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Session 181
In today’s episode, Ryan is joined by Allison as they discuss interesting topics such as taking gap years and fostering healthcare teamwork.
This is also the first time for Ryan and Allison to go live on the Facebook Hangout Group while recording this session at the same time so they’re also taking in some questions from people in the group.
Here are the highlights of the conversation with Ryan and Allison:
Gap Years before Medical School
Reasons for taking a gap year:
- Allison taking a gap year due to burnout to be able to take a breather
- It allows you to gain more clinical experience or shadowing experience.
- It allows you to try a lot of things.
- It may add more substance to your application.
- Doing things that allows you to grow and to continue in your service of others or ability to do research or to dig deeper into something you’re passionate about.
Options you can take during the gap year:
- Clinical experience
- Getting involved in a pharmaceutical company doing drug development
Is it okay to travel during your gap year?
- Yes. Traveling allows you to experience different cultures, people, and communities.
Maximizing the use of healthcare team players
Your team is invaluable!
- How the team works together plays a major role in the strength of your ability to function well.
- The healthcare team is a collaborative environment where each person’s role is so important.
Tips when working in a team:
- Be a team player as early as you can.
- Learn your role and how it works with the roles of other people on your team
- Learn how you can best function and how you can best lead and serve their needs and get what you need from them.
Respect is critical.
- Being a physician doesn’t mean you’re the boss so arrogance has no place in any team.
- Have respect for people who have been in their role for 25-30 years even if they’re not doctors.
- Learn your place and earn your dues.
Dealing with pimping or superiors trying to talk you down:
- Keep your cool and rise above it.
- Always be professional.
- Keep your head high but show respect.
Premed Q&As
Q: Other types of career Ryan and Allison would do if they weren’t doctors or in healthcare:
A: Allison would be on Broadway and be a professional dancer. Ryan thinks he’d be involved in computer programming.
Q: Was doing Allison’s undergrad at McGill a disadvantage for her application to medical school?
A: In some ways, yes, because her GPA was lower than would have been because they had a very rigorous curriculum and the way grades were weighted was really hard. Hence, her application was not as strong as it could have been.
Q: How do Ryan and Allison balance work-life aspect during medical school and residency?
A: Ryan thinks there is no work-life balance but it’s one big pot that you need to do whatever needs to be done to stay sane through exercise and eating well.
Having kids during this time would be different as you need to set aside family time. Having a dual physician (where you and your spouse are both doctors) household may also work for many although it’s a personal decision.
Some pieces of advice for premed students:
Keep your head high. Keep going.
Keep working hard. This too shall pass.
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Links and Other Resources
Elite Medical Scribes – Learn more from them on The Premed Years Session 171
Transcript
Introduction
Dr. Ryan Gray: The Premed Years, session number 181.
Hello and welcome to The Premed Years where we believe that collaboration, not competition, is key to your success. I am your host Dr. Ryan Gray, and in this podcast we share with you stories, encouragement, and information that you need to know to help guide you on your path to becoming a physician.
This week I’m joined by my lovely cost one more time, welcome back Allison Gray.
Dr. Allison Gray: Hi everybody. I hope you don’t mean one more time ever, that sounded really sad.
Dr. Ryan Gray: It depends on how you do today.
Dr. Allison Gray: Isn’t that so typical Ryan? Don’t you just love that?
Dr. Ryan Gray: It’s conditional. It’s just like any performance.
Dr. Allison Gray: Well I’m batting like forty for forty so far, so I’m not too worried. And I also live here, and I know where you live.
Dr. Ryan Gray: You think you’ve been on forty podcast episodes so far?
Dr. Allison Gray: I know, I just kind of made that up.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Okay that’s good. Anyway, it’s good to have you back, how have you been?
Dr. Allison Gray: I’ve been good, how have you been?
Dr. Ryan Gray: I’ve been very well, thank you. This is a little bit different, as we’re recording this we’re also on Facebook live.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah you told me about that part about two minutes before we started.
Dr. Ryan Gray: It works, it’s fun, right?
Dr. Allison Gray: Live.
Dr. Ryan Gray: So if you’re listening to this and you’re not part of the Facebook hangout, you can go to www.MedicalSchoolHQ.net/group. Join our hangout and when we go live for future recordings, maybe, depending on how today goes.
Dr. Allison Gray: Wow.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Then you can watch those live as well.
Dr. Allison Gray: The pressure’s on.
Dr. Ryan Gray: We’re a little bit later tonight, we’re recording this at 9:22 Mountain Time.
Dr. Allison Gray: Oh I almost said Pacific Time.
Dr. Ryan Gray: We’re not in Pacific Time.
Dr. Allison Gray: I don’t know where I live.
Dr. Ryan Gray: This is Mountain Time. So awesome, so this is fun too because if you’re watching this, you can ask some questions of us live and maybe we’ll answer them. We’re going to answer some questions that were posted last week when we put out that we were going to record an episode and what people wanted to hear from us. So if you’re watching and you have something new that you want to hear from us, go ahead and post, we’ll be watching our comments. But let’s go ahead and talk a little bit about what people wanted to hear. And I think one of the first things that popped up was that somebody wanted to hear about gap years, and that was Emily McDowell. And you took a gap year on purpose, and I took a gap year because I didn’t get into medical school the first time I applied; I actually took three years off. So let’s go ahead and talk about gap years. What was the reasoning behind why you took a gap year?
Gap Years
Dr. Allison Gray: I was really burned out in school, that was one of the reasons to be perfectly honest. I was exhausted and I had a really rigorous undergrad program at McGill, and it was just science, science, science all the time. And I was exhausted, and I didn’t think I could devote the time I needed to my application while also doing my senior year classes at school. And so that was one of the reasons, and I was watching my friend- one of my best friends in college apply while we were in class, and it was so stressful for her. And what else? Well I knew that I needed more clinical experience, that was part of it too, and I wanted to do- I wanted to try a couple new things before- now I can see myself on two screens. I wanted to try doing a couple of different things that I didn’t think I was going to get a chance to do once I entered medicine- once I became a medical student and went forward. And so I figured well this is a great opportunity, it will give me- it will sort of what’s that word? I thought it would just sort of make my application more appealing, it would add- bulk is totally the wrong word because you don’t want to add bulk to yourself. Add substance maybe to yourself.
Dr. Ryan Gray: To your application?
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah, and just to what you’ve done. So I think for several reasons, and it was a really good choice for me.
Dr. Ryan Gray: As you were going through that thought process, how did you figure out that it was something you could do, that it wasn’t looked upon negatively, and again how did you figure out what to do?
Dr. Allison Gray: Well I remembered being in Anatomy- because we actually took Anatomy in undergrad, and I remember there being a TA, a Teacher’s Aid, and she had applied I think twice already, and she was going to apply a third time to medical school, and the irony was she was teaching the medical students Anatomy at that point.
Dr. Ryan Gray: But this was Canada.
Dr. Allison Gray: This was- well okay.
Dr. Ryan Gray: It’s harder in Canada.
Dr. Allison Gray: It’s very hard, yeah so she was brilliant, and this was her second time, she was going to apply a third time. Anyway I recognized that okay, people could do things and not go immediately into medical school from undergrad. And I guess I picked up on that at some point and started realizing, okay well lots of people in medical school aren’t necessarily 22, maybe they’re 24 or 26. The average age is actually 24 so it’s not 22 when you enter medical school, or 21. So I realized that this was an option, and that it really appealed to me for a lot of reasons, and I thought I’m going to run with this.
Dr. Ryan Gray: What did your parents say when you said, “I’m not going to go to medical school like we talked about?”
Dr. Allison Gray: My dad I think freaked out because- well no we had two different conversations. When I was really burned out in undergrad I remember this really long drive we took going home from Montreal to Boston for the summer, and I was so burned out and I said, “Dad I don’t think I can do this, I don’t know if I want this,” and he gave me the best advice. He said, “Give it some time.” He said, “You’re so tired, you’re so exhausted from working so hard, give it some time. You know this is what you want and you just need to take a breather and you’ll be fine.” But the whole gap year thing, I think my dad had- so my dad and my mom never stopped. They went straight through school, they got their Doctorate’s, they just- so I think they went straight into PhD training, and then their Doctorate’s from undergrad, and they never took a break. And actually I think the longest break my mom ever took was when she took off eight weeks to have my sister. So taking a break was not something in their generation, it was not something in their thought process, and this whole gap thing was very bizarre to them.
Dr. Ryan Gray: That was for hippies.
Dr. Allison Gray: My parents were hippies? They were hippies, yeah.
Dr. Ryan Gray: No, no taking a gap year is for hippies.
Dr. Allison Gray: Oh okay but that’s funny, because my parents were actually hippies for a while. But anyway- well they grew up in like Woodstock. So when I told my dad about this idea about wanting to take a gap year, I think he was like, ‘Oh my God, does that mean she’s going to like leave school, and she’s not going to go back?’ It was like this gap could become like a permanent gap or something. And I tried to convince him, and he came around. And my mom realized, ‘She just needs some time, and she wants to do some other things,’ and what I ended up doing my dad recognized was really great. And then my sister went on and did a gap year, but she didn’t go to med school, she went to psychology graduate school. But yeah, he came around, he came around. But it’s very different. I mean our generation, and a few years ahead, a few years back; that’s a brand new thing if you think about compared to twenty years ago, you didn’t take a gap year. That’s like taking a year off from your life. And obviously it’s not, it’s just a different way of doing things for a while. But I think for probably our parents, and their parents, it’s just a foreign concept.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah. How did you go about picking what you did during that gap year?
Dr. Allison Gray: So I knew that I wanted a couple of different things. I’m a variety junkie, always have been, so I knew I didn’t want to do one thing for the course of the year. And I had already worked in a lab all through college in a clinical research project at Brigham and Women’s working for a cardiologist on a project there. And so I didn’t really want to be in any kind of research setting, I really wanted to be in a clinical setting, and I knew I needed that clinical experience that I really didn’t feel like I’d had enough of. And I also had thought about what my mom does, and she just retired, but she was working at a biopharmaceutical company, and I thought, ‘Well gosh, that’s such an interesting idea because they’re working on drug development, and trying to make patients’ lives better, and then there’s all this- people have all this sort of stigma about them, and they’re the big bad drug companies.’ So I thought, ‘Gosh it’d be really cool to see what it’s like from the inside.’ And so I looked for clinical opportunities in something unique.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah. That’s awesome. So I think there is a huge trend toward going for a gap year, having students take that gap year. Because as you said, it adds substance, it adds bulk as you said, to the application. It allows you- and we talked about this a lot with nontraditional students, students that are away from school that have some experience in the real world, and not just being a student. I think it allows them to grow as a person, it allows them to figure out who they are a little bit better, but I think in the end it allows students to be better physicians. Would you agree with that?
Dr. Allison Gray: Absolutely. I think it gives you life experience, and that’s really priceless in a sense.
Dr. Ryan Gray: I think so, too. So gap years, you can do so many different things with a gap year, but there are some things that you probably should avoid doing.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yes, ski-bumming and-
Dr. Ryan Gray: Ski-bumming?
Dr. Allison Gray: Ski-bumming, that’s verb or adjective, or whatever.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Okay.
Dr. Allison Gray: So basically I think what I mean by that is you don’t want to- there’s nothing in skiing, skiing is awesome. You don’t want to do something that’s going to come across as completely just blowing off anything with a purpose. I mean sitting around watching television all day, I think you want something that’s going to add to your applications, it’s going to add to yourself. And it doesn’t mean doing something just to fluff your application, it means doing something to make yourself a better person, make yourself a better future physician.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah if you take a gap year because you’re burnt out of school, and you go work at a water park being one of those people that tells people when they can go down the water slide or not, that’s not going to look very good when you go for your interviews. And when they say, “What did you do during your gap year?” Your gap year is meant to yes, give you a little bit of a break from school, but also to continue in your service of others. Or continue in strengthening your desire to become a physician, or your ability to do research, or dig a little bit deeper into something that you think you may be passionate about in the future as a physician. That’s what a gap year is for. It’s not meant to go be a ski bum, as you said. A lot of people ask about travel during a gap year. And travelling is perfectly fine too. It might not be directly related to medicine, but travelling gives you cultural experience, and experience with different cultures, different people, different communities. And so travel is definitely a huge thing as well.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah and there are so many opportunities now to be part of a clinical endeavor in an international setting. There are so many things you can do.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah.
Dr. Allison Gray: You just don’t want to appear lazy, and like you don’t really care what’s going on.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Like a ski bum.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah or somebody who’s eating bonbons all day.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Or skiing and eating bonbons.
Dr. Allison Gray: That might be hard and make you sick.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Okay, alright.
Dr. Allison Gray: What about you, though?
Dr. Ryan Gray: What about me?
Dr. Allison Gray: What did you do? You don’t want to talk about that?
Dr. Ryan Gray: I thought you’d never ask.
Dr. Allison Gray: Listen I’m on the hot seat here, I’d better be a good cohost, otherwise I’m going to be kicked off.
Dr. Ryan Gray: I don’t know if I can add anything more. So again, I didn’t take a gap year because I wanted to, I took a gap year because I was forced to. And during my gap years- I actually ended up taking three years off between undergrad and medical school, I shadowed an orthopedic surgeon for a long time because I found out that was one of the biggest missing pieces from my application the first time I applied; I didn’t have that shadowing experience. So I did that for a while, and then I went and coached baseball at a summer camp, which has nothing to do with medicine, or service of others.
Dr. Allison Gray: But that was just like during a summer which is a little different
Dr. Ryan Gray: It was during summer.
Dr. Allison Gray: I mean I was a camp counselor after college for a summer too.
Dr. Ryan Gray: It was. And then I started working at a gym as a personal trainer, and then as a fitness manager, I managed all the personal trainers. And again, not really healthcare related, it was a leadership position so I think that helped strengthen my application.
Dr. Allison Gray: Well in a certain sense you were improving health, one goldfish at a time.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Goldfish?
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah, don’t you know that whole thing? That whole thing. The guy’s at the edge of the ocean, and he’s walking along and there are thousands of starfish- it’s not goldfish, it’s starfish, but anyway. He’s walking along- see this is why I come on the show because I add this whole layer for you, and I make you laugh. Okay so he’s walking along the beach, and he sees all these starfish, and one by one he’s throwing the starfish back. And some guy walks up to him and he says, “What are you doing? You’re never going to- like why are you doing that?” And he says, “One starfish at a time.” The whole idea is you’re helping one person at a time, you’re making a difference. And you were making a difference, you were training these people, you were bettering- you were improving their health. I think that- that’s not clinical experience per say, but it actually is more related to healthcare than certain other things you could have done.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah. I was improving my application bigly.
Dr. Allison Gray: Bigly? Oh gosh.
Dr. Ryan Gray: A Donald Trump reference in there. Gotta love the Donald.
Dr. Allison Gray: Anyway.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Alright so that’s what I did during my gap year. It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t strategic, it just happened.
Dr. Allison Gray: But I think that’s a great learning point too. You took advantage of a not so great experience, which was that you didn’t get in the first time, and you made something great from it. You figured out what you were called to do at that time, what you really wanted to do, and you turned it into something really great. And you deferred three years which thank you for doing that, because we might not have met if you hadn’t.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Darn. Anyway.
Dr. Allison Gray: Really? This is what I’m dealing with.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Okay so I think that’s it with gap years.
Dr. Allison Gray: Gap years are good, just use it wisely.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Yes.
Dr. Allison Gray: Plan it, use it wisely.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Alright so another question came in from Samuel Franklin- actually six questions came in from him.
Gap Years, Healthcare Teamwork and more Premed Q&A
Session # 181
Introduction
Dr. Ryan Gray: The Premed Years, session number 181.
Hello and welcome to The Premed Years where we believe that collaboration, not competition, is key to your success. I am your host Dr. Ryan Gray, and in this podcast we share with you stories, encouragement, and information that you need to know to help guide you on your path to becoming a physician.
This week I’m joined by my lovely cost one more time, welcome back Allison Gray.
Dr. Allison Gray: Hi everybody. I hope you don’t mean one more time ever, that sounded really sad.
Dr. Ryan Gray: It depends on how you do today.
Dr. Allison Gray: Isn’t that so typical Ryan? Don’t you just love that?
Dr. Ryan Gray: It’s conditional. It’s just like any performance.
Dr. Allison Gray: Well I’m batting like forty for forty so far, so I’m not too worried. And I also live here, and I know where you live.
Dr. Ryan Gray: You think you’ve been on forty podcast episodes so far?
Dr. Allison Gray: I know, I just kind of made that up.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Okay that’s good. Anyway, it’s good to have you back, how have you been?
Dr. Allison Gray: I’ve been good, how have you been?
Dr. Ryan Gray: I’ve been very well, thank you. This is a little bit different, as we’re recording this we’re also on Facebook live.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah you told me about that part about two minutes before we started.
Dr. Ryan Gray: It works, it’s fun, right?
Dr. Allison Gray: Live.
Dr. Ryan Gray: So if you’re listening to this and you’re not part of the Facebook hangout, you can go to www.MedicalSchoolHQ.net/group. Join our hangout and when we go live for future recordings, maybe, depending on how today goes.
Dr. Allison Gray: Wow.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Then you can watch those live as well.
Dr. Allison Gray: The pressure’s on.
Dr. Ryan Gray: We’re a little bit later tonight, we’re recording this at 9:22 Mountain Time.
Dr. Allison Gray: Oh I almost said Pacific Time.
Dr. Ryan Gray: We’re not in Pacific Time.
Dr. Allison Gray: I don’t know where I live.
Dr. Ryan Gray: This is Mountain Time. So awesome, so this is fun too because if you’re watching this, you can ask some questions of us live and maybe we’ll answer them. We’re going to answer some questions that were posted last week when we put out that we were going to record an episode and what people wanted to hear from us. So if you’re watching and you have something new that you want to hear from us, go ahead and post, we’ll be watching our comments. But let’s go ahead and talk a little bit about what people wanted to hear. And I think one of the first things that popped up was that somebody wanted to hear about gap years, and that was Emily McDowell. And you took a gap year on purpose, and I took a gap year because I didn’t get into medical school the first time I applied; I actually took three years off. So let’s go ahead and talk about gap years. What was the reasoning behind why you took a gap year?
Gap Years
Dr. Allison Gray: I was really burned out in school, that was one of the reasons to be perfectly honest. I was exhausted and I had a really rigorous undergrad program at McGill, and it was just science, science, science all the time. And I was exhausted, and I didn’t think I could devote the time I needed to my application while also doing my senior year classes at school. And so that was one of the reasons, and I was watching my friend- one of my best friends in college apply while we were in class, and it was so stressful for her. And what else? Well I knew that I needed more clinical experience, that was part of it too, and I wanted to do- I wanted to try a couple new things before- now I can see myself on two screens. I wanted to try doing a couple of different things that I didn’t think I was going to get a chance to do once I entered medicine- once I became a medical student and went forward. And so I figured well this is a great opportunity, it will give me- it will sort of what’s that word? I thought it would just sort of make my application more appealing, it would add- bulk is totally the wrong word because you don’t want to add bulk to yourself. Add substance maybe to yourself.
Dr. Ryan Gray: To your application?
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah, and just to what you’ve done. So I think for several reasons, and it was a really good choice for me.
Dr. Ryan Gray: As you were going through that thought process, how did you figure out that it was something you could do, that it wasn’t looked upon negatively, and again how did you figure out what to do?
Dr. Allison Gray: Well I remembered being in Anatomy- because we actually took Anatomy in undergrad, and I remember there being a TA, a Teacher’s Aid, and she had applied I think twice already, and she was going to apply a third time to medical school, and the irony was she was teaching the medical students Anatomy at that point.
Dr. Ryan Gray: But this was Canada.
Dr. Allison Gray: This was- well okay.
Dr. Ryan Gray: It’s harder in Canada.
Dr. Allison Gray: It’s very hard, yeah so she was brilliant, and this was her second time, she was going to apply a third time. Anyway I recognized that okay, people could do things and not go immediately into medical school from undergrad. And I guess I picked up on that at some point and started realizing, okay well lots of people in medical school aren’t necessarily 22, maybe they’re 24 or 26. The average age is actually 24 so it’s not 22 when you enter medical school, or 21. So I realized that this was an option, and that it really appealed to me for a lot of reasons, and I thought I’m going to run with this.
Dr. Ryan Gray: What did your parents say when you said, “I’m not going to go to medical school like we talked about?”
Dr. Allison Gray: My dad I think freaked out because- well no we had two different conversations. When I was really burned out in undergrad I remember this really long drive we took going home from Montreal to Boston for the summer, and I was so burned out and I said, “Dad I don’t think I can do this, I don’t know if I want this,” and he gave me the best advice. He said, “Give it some time.” He said, “You’re so tired, you’re so exhausted from working so hard, give it some time. You know this is what you want and you just need to take a breather and you’ll be fine.” But the whole gap year thing, I think my dad had- so my dad and my mom never stopped. They went straight through school, they got their Doctorate’s, they just- so I think they went straight into PhD training, and then their Doctorate’s from undergrad, and they never took a break. And actually I think the longest break my mom ever took was when she took off eight weeks to have my sister. So taking a break was not something in their generation, it was not something in their thought process, and this whole gap thing was very bizarre to them.
Dr. Ryan Gray: That was for hippies.
Dr. Allison Gray: My parents were hippies? They were hippies, yeah.
Dr. Ryan Gray: No, no taking a gap year is for hippies.
Dr. Allison Gray: Oh okay but that’s funny, because my parents were actually hippies for a while. But anyway- well they grew up in like Woodstock. So when I told my dad about this idea about wanting to take a gap year, I think he was like, ‘Oh my God, does that mean she’s going to like leave school, and she’s not going to go back?’ It was like this gap could become like a permanent gap or something. And I tried to convince him, and he came around. And my mom realized, ‘She just needs some time, and she wants to do some other things,’ and what I ended up doing my dad recognized was really great. And then my sister went on and did a gap year, but she didn’t go to med school, she went to psychology graduate school. But yeah, he came around, he came around. But it’s very different. I mean our generation, and a few years ahead, a few years back; that’s a brand new thing if you think about compared to twenty years ago, you didn’t take a gap year. That’s like taking a year off from your life. And obviously it’s not, it’s just a different way of doing things for a while. But I think for probably our parents, and their parents, it’s just a foreign concept.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah. How did you go about picking what you did during that gap year?
Dr. Allison Gray: So I knew that I wanted a couple of different things. I’m a variety junkie, always have been, so I knew I didn’t want to do one thing for the course of the year. And I had already worked in a lab all through college in a clinical research project at Brigham and Women’s working for a cardiologist on a project there. And so I didn’t really want to be in any kind of research setting, I really wanted to be in a clinical setting, and I knew I needed that clinical experience that I really didn’t feel like I’d had enough of. And I also had thought about what my mom does, and she just retired, but she was working at a biopharmaceutical company, and I thought, ‘Well gosh, that’s such an interesting idea because they’re working on drug development, and trying to make patients’ lives better, and then there’s all this- people have all this sort of stigma about them, and they’re the big bad drug companies.’ So I thought, ‘Gosh it’d be really cool to see what it’s like from the inside.’ And so I looked for clinical opportunities in something unique.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah. That’s awesome. So I think there is a huge trend toward going for a gap year, having students take that gap year. Because as you said, it adds substance, it adds bulk as you said, to the application. It allows you- and we talked about this a lot with nontraditional students, students that are away from school that have some experience in the real world, and not just being a student. I think it allows them to grow as a person, it allows them to figure out who they are a little bit better, but I think in the end it allows students to be better physicians. Would you agree with that?
Dr. Allison Gray: Absolutely. I think it gives you life experience, and that’s really priceless in a sense.
Dr. Ryan Gray: I think so, too. So gap years, you can do so many different things with a gap year, but there are some things that you probably should avoid doing.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yes, ski-bumming and-
Dr. Ryan Gray: Ski-bumming?
Dr. Allison Gray: Ski-bumming, that’s verb or adjective, or whatever.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Okay.
Dr. Allison Gray: So basically I think what I mean by that is you don’t want to- there’s nothing in skiing, skiing is awesome. You don’t want to do something that’s going to come across as completely just blowing off anything with a purpose. I mean sitting around watching television all day, I think you want something that’s going to add to your applications, it’s going to add to yourself. And it doesn’t mean doing something just to fluff your application, it means doing something to make yourself a better person, make yourself a better future physician.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah if you take a gap year because you’re burnt out of school, and you go work at a water park being one of those people that tells people when they can go down the water slide or not, that’s not going to look very good when you go for your interviews. And when they say, “What did you do during your gap year?” Your gap year is meant to yes, give you a little bit of a break from school, but also to continue in your service of others. Or continue in strengthening your desire to become a physician, or your ability to do research, or dig a little bit deeper into something that you think you may be passionate about in the future as a physician. That’s what a gap year is for. It’s not meant to go be a ski bum, as you said. A lot of people ask about travel during a gap year. And travelling is perfectly fine too. It might not be directly related to medicine, but travelling gives you cultural experience, and experience with different cultures, different people, different communities. And so travel is definitely a huge thing as well.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah and there are so many opportunities now to be part of a clinical endeavor in an international setting. There are so many things you can do.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah.
Dr. Allison Gray: You just don’t want to appear lazy, and like you don’t really care what’s going on.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Like a ski bum.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah or somebody who’s eating bonbons all day.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Or skiing and eating bonbons.
Dr. Allison Gray: That might be hard and make you sick.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Okay, alright.
Dr. Allison Gray: What about you, though?
Dr. Ryan Gray: What about me?
Dr. Allison Gray: What did you do? You don’t want to talk about that?
Dr. Ryan Gray: I thought you’d never ask.
Dr. Allison Gray: Listen I’m on the hot seat here, I’d better be a good cohost, otherwise I’m going to be kicked off.
Dr. Ryan Gray: I don’t know if I can add anything more. So again, I didn’t take a gap year because I wanted to, I took a gap year because I was forced to. And during my gap years- I actually ended up taking three years off between undergrad and medical school, I shadowed an orthopedic surgeon for a long time because I found out that was one of the biggest missing pieces from my application the first time I applied; I didn’t have that shadowing experience. So I did that for a while, and then I went and coached baseball at a summer camp, which has nothing to do with medicine, or service of others.
Dr. Allison Gray: But that was just like during a summer which is a little different
Dr. Ryan Gray: It was during summer.
Dr. Allison Gray: I mean I was a camp counselor after college for a summer too.
Dr. Ryan Gray: It was. And then I started working at a gym as a personal trainer, and then as a fitness manager, I managed all the personal trainers. And again, not really healthcare related, it was a leadership position so I think that helped strengthen my application.
Dr. Allison Gray: Well in a certain sense you were improving health, one goldfish at a time.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Goldfish?
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah, don’t you know that whole thing? That whole thing. The guy’s at the edge of the ocean, and he’s walking along and there are thousands of starfish- it’s not goldfish, it’s starfish, but anyway. He’s walking along- see this is why I come on the show because I add this whole layer for you, and I make you laugh. Okay so he’s walking along the beach, and he sees all these starfish, and one by one he’s throwing the starfish back. And some guy walks up to him and he says, “What are you doing? You’re never going to- like why are you doing that?” And he says, “One starfish at a time.” The whole idea is you’re helping one person at a time, you’re making a difference. And you were making a difference, you were training these people, you were bettering- you were improving their health. I think that- that’s not clinical experience per say, but it actually is more related to healthcare than certain other things you could have done.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah. I was improving my application bigly.
Dr. Allison Gray: Bigly? Oh gosh.
Dr. Ryan Gray: A Donald Trump reference in there. Gotta love the Donald.
Dr. Allison Gray: Anyway.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Alright so that’s what I did during my gap year. It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t strategic, it just happened.
Dr. Allison Gray: But I think that’s a great learning point too. You took advantage of a not so great experience, which was that you didn’t get in the first time, and you made something great from it. You figured out what you were called to do at that time, what you really wanted to do, and you turned it into something really great. And you deferred three years which thank you for doing that, because we might not have met if you hadn’t.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Darn. Anyway.
Dr. Allison Gray: Really? This is what I’m dealing with.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Okay so I think that’s it with gap years.
Dr. Allison Gray: Gap years are good, just use it wisely.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Yes.
Dr. Allison Gray: Plan it, use it wisely.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Alright so another question came in from Samuel Franklin- actually six questions came in from him.
Maximizing the Use of Your Healthcare Team
Dr. Allison Gray: Cool.
Dr. Ryan Gray: But the second one was kind of interesting, especially with some recent news that you found, so we can talk about that. The question is how do you maximize the use of the healthcare team players, meaning nurses, PAs, NPs, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, so the rest of the staff members you’re calling the ancillary staff. How do you maximize that experience?
Dr. Allison Gray: And in general, or during medical school? In general.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Let’s talk about in general, and then maybe we can talk about medical school.
Dr. Allison Gray: Okay so I think we’ve talked about the whole concept of team in healthcare quite a bit on this show, and-
Dr. Ryan Gray: Which is why we talk about collaboration, not competition, right? Start that early?
Dr. Allison Gray: Absolutely. So your healthcare team is everything. I think that gone are the days of being in a small private practice with one doctor, and no staff, and- I mean they actually still do house calls in some parts of the United States, but those are few and far between. If you look around, the great majority of physicians are practicing in a team environment, whether that’s in a hospital, whether that’s in a clinic, and your team is invaluable. I have worked with lots of different teams, and I’ve worked in a lot of different hospitals throughout my training, and then started my career, and I’ve worked in office settings, and hospital settings, and private practice, and government settings, and HMOs. I can tell you that everywhere I’ve gone, the strength of your ability to practice well, a huge function of that is how well your team works together. And so as a physician you are the leader of that team, and if you have other colleagues who are physicians working with you, you are all the leaders. I’ve never, ever thought of myself as the head honcho, the most important one, it’s just not how I function. I really try to-
Dr. Ryan Gray: Isn’t that why you became a physician though?
Dr. Allison Gray: No and we’ve talked about this too. I didn’t become a physician to be some big head honcho, some big bigshot. I became a physician to take care of patients, and to improve the health of my community. But I think there are people out there who view a physician as, ‘You’re the leader, you’re the boss, you tell everybody else what to do,’ and it’s just so not the case. I think if you go in with that attitude you’re going to be really disappointed because again, the success of the healthcare you provide really relies on a team effort involving you as a physician, your nurses working with you, your LPNs or medical assistants working with you, your pharmacist working with you. It’s a collaborative environment where each person’s role is so important. I can’t even tell you all the ways in which the staff whom I work with on a daily basis improve the healthcare of my patients, make my life easier every day. It’s every moment of the day. And also I just have so much fun with the people I work with, I love the people I work with, so the idea to me of being off in someplace as the physician sort of all by themselves, I mean it would be sad, I would be miserable. So I guess my punchline, what I’m getting at is you want to learn how to be a team player as early as you can be and learn your role, and how your role works with the roles of those other people on your team, and how you can best function, and how you can best lead them and serve their needs, and in return get what you need from them by communication, by honesty, by working together, by having a positive attitude. It will make or break your experience as a physician.
Dr. Ryan Gray: I don’t think I heard a specific word that I was looking for. But respect I think is a huge thing.
Dr. Allison Gray: Oh absolutely, if I didn’t convey that, absolutely.
Dr. Ryan Gray: As a physician I think you get- some physicians as soon as they get that MD or DO after their name, get this air about them that they are the physician. And they don’t respect the nurses, they don’t respect the PAs, the NPs because they’re the physician.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah they’re going to find out real quick that that’s not going to work once they become interns.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Do you have any good stories with teams going south?
Dr. Allison Gray: Oh sure, yeah.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Or physicians that are arrogant.
Dr. Allison Gray: So the nurses know right away who the interns are who come in and who act a certain way. I mean I remember sure for my residency there were particular interns who acted very righteous, or very self-serving, or very know-it-all. And I remember one intern trying to sort of tell a team of neuro ICU nurses who’d been doing their job for over twenty years, and sort of try to explain to them how something worked anatomically. I mean it was just silly, and it was so insulting the way he was talking to them. And nurses, why should anybody stand for that? I mean who are you to come in with no experience essentially; I mean four years of medical school, but no clinical experience with patients, and try to run the show, and tell people what’s what? That’s not your role, your role is to learn. And so having respect for people who’ve been in their role for 25, 30 years, even if they don’t have an MD or a DO, but they’re an RN, or they’re a PA, or an NP, or a PharmD, and they have a lot more experience than you. You have to respect that from the minute you walk in the door. Because if you don’t, you will be blacklisted, people will not like working with you, and it will make your life miserable. The thing you want to do is make friends right away, and respect. Learn your place and respect, earn your dues, and if you work hard and you’re a team player, when you get to that other side and you are the chief resident and you’re running the show, you will have earned your place. You will have earned that respect, and you will love your job because people will- and also they’ll get you what you need. You’re running a code, or you’re crashing someone to the OR, and you need that support, that support’s going to be there for you. But if you make a muckery of it at the beginning, it’s just not going to be easy. And I did see that happen, and it’s unfortunate, and I think you can come back- I mean we all make mistakes, but you want to just start on a good foot.
Dr. Ryan Gray: I think we both had experiences on the flipside, before we have that degree as medical students, and kind of being the brunt of the attitude from the staff.
Dr. Allison Gray: Oh yeah, you remember me crying in your car that day?
Dr. Ryan Gray: With nurses, and other staff members, and physicians as well that you’re just the medical student, and they don’t respect you, and they put you in your place. Mine was- the one that comes to mind for me wasn’t a big deal, but I happen to be pretty good with finding veins, and drawing blood. And I was working in OB, my OB rotation, and there was a female there that was pregnant, and the nurses couldn’t get a stick on her, they couldn’t start an IV on her. And so I walk over there in my short white coat, and I start poking on the lady like tapping her arm trying to figure out where the veins are, and I’m getting dirty looks from the nurses, and I said, “I won’t try, I’m just feeling around, I’m just kind of exploring and trying to learn.” And I felt an amazing vein. It wasn’t a very superficial vein, you couldn’t see it very well, but it was there and I said, “This is a vein, you go for it, I don’t want to do it,” and the nurses went for it and they got it. But they kind of scoffed at me like, ‘Who are you stupid medical student?’ Because I’m sure that there were medical students before me that thought they were all that, and weren’t, and set a bad reputation for us medical students. But you had one specifically, too.
Dr. Allison Gray: I was a third year and on my internal medicine rotation, and oh gosh, I had this patient who was talking to me and complaining about how awful she thought her nurse was, and I actually thought this nurse was pretty good, a nice woman, but she was just complaining, complaining and just I think she wanted her to give her more medication or something. She’s like, “Please, you’ve got to help me find another nurse.” And I made this comment at the time which I thought was pretty innocuous and I was just trying to basically pacify the situation, and help the patient, and reassure her, and try to figure out something to say to make her feel better, when in reality I can’t get her a new nurse. The nurses are assigned to a couple- or a set of different patients during the day. So I made this comment to her, and I said, “Well maybe on the next shift you’ll have a different nurse.” And lo and behold a second later the curtain- because this was an old school room, and so there was a curtain in between the two patients, like absolutely no privacy. The curtain was flung open, who was right behind it, but the patient’s nurse. And wow. So she went off on me, I mean my God. So she started to in front of the patient, and I sort of walked out because I was so embarrassed already. She took me into- I shouldn’t have followed her, but she took me into basically the medication room, and she just lit into me, and I was horrified, I was mortified, I was- I felt horrible. Here I was trying to do a good thing, I actually respected this nurse, and I just made this comment, and I remember I was so angry, and it was the end of the day and I got in the car, Ryan picked me up and I just bawled my eyes out. But I mean it was good, I look back on that now as a moment that made me stronger because I actually decided after that moment that I wasn’t going to take any lip from anybody. And yes, you will have attendings and people who are your superiors who will talk down to you sometimes, and who will say things to you that maybe you don’t always appreciate. But I decided that I was not going to stand there and let somebody scream at me in a professional setting ever again. And so I’ve had other incidents through my training and my career where someone has started to try to talk to me that way, and I just said very calmly, “Please don’t speak to me that way, this is not appropriate.” And honestly, I really learned a lot about how to sort of get my own back, how to take care of myself, because no one should ever, ever have to be screamed at like that, it’s just not professional period, I don’t care who you are, it’s not professional. Anyway it was a moment. You know, you’ll have a lot of those moments in training that thicken your skin that make you stronger, so it wasn’t such a bad thing. But I think the culture of medicine, the long tradition of medicine, there’s this pimping, and there’s this- pimping meaning when attendings ask you questions that you may not know the answers to, and there’s this sort of hierarchical training that we may never quite get away from, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing. But you may have not great moments, and again it’s just trying to rise above it, not ever lose your cool and become unprofessional yourself because that can haunt you. I know stories of residents who tried to go after attendings, and they were blacklisted at the hospital.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Well even in the news recently with that neurology resident in Miami.
Dr. Allison Gray: That was really sad, yeah. For those of you who don’t know the story, this resident I guess got really drunk and got into this fight with an Uber driver, and it was unfortunately all over YouTube and she lost her job. And so you can never- you never want to act in a way where if you are caught on camera- and these days I mean gosh you can’t get away with anything.
Dr. Ryan Gray: In the hospital, out of the hospital.
Dr. Allison Gray: Look, we’re on live TV right now. Yeah so you always want to try to be a good person, rise above, keep your head held high, but earn your dues and show respect.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Awesome. So I think- there were a lot more questions, I don’t think they were very good. They were great questions, but not great to answer here, but a couple people have asked some questions that we can follow up with on this show which is awesome. So again, we’re live in the hangout doing this our first time live in the hangout, hello everybody. If you aren’t in the hangout, go to www.MedicalSchoolHQ.net/group and you can watch the video of Allison dancing right there. But what you can do, is when we’re recording these live, you can ask questions. So we had a couple questions here, let me refresh.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah it’s cool to see people hanging out with us, thanks guys.
Other Careers for Ryan and Allison
Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah so Ahmed said, ‘Unusual question. What type of career would you guys do if not in healthcare or doctors?’ If you weren’t a doctor, or not in healthcare. This is like a medical school interview question.
Dr. Allison Gray: Okay well I can answer that really easily. But does it require that you have the talent to do such job I guess?
Dr. Ryan Gray: Yes.
Dr. Allison Gray: And it’s not in healthcare, right?
Dr. Ryan Gray: Not in healthcare.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah I would be on Broadway, yeah. That was easy.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Again like as the concessions person?
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah so you know what? That’s really nice. No I actually danced all my childhood, and I wanted to be a professional dancer, and I love how you laugh. You know that’s like if I laughed at you playing baseball, it’s just awesome, wow. Anyway, I loved to dance, it was my thing. I did ballet, and jazz, and modern, and I loved it. And I was that kid who was like singing, and did theatre and dance, and I had no idea when it came to sports. My parents wouldn’t let me either because they thought that it would like interfere with my studies.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Or cause a brain damage- or cause brain damage. Not a brain damage.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah right, very true. Yeah that I would get like conked on the head and suffer brain damage, yeah. Which I probably would have because I couldn’t catch anything. But I was the manager of my boy’s lacrosse team in high school which was kind of cool. Anyway so yeah, I loved to dance, and I actually wrote my personal statement I think for college- or was it in med school? It was at some point I realized that I really needed a lot of intellectual stimulation and I didn’t think that I was going to get what I wanted kind of being a dancer, and I mean the reality is do I think that I have the talent? I’m not delusional, no. I mean I think I can sing, I think I can dance, but you know. But anyway, yeah. Like I sing in the car and just fantasize some days.
Dr. Ryan Gray: I think I would be in computer programming.
Dr. Allison Gray: See but that’s not like a fun answer. You wouldn’t be like a baseball player or something?
Dr. Ryan Gray: No because I don’t have the skills to be a professional baseball player.
Dr. Allison Gray: Okay fine, well now I have to answer the question for real. Okay so what would I do? Gosh that’s really hard. Because see okay here’s the deal. So Ryan is very multi-talented if you haven’t met him and gotten to know him in person. So like he builds computers, he builds software, he’s a photographer, he has this business, I mean he’s a coach, he does a lot of different things. He’s talented in a lot of different ways, and I don’t know, when I look around, like I-
Dr. Ryan Gray: You’re an amazing neurologist.
Dr. Allison Gray: That’s very awesome of you. But so I guess I’m a little stuck, I don’t know, do you know what I would do?
Dr. Ryan Gray: No that just means that you’re meant for this.
Dr. Allison Gray: Okay, alright, well thank you, I really like this question. It’s given me some things to think about, because clearly I don’t know the answer.
Doing Undergrad in Canada a Disadvantage?
Dr. Ryan Gray: Ahmed also asked if doing your undergrad at McGill was a disadvantage for your applications to med school.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yes and no. Yes because my GPA was probably lower than it would have been, because it was insanely hard and such a rigorous science curriculum, and the way the grades were weighted at McGill it was really, really hard to do well. I mean it was hard to get an A. And actually I learned later on that a lot of the United States citizens who were in school for undergrad in Canada who then applied to medical school in the United States, their GPAs were lower on average than a lot of people. And again, McGill is the Harvard of Canada, it’s a great school, but the GPAs were lower. And so that probably- my application wasn’t quite as strong as it could have been. I had a good GPA but it could have been better. And also because the advising, but the reality of that is that there’s bad advising everywhere. But I went to a place where a lot of the advising was focused on Canadian students, rightfully so because most their students were Canadian. Only 15% of the class was from the United States and only a small percentage of those folks were going for premed. So yeah, I think probably it did, but it also really- I wouldn’t change anything. I think it was great, and added a different- it made me more unique. What about you? Oh you didn’t go to McGill.
Work Life Balance During Medical School
Dr. Ryan Gray: I didn’t go to McGill. Good job. Crystal asked, ‘How do you balance work life aspect during these years?’ I’m assuming medical schools, or even residency. How did you stay grounded with everything that was happening?
Dr. Allison Gray: Okay is that for me? Or why don’t you go first.
Dr. Ryan Gray: No I don’t- I think at that point in your training there is no work life balance. I think it’s all one big melting pot of fun.
Dr. Allison Gray: True but you do talk about the importance of exercise, and eating well.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Correct, correct but I think that lends itself towards kind of again, it’s just all one big pot, and you need to just do whatever you need to do to stay sane, and exercise, and eating well is part of that. I think- obviously we went through it without kids. I think if we had children during that time, I think the answer would be different because then you’re forced to set aside family time. But I think as we went through it-
Dr. Allison Gray: Well your children are your priority, right?
Dr. Ryan Gray: Correct.
Dr. Allison Gray: Your family, yeah.
Dr. Ryan Gray: But as we went through it, we didn’t have that, and so we were able to- and both of us going through it, we were able to support each other, we knew what each other were going through, but if one person is a physician and one person isn’t, it’s harder to have that dynamic. So maybe again, you have to set aside some time. But I think it was easier with kind of a dual physician household.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah and I think for us- and that’s I think a really personal decision. I mean a friend of mine from college who went to med school, she’s an ER doc now, she wanted nothing to do with someone who was going to be a physician as her partner. She wanted a guy who’s going to be doing something completely different so that when they got home at the end of the day, they were not going to be talking about medicine, and there are probably some benefits to that too, because maybe if you’re a doctor then you’re non-doctor husband or wife or partner can be sort of doing- picking up things or doing things when you’re not able to, like when you’re on call overnight, or on the weekend. But for us, yes I mean having you understand every minute what I was going through was huge for us, that was huge. So I think- and you know there’s that expression, ‘Eat when you can, sleep when you can, and don’t beep with a pancreas.’
Dr. Ryan Gray: Don’t ef with a pancreas.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah okay that’s PC, okay. FCC allowed. So yes, that’s very true. It’s so true, there’s this whole you do everything you have to, you do. You eat when you can, you sleep when you can, and I mean the pancreas if you’re a neurologist, that doesn’t really factor in very much. But if you’re a surgeon it matters. But yes, you think you’re in survival mode is really what it is. And if you have kids, yeah I mean whole different considerations. I mean I knew that I wasn’t ready to have kids until we finished training because of that. I saw people go through it, and it was amazing to watch, but I just- I needed to focus on taking care of myself because that was challenging enough at the time. But you can do it. It’s like my sister asks me, “How do you learn to live on such little sleep? How do you do that? How do you do that sleep deprivation stuff?” And I said you don’t sit up one day, or stand up and say, ‘Okay today body we’re going to learn how to-‘ No you just do it, you just go and you do it, and your body will adapt, and your mind will adapt, and you will just figure it out.
Dr. Ryan Gray: That you will. Awesome.
Dr. Allison Gray: What else you got?
Dr. Ryan Gray: I think that’s it. We have some other questions but I think we’re at a good time to end it here. We can answer more questions maybe after the recording, or just in comments. But I loved this, did you like this?
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah it was fun, am I coming back though? I don’t know, you gave me all that pressure at the beginning.
Dr. Ryan Gray: So if you’re listening to this, www.MedicalSchoolHQ.net/181 or just go to the Facebook group, the hangout, www.MedicalSchoolHQ.net/group and comment, and let us know if Allison should come back.
Dr. Allison Gray: That is terrible. I think what he meant to say was let us know if you liked the show, that’s really what he meant.
Dr. Ryan Gray: No I meant let us know if Allison should come back. We’ll leave it up to you guys.
Dr. Allison Gray: Alright, well thanks everyone, it was nice knowing you.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Based on all the comments that come in, I think they’ll want you back.
Dr. Allison Gray: I love being on the show, I love talking with you, and I love talking with everyone, and parting any help and anything I can to make anybody out there’s life a little easier, and their journey a little easier.
Elite Medical Scribes
Dr. Ryan Gray: So I want to talk about the sponsor for today’s show, Elite Medical Scribes. Have you ever worked with a scribe?
Dr. Allison Gray: No. I’ve seen their work, I mean if I’m reading notes that came from the ED, the emergency room, and I’ll see scribed by such-and-such.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Really?
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah, I do.
Dr. Ryan Gray: That’s interesting.
Dr. Allison Gray: And I’ve seen that also with primary care physicians sometimes, scribing on behalf of- yeah.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Very cool. Are you jealous when you read that? Like I wish somebody else would do my notes and chart them for me?
Dr. Allison Gray: No because I’m so like anal about stuff like that, like I need to document the way I want. Look you were laughing at me because I was editing my transcriptions for commas. I mean that can be insane sometimes. So I’ve stopped doing that, but anyways. Yeah no, I don’t think so, but I think for ER docs and for primary care docs that’s huge, I mean that’s such a helpful thing.
Dr. Ryan Gray: As you were going through your premed years, I think I would have loved to be a scribe.
Dr. Allison Gray: Oh my God I would have loved it. I was looking for- I was like a sponge, I wanted any clinical experience where I could be with patients, and learn, and oh yeah.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Yeah and we had a guest on the show back I think it was 171 with Christine, who was the former admissions- the Dean of Admissions at UC Irvine who said lack of clinical experience is her biggest reason for students not getting an acceptance, and she specifically said being a scribe is one of the best ways to get that clinical experience. So if you’re looking for something to do to get that clinical experience, check out Elite Medical Scribes. Go to www.MedicalSchoolHQ.net/EMS. Again that’s Elite Medical Scribes at www.MedicalSchoolHQ.net/EMS. And that will take you to a list of all of their careers that they have available that you can apply to. And it’s an amazing experience, you’re working- we talked about teams earlier, you’re part of that healthcare team as a scribe. You’re in the room, you’re interacting with the physician, with whoever else is there making sure that the patient’s charts are complete, and done properly. So again Elite Medical Scribes, thank you for sponsoring the show.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yes, thank you.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Go check them out, www.MedicalSchoolHQ.net/EMS. Any last minute parting words of wisdom?
Dr. Allison Gray: Keep your head high, keep going, struggle through, you can do it.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Keep your chin up.
Dr. Allison Gray: Seriously. There are some clichés that are kind of annoying and just clichés, but then there are some that are actually- just hang in there. It will get better. You know one of my favorite things that I- I really do tell myself all the time when I’m having a hard day, or when I’m having a hard time, or whatever, is this too shall pass. So whatever you’re going through right now, if it’s studying for the MCAT, if it’s working on your- you wouldn’t be working on your application now, right? Oh no, you might, yeah totally. Oh I’m like forgetting what time it is.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Application season.
Dr. Allison Gray: I know, it’s May already. Ridiculous. Yes if you’re working on your application, if you are trying to figure out if you should take a gap year, or you’re working on graduating college, or you’re a nontrad and you’re thinking about changing careers, and it feels hard and like you’re not going to get out of it, just remind yourself that if you keep pushing, you keep striving, you keep working hard, whatever the hard stuff it is that you’re going through, this too shall pass.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Hug a bear.
Dr. Allison Gray: Yeah that’s your way of saying it. That’s the military.
Dr. Ryan Gray: I learned that from my first military experience. I don’t think it’s a military thing, that’s just one of the people that I was there with had a saying that anybody can hug a bear for five seconds.
Dr. Allison Gray: I don’t know if the dude in the [Inaudible 00:40:40] could, that didn’t end so well for him.
Final Thoughts
Dr. Ryan Gray: But you hug a bear for five seconds, and then you hug it for five more seconds, and you hug it for five more. And you just get through it; this too shall pass, like you said. So I do want to take a minute and thank a couple people that left us ratings and reviews. If you haven’t done so, we are I think two five-star ratings short of 400 five star ratings.
Dr. Allison Gray: That’s so awesome.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Which is phenomenal.
Dr. Allison Gray: That’s incredible.
Dr. Ryan Gray: But we have DDSchmidt- or Mama DDSchmidt, that’s Danielle, thank you Danielle; who says, ‘Wind beneath my wings.’ That’s awesome. ‘This has been the greatest gift I’ve discovered as a crazy nontraditional mom.’ There you go, there’s a mom.
Dr. Allison Gray: That’s awesome.
Dr. Ryan Gray: Thank you Danielle for that.
Dr. Allison Gray: Thanks Danielle.
Dr. Ryan Gray: We have Spiro who says, ‘An excellent premed resource.’ Thank you Spiro for that. Some great reviews, but really long ones so I’m not reading them. Mclavijo92, I’m sorry I butchered that probably. Says, ‘Great podcast. An amazing podcast that has answered so many inquiries that I’ve had throughout my pre-medicine years.’ That’s what we are here for, again www.MedicalSchoolHQ.net/iTunes if you haven’t left us a rating and review. I want to thank everybody for taking the time out of their busy schedule to listen to us, and for everybody watching us live right now on Facebook live, thank you, and we’re waving. And as always, I hope you join us next week here at the Medical School Headquarters and The Premed Years Podcast.
