Monthly Archive for February, 2007

…they call it leveling the playing field.  I’m talking about certain premeds who by hook or by crook get their hands on old exams.  Which not everyone has access to.  Naive me didn’t even know that such a thing was even happening until I was told about the practice by others years later.  Suffice it to say, I never partook in such a thing unless it was legit (i.e., the professor himself gave us access to old exams).

And, yes, I think it’s cheating.  If everyone doesn’t have the same access to such information, then you’re gaining an unfair advantage.  And that’s cheating.  If the rest of us have to use our brains and walk into these exams having no idea what to expect, then you should too.  What makes you so special?  What makes you think you should be treated differently?  We all want to get into med school just as badly as you.  So why do you think you’re entitled to pull such stunts?

I’ve always thought this way until my husband called me tonight overjoyed at the fact that he had gotten his hands on some old exams for his chemistry class.  Because I’ve sat here for endless hours every night and every weekend ever since he went back to school watching him struggle at things that I take for granted as easy, I realized that it doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter if these people have old exams because they need them.  They have them and yet they still can’t come close to attaining my level even though I had no such help.  Even with these old exams, the playing field isn’t level.  The rest of us who don’t need such things are still far above them.  That doesn’t make it okay, of course.  But I don’t get quite as angry.  Because I know I got where I am without having to stoop to such levels.  And I’m thankful that I was born with this gifted brain of mine.

I’ll be interviewing another victim applicant soon.  And this time, they’ve given me someone who’s less than perfect.  Mwahahaha.  They were pretty impressive until I read their personal statement.  Which was nothing more than a long and winding treatise on the state of medicine and what can be changed and how great it’ll be when things do change.  So here’s a tip: the personal statement is your one chance to convey your story to the admissions people, so don’t waste it waxing idealistic.  Frankly, we know that it’s all drivel anyway.  Who doesn’t want to change medicine?  What we want to know is what you’ve done to prove that you’re interested in medicine as something more than a large paycheck with the added bonus of instant attractiveness to the ladies.  We want to know what you’ve done to show that you have the potential to contribute to the attainment of the lofty ideals you’re shoving down our throats.  We’ve been here long enough to know what those ideals are and that they’re virtually unattainable.  So please don’t tell us what they are without some hope that you’ll somehow contribute to their attainment.  It’s really annoying.  Oh, and I can’t stress enough correct grammar and spelling.  And there’s no better way to torpedo your personal statement in my eyes than to use contractions.  Is it really so hard to spell out the two words or have you just merely forgotten what they are?

Becoming a med student doesn’t suddenly make you a better person.  Nor does it make you a person with impeccable ethics.  Yet we, as med students, are trusted as such.  We have other people’s lives placed in our hands.  Not so much literally as figuratively.  Namely, we get to interview med school applicants.  And surprisingly enough, what we say about these applicants carries a good amount of weight.  We get no training at all.  No guidance.  We’re just handed files and told where to be.  How can we be trusted to be impartial when we were not so long ago super-competitive-willing-to-do-many-ethically-questionable-things premeds?  It’s obvious that we don’t so easily shed that identity once we enter med school.  Just ask any gunner.  So how can we be sure that med students are mature enough to interview and evaluate med school applicants?  Even I can’t help but be tempted to do to others as was done to me when I was interviewed.  But I don’t because I don’t want anyone to be treated unfairly as I was.  But are we all going to come to that conclusion and be fair?  I doubt it when most of us already have questionable ethics when it comes to such simple things as attending required class.  Sorry, premeds, but that’s the way it works.  All you can do is hope that you get a morally upstanding student interviewer.  Like me, of course.