursing &
speech pathology and said, “I can’t do that.” Social work it was.
As
the director of Baby Steps and a community faculty member for Harlem Hospital’s
community pediatric residency program, I meet weekly with mostly IMG residents
who rotated through our program & conducted home visits to Baby Steps
families. The linkage we built
between the hospital and the community inspired me to pursue medicine as a 2nd
career. The fact that I had NO
science background & always felt deficient in math somehow did not deter me. I started at the beginning with basic math and took 1-2 courses a semester
until I completed all of my premed requirements. I even signed up for tutoring for the first couple of
courses, which helped me gain a lot of confidence. There are lots of little (and very big) stories that
occurred during this time, which I will get to in future posts!
Back
to NYC, post Kaplan, 2012... armed with my new Hunter College Alumni card (I
received my MSW from Hunter College in 1994), I trucked with my new, big bag (a
graduation gift from my brother Billy) through 3 subways each way every day to
reach the Hunter College main library on Lexington Ave. and 68th Street.
In my bag were the usual suspects: my dependable MacBook Pro, my falling
apart 2011 First Aid which I eventually replaced by the color 2013 FA, Pathoma
& my embarrassingly barely read BRS physio book (my very worst friend which
I was trying to make amends with), external hard drive, head set, glasses (I
never needed glasses until I got back from medical school) plus some fruit,
water & 1-2 peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.
Hunter
College has a huge 7-floor library, which was undergoing renovation during my
study time. You have to take the 7th floor elevator to the 3rd floor and
transfer to another elevator to reach the very bottom quiet floor, which is
where I lived eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches & drinking Vitamin
water (I joked that this was my health plan) + Pathoma + FA for almost a year. During this time, I was also completing
coursework and an internship for an online Master’s in Public Health (MPH) and
doing intermittent consultant work at a hospital in the Bronx.
About three
months ago, a fellow US medical student asked me how it was that I started
medical school at age 40. When I gave him a short, highly edited version
of my journey, from wayward- barely-graduated-from-HS-youth to social worker to
MD student, he simply said, "You are unorthodox." I smiled and thought,
"If he only knew."
