Q & A with Dr. Dave - All things Med School

In this episode, I’m sitting down with my husband, Dave to do a Q&A all about his med school journey. He is answering your questions about what it’s really like going through medical school. We talk about the funny moments, the hard moments, and even the embarrassing moments. Whether you’re in it, heading into it, or just curious, this episode gives you a real, unfiltered look at life in medical school. I’m so glad you’re here 🫶🏻

COMFRT DISCOUNT | https://comfrt.com/MORGAN1123

Follow the Life of a Dr Wife:
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/lifeofadrwife
Tik Tok | https://www.tiktok.com/@lifeofadrwife

Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573291431207

Youtube | https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCwzHHkRBz6XuzEfKZW36SHRG6x3askHk

Transcript

Intro

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hey guys, welcome back to The Life of a Doctor's Wife. Today's episode is really special. I'm sitting down with my husband Dave to talk about all things medical school. We will be answering some of your questions that you guys even submitted on social media. If you've been following along, you've heard somewhat about our journey through med school from my perspective. But today I wanted to sit down with Dave and talk about what this journey has actually felt like for him and for us. Now that we're on the other side of medical school, because I think people see the white coat, the match day photos, the celebrations, and they don't always see what it took to get there. We're diving into it all. So, Dave, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Thanks for having me. It was a pretty easy flight from the couch over to the kitchen table.

unknown 0:54

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

So you just have finished medical school and are about to start residency. This is a huge transition, not just professionally, but personally. And I want to really dig into what that experience has been like and what's ahead. Let's start at the beginning.

Q & A

SPEAKER_01 1:13

What is the difference between MD versus DO? And did you apply to both programs?

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Yeah, so I applied to both. The biggest difference between MD and DO programs is that the DO programs, they have more of a holistic approach to medicine. And what that means is, you know, really just looking at, you know, the whole patient from different aspects, you know, obviously physical aspect of what's going on, but also like emotional and spiritual and psychological things that are going on with the patient that may be kind of impacting their state of disease or health or whatever it is. And then another big difference with the DO programs is you're obviously going to get trained in OMM, which is like the osteopathic uh manipulation, um, which is uh a very hands-on technique, um, pretty useful for a lot of musculoskeletal things. Um, and yeah, uh, like I said, I applied to both. Um, you know, for me, uh it I think it made sense to apply to both as someone who wanted was pretty sure that they wanted to do emergency medicine, um, not a super MD heavy specialty. So I didn't feel like if I went to a DO school, that was going to really hinder my abilities to do that specialty. Um that's you know, maybe something that people kind of consider when they're talking about MD versus DO is you know, if you want to do something super competitive like neurosurgery, dermatology, um, ENT, those kinds of things, uh, it can definitely be harder, uh, I think as a DO applicant to get into those specialties, but certainly not impossible. Um, I know, you know, just from our school this year, last year's class, we had uh people match into those specialties and they were super, super stoked about it.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

So yeah, I was definitely gonna add that. I feel like you guys had like quite a number.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Yeah, I think I think you can do anything from either program. Um, like I said, it just it may be a little easier if you do it from the MD path, if you're considering one of those uh competitive specialties.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Yeah, I think that's great. What inspired you to pursue medicine?

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Yeah, so my uh father, he's a physician, uh, he's a PM and R doctor. Um so very different from emergency medicine. Um, but you know, kind of growing up, I definitely looked up to him. And every day coming home from work, he he seemed like he loved what he was doing. Um obviously helping people is is the biggest part of it.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Although I don't think I could ever picture him doing emergency medicine. No, not at all.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Neither could he, honestly. He told me he's like, you know, God bless you, it's it's not for me. So I don't know where where I got that gene from, but uh certainly wasn't him. Um but anyways, yeah. So, you know, I kind of aspired to be like him growing up and you know had to had to see it for myself through different experiences that I had. Um, you know, mainly you know, working in hospitals as like an ER tech or patient care tech and other kind of clinical set clinical um settings. Settings, yeah, thank you. Um and you know, doing research and other things like that, um, found that you know kind of confirmed my career choice into uh becoming a doctor. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

No, I think that's great. What is one common misconception about medical school?

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah, I think probably a big common misconception about medical school is you know how how busy you are with studying and like, oh, you're you're constantly you know on the grind and you don't get time to do anything else, and you know, you're uh buried in your books 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Uh there's definitely parts of medical school that can feel like that. Um, but I think for the majority of it, it's you know, it's a pretty manageable level of work. Um I think you know you probably spend about as much time in a typical day as someone does going and working a nine to five. Uh, if you kind of, you know, plan out your day like that. You go to class, you come home, study a little bit. Um, you know, I I think there's definitely people that take different approaches to the way that they kind of do their coursework and studying. I know a lot of people who wouldn't come to class in person and then they would watch all the lectures back on two or three times speed. Um, you know, that that wasn't my style of learning, certainly, but there's lots of people who who preferred that. And there's people who spread out their studying over the course of the week, and some people who kind of take it easy during the week, and then Sunday night comes around and they're pulling all nighters, getting ready for the test the next day. Um you know, there's there's a lot of ways you can you can slice it, but I think overall um it's not as bad as people make it out to be. I also think another uh big common misconception uh is that medical school is this huge you know cutthroat environment where people are out to get each other and you know trying to step on people on the way to the top. And at least for my experience, uh the school I went to it was not like that at all. It was a super collaborative environment. People were constantly there to pick each other up and you know help each other through through hard times, hard exams, um, tough rotations. Uh it was it was a really great experience. Um, you know, I don't know if that's a universal experience. And you know, I'm sure there are you know the gunners and the cutthroat people out there that you know make medical school maybe a little less fun than it can be, but uh for me anyways, you know, our our class was great, and um, you know, you're not best friends with everybody, but I feel like we got along really well as a class and everybody helped everybody and you know we had we had a good uh a good group of people.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

And that's how it should be, really. Like just being able to lean on one another because that's what it's gonna be when you get into the workforce. You gotta lean on one another. What did you do the summer before medical school and what would you recommend other students to do during their summer or even a gap year?

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Yeah, so I was a little bit of an odd situation uh because I started medical school kind of the year after the COVID everything happened. Um so right out of college, I I was supposed to do an internship my junior summer of college, so before senior year. Um and that was it was kind of like a hybrid like research and shadowing uh internship, and that ended up getting like postponed a year because COVID happened. Um so then I ended up doing it after graduation from college. Um, so I did that for the summer, um, got some good research experience. Um, it didn't end up in like a publication or anything, but I did a poster presentation. Um, it was cool, it was something that I was passionate about and um got to shadow a transplant surgeon too, which was an awesome thing to witness. Um and then after that summer, so kind of during my gap year, I worked as a patient care tech um at a small community hospital, uh, kind of floated around the hospital between like the general medicine floors uh and the ER a little bit. Um, and that's really where I found that I I loved being in the ER. I loved emergency medicine, I loved the people down there. Um, so you know, I think if you're planning on going to medical school and you have a summer or a gap year, I think if it's just a summer and you're starting medical school in like whatever July or August, I think you know, no need to do anything crazy. I think you're probably best off relaxing a little bit before you get going. Enjoy your time. Enjoy the little bit of time you have left before you you gotta buckle down. Um, I think if you have like a year or so um between you know college and medical school or maybe some other career in medical school, uh, I would definitely recommend doing something that kind of like bolsters your application if you think you're lacking in one department. I think you know there's all the schools kind of like some combination of research, clinical work, uh maybe do some kind of service work or volunteering, um, and then you know, any sort of extracurricular things that you like to do. Um, I think if you're lacking in one of those kind of big areas, it may be worthwhile doing something that involves that. Um I think most importantly, though, it's just you know, do something that you're passionate about or something that you think you would love to do for a year. Um I think, you know, for me, I'm not someone that loves doing research. If I had to do a full year of research, I I don't know what I would have done. That would have been that would have been awful. Um, but you know, I loved working with patients, and so that's what I did. I went and you know, worked in the hospital with patients. Um, and that was a great experience for me. Um I was lucky to have research before that, that I didn't have to do a whole year of research. But um yeah, I'd say, you know, make sure your application has the pieces it needs to be competitive for medical school, but then also do something that you like to do for a year because when you talk about that experience in medical school interviews or even residency interviews, you know, they the people interviewing you can tell if it's something that you really liked doing or something that you just did because you wanted to be able to put it on an application.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Yeah, absolutely. I did want to touch back on when you were on transplant. I will never forget that summer. I am so glad you did not choose transplant because I just did not like the unknown, not being able to plan, you getting random text messages from the doctor at like two o'clock in the morning, being like we got a liver, come on in.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Yeah, like okay, it's coming in by helicopter or whatever, and like those people are they're they're built different. Uh not not the life for me, but I'm glad someone's there to do it.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Yeah. What advice or tips do you have for someone starting medical school this upcoming year?

SPEAKER_00 12:21

I think the biggest thing is just find what works for you study-wise. There's you know, a whole litany of resources at your disposal as a medical student that you know, whether you get like a bootleg version off Reddit or you pay for some version of something. Uh the schools usually give you some study resource as well. Um, you know, there's tons of stuff out there. People are gonna try and convince you that the way they study is the best, or you know, using this website is like the only way you can learn something. Um, that's not true at all. Uh, you know, even within my friend group, we all kind of had different study methods. We all made it through using our own different study methods. Um, so you know, really just finding what works for you early on is probably going to be the most beneficial thing. Um, you know, example of that. I had heard a lot about like Anki cards coming into medical school, and like everybody uses Anki cards in medical school, and a lot of people do. I tried it for one of the first tests. I did horrible. I hated the Anki cards. I said, this is not how I'm gonna study for the rest of my tests, and I didn't touch them the entirety of the rest of medical school, and that was that. And again, I did fine, made it through, and starting residency now. So uh, you know, finding finding what works for you is just it's super important. Um and then kind of a less academic answer to that question. I think another big important thing is finding your people in medical school. Um, you know, I early on found a really good friend group where, you know, we've been tight all four years and through weddings and vacations and stuff that we've gotten to share together. It's been a lot of fun. Um, you know, it's important to just have people to you know bounce ideas off of, and you know, maybe you're struggling in one area and one of your friends is really good at that and they can help you kind of get through it, or you know, your friend goes through a breakup, and it's good to have somebody there for them um to kind of support them through that, or you know, they have a family member die and they need someone to lean on. Um, I think finding, you know, a good community in your school is is super important. And I know that's something that was really important for you too, from the spouse's perspective, if you want to talk about that at all.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

I think I've definitely touched on that and we'll continue to touch on that in future podcasts, but I think that's really why I started this podcast was to relate because I know that there are medical schools out there that don't have that spousal support. Um and I think just as much as I preach it, having people going through the same exact thing as you is so important in this season because you need it just as much as the spouses.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

If someone wants to pursue medicine but is afraid of cadaver labs, what advice do you have to get them through it?

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of the the inevitable evil that you gotta deal with, unfortunately, in medical school. Um I don't think we had anybody like pass out in our class that I know of, but I've you know, heard stories. Um but yeah, I mean, it's just one of those things you kind of just have to do. Um, there's not a great way around it. And the more you're in there and kind of exposing yourself to it, you get a little bit desensitized to it. Yeah. Um maybe even something like you know, watching videos online before you actually go in there and like touch the cadaver with your hands and you're right next to it, um, just to kind of desensitize yourself a little bit to it might be helpful. It's probably the best advice I can give you.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

And for the spouses, when they're in cadaver labs, don't look over at their computer when they're home. Yeah, you will regret it. Just trust me, the amount of times I caught myself looking at things that I did not want to see. Um, yeah. And then when they come home from cadaver lab, make sure those scrubs go right into the washing machine. Don't leave them on your bedroom floor. You won't be able to do it. Don't leave them in your laundry basket. That formaldehyde.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

So don't do anything after you leave cadaver lab in the clothes you were in in cadaver lab. Definitely make sure you change after you leave. Just prepare to, you know, stay late. Um, I think they actually they might have changed it for the year after us. I think they but the when we were going through it, it was like you had to get the dissection done no matter how long it took you, even if it took you past the two-hour block that they had for you during the day. So, you know, we would kind of rip take turns, our group going in later at night and getting it done. But they changed that for the year after us. They had the anatomy fellows go in and do it at night. So I guess thankful for them for the future classes, that's it's very nice.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

There would be nights where like we would be at dinner or something, and then on the way home, I was dropping him back off at the medical school at seven, eight o'clock at night for him to go back in to dissect his cadaver. Yeah. So someone else asked, How did you find your people in medical school?

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah, so I found my kind of close-knit friend group uh through playing basketball, uh, funny enough. Uh, one of our friends, he, you know, kind of as we were all moving to town for school, uh, and I think orientation had like just started.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Who was it?

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Or it was Alex.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Uh of course it's Alex.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

I don't know. I like Alex like now knowing him, like I'm kind of surprised he said that. Yeah. Steve, yeah, I don't know. But he uh yeah, he just sent a message to like our big class group chat and was like, hey, I'm gonna go down to the gym and play basketball if anyone's interested. Uh and then we had actually a good turnout, a good group of people who went and played and you know got to meet everybody for the first time, which was crazy. So their first impression of me was sweaty and out of breath and running up and down the court. But um, it was good. And then, you know, we played a couple more times kind of throughout orientation week, and my close friend group was the group that most reliably showed up every time someone sent a text. And we played basketball probably once or twice a week for the first three years at least uh of medical school, um, at least while we were all still kind of in town, and then fourth year we all went our separate ways, so yeah, we backed off a little bit, but and plenty of injuries along the way. Yeah, yeah. That that was the one downside. We had a lot of pulled hammies, rolled ankles, show up to class the next day hobbling, and they're like, What did you do? And oh, the best was Yeah. I so you know, typical whatever Monday afternoon after our test, we're we're playing, and I kind of pivoted around fast, and one of my friends was coming in to try and steal the ball from me, and I like headbutted him, and okay, but we need to preface this.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

You are I'm a large individual, I'm like 6'1, 6'2, about 225, 230. My good buddy is I think 5'7 and about 130 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Soaking wet.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Yeah, and he, you know, balls of steel, comes in trying to steal the basketball from me, and I turned, whacked him, like our heads just cracked together, and I knocked him over, and so I'm like standing over him, like, hey man, like you okay? Like, I'm sorry, I didn't see you. And he's like, he's looking up at me, he's like, dude, you're bleeding. I'm like, what? And I like looked down and I'm like, like gushing blood from my forehead. So he had like his tooth or something caught my eyebrow, and I was bleeding pretty bad, and I like went and got a band-aid, and that kind of like stopped it for a little bit, and I ruined one of your nice towels that I had in my bag.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

I had like a Kate Spade towel, and this man decided to take it with him to basketball.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

I didn't know it was a fancy towel. It just looked like a normal beach towel.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

And then he proceeded to come home after continuing to play with a gashed eyebrow wide open, swollen, starting to go black and blue after like playing for what, another hour or whatever you played.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

And also, mind you, we are now two or three months away from our wedding day.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Yeah. With this plenty of time to heal. Plenty of time.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Wide open eyebrow.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Plenty of time.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

And we ran around trying to find an open urgent care or stereo strips or we went to urgent care, and then they were like Yeah, they were like, We can't do it.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

It's gonna be no, they were like, Oh, it's gonna be like four hours till someone can see you. And I'm like, This is ridiculous. And then luckily, you No, medical school, there's medical people who have medical abilities.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

We won't say who.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Yeah, we won't say who, but a generous uh upperclassman. Uh thanks to me. Again, you need your your wife, Fred. She hooked it up, but he had lidocaine and stitches hanging out in his kitchen. He was like, Come on over, we'll get you patched up.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

And that's what we did. Saved a hefty ER bill.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

$50 Venmo first. $50 Venmo. Stitches in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

But I was actually shocked how open you were when I threw that idea out. And you were like, Well, does he have lidocaine? And you were like, as long as he has lidocaine, I'll go.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

Well, yeah, I wasn't gonna do it, not numbed up. I'm not that tough. I like to think I'm tough. I'm not that tough.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

What are some ways that you found to unwind in medical school?

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Yeah, so you know, like I talked about, playing basketball was a huge one, just getting out and doing something with friends that's active and sometimes good for your health, sometimes not. Um, but yeah, I you know, fitness and nutrition is kind of big passion of mine. So I'll go to the gym pretty much every day and lift or do cardio. Uh, I like to cook a lot, um, so I'll do that.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Um we have a lot of people over.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Yeah, we do we do a lot of like like family style meals where I'll cook a big array of delicious food and people come over and eat it and leave five to ten pounds heavier. Um and food for the next we'll send them home with some leftovers. Um but yeah, that kind of thing. Um we've gone on like hikes where we're lucky to be in an area that has a lot of really good hiking. Um it's nice to be out in nature, uh, away from the the walls of your apartment or library or medical school, wherever you are. Um yeah, I think just you know, getting out and doing the things that you like to do, you know, don't lose sight of that when you're you're buried in your your books. Uh, I think it's still important to maintain you know who you are outside of medicine and you know do the things that that you like to do outside of studying.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Yeah, for sure. What did you do during your summers during medical school? Did you have some time to relax and have and have a break?

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Yeah, so I'll kind of walk it through like summer by summer because all the different summers between years are are a little different. So first year is probably like the most real summer break that you have because you know you're done with classes in May usually, uh, and it obviously varies depending on where you go, but usually you're done with classes around May. Uh, and then for us, we didn't start back up until I want to say August, like late July, early August. Um and so a lot of people, you know, took that time, they did some research. Some people like went on vacation, that kind of thing. Um, we actually got married uh that summer. So that was that was a big thing for us. We went married, went on our we got married, went on our honeymoon, um, and that was a lot of fun. Uh, and then I also did like a little bit of volunteering uh during that summer. Um, we were back uh in Connecticut where we're from, obviously to get married. Uh, and so I did like a little like nutrition and fitness lecture for the community center, um, just as like a fun volunteering thing. Again, you know, doing what I like to do uh and trying to help people out if I can.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Um they loved that.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

They did love it, yeah. There was, yeah, there was, I want to say like 10 people that came, which you know it's not a lot, but it it's something.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Um but you said that they were very engaged.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

So yeah, they were asking tons of questions, they were super engaged, or like staying after the lecture to like ask me stuff. So they they loved it, and I loved, you know, it's it's crazy because you know, when you are in college or in medical school, like you're constantly absorbing information and you're not really like teaching at all and like giving out your knowledge because you don't know a whole lot, really. Um, but you know, this was like the first time I was like, all right, like this is something that I have you know researched a lot about, and I like to think I know a lot about it, and you know, now people are like looking to me as this like fund of knowledge in this subject matter, um, which is really cool, and it's it's cool to be able to kind of pass that on. Um, so that's what I did first summer. Um, I know a lot of people, like I said, did research, and it was mainly people who like didn't have any research coming into medical school, or again, they're they were going for very competitive specialties that require a lot of research. Um, for me, doing emergency medicine, I had like a couple research experiences before medical school. I said, that's enough for me. I'd rather not do more research. Um, but again, there were plenty of people who didn't do anything medical school and just took time off, and that's fine too. Um and then second year is you take your first round of boards. So depending on when you take the boards, you might have a longer or a shorter summer. Um, you might have time to go on like a fun vacation or something. If you get your boards out of the way early, um, you have time before your classes start up again, or rotations, I guess, because third years the year following. Um, so like for me, I took my boards at the end of May, beginning of June, somewhere around there. And then we didn't start back up till July. Um, so I had basically the whole month of June off. Um, which again, like a month, you know, maybe you could do something as far as like volunteer research, but for me, I was like, I'm just gonna take this time off. We went to Greece with my family. That was a ton of fun, that was awesome. Um, so it was cool to travel.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Um, yeah, that was a great trip.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Yeah. So that was the second year summer. I don't know of anyone who did any kind of like experience during that summer. Like, I think everyone was just so focused on boards that people like took their boards and then they took time off.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Or a lot of people had planned to do something or take some time off and then they just like delayed their boards a little bit later.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

A lot of people ended up pushing their boards back.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

I think that that was a trend that I was not expecting. Uh I don't know. I kept mine all the same based on when I scheduled them. Um, but yeah, a lot of people like you know think they're gonna be ready and they take a practice test, they're like, oh, I'm not ready, and they push them back.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Um I feel like if you happen to get that practice test that like was like whoa, oh no, you just buckled down harder and was like, Okay, I just need to study more over the next few days.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

I don't know. Different people have different mindsets and goals. Oh, totally.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

So and you have to do what's right for you and what you think you can get done in that time.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

You really know how ready you are to take a test. Like your advisors will have something to weigh in on as far as where your test scores are at and stuff, but you know, only you can really make that decision for yourself. Um so that was second year. Third year is pretty similar like the summer after third year because you have another board test to take. So, you know, I well, we we finished rotations earlier than we finished classes for second year, so we were done with rotations in like March. Um, and then a lot of people from my school took their boards in June. Um, so they would either like go on a road like an early rotation for fourth year uh in May or even April, um, and then they like kind of buckled down, studied, and took their test in June. Um for me, you know, I'm someone that I'm like, listen, I want to study really hard for like three, four weeks, and then I know I've put in a sufficient amount of hours and I'm gonna take the test and be done with it. Because I'm like, if I drag out the studying three months till June and take it, I'm like, I am more likely to burn myself out studying than I am getting more prepared by having all that time. So, you know, again, that's something that you have to figure out for yourself. If you're like, listen, I'd rather take it a little bit easy and take more time and then take the test later, that's what works for me. Great. If you're someone that's like, I'm gonna just bust my ass for like a month and then take the test and be done with it, that's how I felt, and that's what I did. Uh, and I did well. I scored higher than I was hoping to score, and I was happy with it. Um, so then I had May off, and then I did a rotation in June, and then did my fourth year rotations basically June through February, and now we're here, and I've been done for a little while and just hanging out.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Yeah, and I think that is all really great. The next question kind of jumps off of that a little bit, and it says, What advice do you have for medical students embarking on third and fourth year rotations?

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Yeah, so you know, maybe for people who are not super familiar with how medical school curriculum works, uh, usually the first two years are all like your kind of classroom and cadaver lab learning. You're learning like basic sciences and you know pharmacology and all the body systems and physiology and anatomy and that kind of thing. Uh, and then third year is typically your like core rotations. Um, so for us, and it it kind of varies school to school on how they do their core rotations, but it's usually some combination of like family medicine, internal medicine, uh surgery, OBGYN, psychiatry. Um, some places have emergency medicine as part of their kind of core curriculum. Um, we had like a two-week like kind of emergency medicine, kind of ICU-ish block, and it was all like online modules. It was weird. Uh, and then we also had like a two-week OMM rotation because DO school. Um and yeah, and so that was kind of all the rotations. Um, and then fourth year rotations is when you get into like what you think you want to do for residency, um, or just like other cool rotations that maybe you want to get exposed to. So for me, fourth year was a lot of emergency medicine, uh, because that's what I wanted to do. And like I said, we didn't really have an emergency medicine rotation in third year, so most of my summer and fall was all emergency medicine, which I loved. It was awesome because I was like, this is what I want to do, this is finally what I get to do. Um, but then I also did like a cardiology rotation because I was like, that's cool and relevant for emergency medicine. Uh, and then in January and February, I did like an orthopedics rotation, a neurology rotation, and then I just needed another credit, so I did a pathology rotation, not super high yield for emergency medicine, but it is what it is. Um, so that's kind of how it's structured. Um, I would say for you know, advice to medical students for those months is really get to know your patients because you know, when you're learning about diseases in like a textbook or something, it's really easy to get them kind of mixed up. You know, there's a lot of overlap and symptoms and that kind of thing, and a lot of the names sound from like the same thing, even though they're not. Um, and I think a really good way to like hammer home some disease or whatever it is is you know, you see a patient with that disease. And you know, you see a patient that has something that is making them super sick, and you're part of the team that is healing this person, that is a hugely impactful experience and something that you're just you're never gonna forget it. You know, just really like getting to know your patients, I think, is huge. And you know, even as a medical student, you have a lot more impact than you might think you have. I think there's this common misconception that, like, oh, you're the low man on the totem pole and like you're there to learn and you're not really there to be you know making decisions about patients. And that is true some of the time, but you know, some of the time you're the one to catch something. You know, maybe the patient tells you something that they didn't tell anybody else, and you were the only one who had time to listen because you don't have a lot else going on. Usually you're only seeing a couple patients you're responsible for, and you know, the upper level residents or attendings, they got a whole handful to deal with. And so now you have a lot a lot of time to really dive in and talk to these patients, which you know is therapeutic for the patients in some aspects too. Um, I know on my psychiatry rotation, um, it was an outpatient rotation, and part of what the doctor I was with did was TMS therapy. It's transcranial magnetic stimulation, and it's basically a treatment for like medication-resistant depression. Um, and you know, the patient sits in there for I think 20 minutes, uh, and it's just this machine that every few seconds kind of buzzes on their head, and you know, through some magical process that heals their depression, and it does work. Um, but another part of that is he would have the medical students go in and just talk to the patients, and it could have been about their depression and you know how they've been dealing with it, or it could have just been about life. And he said, you know, the TMS therapy is healing, but so is just having someone to talk to. Uh, and I think that goes a long way. Uh, maybe that's my holistic DO side bias coming out a little bit, but you know, I thought it was super cool.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

No, I think that's great. I want to take a quick break to share something with you guys that I've genuinely been loving lately. If you followed me for a while, you know I'm all about being comfortable, especially in this season of life. And honestly, comfort has become my go-to for that. I wear my comfort lounge sets for everything, like lounging at home, running out for a quick grocery trip, throwing something on when I don't want to think too hard about an outfit. It just always works. And their sweatshirts are probably my favorite. I grab one constantly. It's one of those pieces you don't even have to think about. You just throw it on and you're good. Whether you're traveling, going for a walk, or lounging at home, it is truly my go-to. If you want to try it for yourself, I have a link for you guys in the show notes where you can shop all of their apparel, accessories, and even blankets. I wouldn't share it if I didn't actually love it. And I know you will love it too. Now let's get back to the episode. How did you know so early on that you wanted emergency medicine? Now, let me preface this. So many people have commented on the video that I created that went viral. I think it has close to almost or over three million views now. Um, I originally started that video when David was a first-year medical student, more because I thought he was gonna change his answer every year. So I thought each year it was gonna be some different specialty and it was gonna be this funny ha ha moment. Come match day, like, look how many times you changed your answer. But come to find out it was emergency medicine all along, and he stuck with it. And congrats, matched emergency medicine in South Carolina. So that's where we're heading next. But how did you know you wanted emergency medicine all along?

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Yeah, so you know, like I said earlier, kind of before medical school, I worked uh as a patient care tech, partly in the ER. Uh, and I just, you know, I loved being in the ER. Like the people in the ER had my kind of sense of humor, and um, you know, it was cool seeing all the different things coming into the ER. And I liked the shift work, and you know, working nights sometimes was fun. Um, so it was it's just like a combination of you know, my kind of people, my kind of work. Um, I loved like the work-life balance aspect of it. Um, and so kind of going into medical school, I you know, had that in the back of my mind that that's what I was gonna do. Um, I wasn't like dead set on emergency medicine. Like that was definitely like the front runner for the whole way through, but I was never like, oh, this is the only thing that I'm gonna do. Um so kind of going through medical school, uh, you know, there wasn't any one specialty other than emergency medicine that really stuck out to me. I was like, you know, I like doing procedures and surgery, like some of that's cool. Uh, I like like some of the really sick patients that I got to see during my internal medicine months. Uh, and you know, naturally emergency medicine's kind of like a combo of the two. Um, I think it's really cool to, you know, be the guy that's like, I know kind of a little or a lot about like everything, instead of, you know, oh, I only do this every day of the week for my entire career. Um, you know, I'm I'm glad that there's people that specialize and subspecialize and can deal with super complex diseases and you know crazy treatments and stuff that I would never dream of doing. Um, but you know, I think there's something to be said for you know being a little bit of a jack of all trades. Um they say jack of all trades, master of none, but the ER people like to you know say that you know we're the master of of resuscitation and airways and that kind of thing. So, you know, maybe not master of none, but definitely jack of all trades. Um and so yeah, you know, I always had that in my mind, and then fourth year finally got to do an ER rotation, and that first month in June was you know, again, everything that I had kind of thought it would be. You know, there's a lot of sick patients, there's some not so sick patients, and you get to see crazy people from all different walks of life, and people got a lot of weird stuff going on, and it's it's fun, you know, it keeps you on your toes the whole shift. The you know, it was like usually 10, 12, some eight and nine hour shifts, and you know, they fly by because you're you're always doing something down there. Uh, so you know, it was one of those things where you're like, this is a job that I can have and do, and something that I really enjoy doing. Uh, and that's how all of my fourth year went. You know, every month that was emergency medicine. I was so excited to go in and do emergency medicine. And, you know, a lot of the other rotations, quite frankly, sometimes felt like pulling teeth. Um, you know, there's cool parts to every specialty, but for me, anyways, a lot of it was like super redundant. And I was like, man, I don't know how people can do this all day. Like an example, like my neurology rotation. Again, great rotation. I learned a lot. The doctor I was with was very subspecialized, and she did a ton of EMGs. And uh like I don't think two like two or three days a week, she was doing EMGs. And I'm like, that's a lot of EMGs, and I'm just like, this is just not that interesting. And I'm like, it's great because there's people who need them and it's helpful, and uh, you know, it's some it's a service that that people patients definitely need, and you know, but for me, I was like, I am just uh I I couldn't do this every day. Um so yeah, that's you know, just a kind of another reason why I think the ER is is the best place. Uh it can definitely get overwhelming at times. Uh you know, there's times where there's traumas coming in and people yelling at staff and fighting people, and it's all part of the fun. It's all part of the chaos.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

I'm not shocked you went into emergency medicine. Everyone celebrates the white coat, but no one talks about the sacrifices it takes to get there. What are some sacrifices you had to make along the way?

SPEAKER_00 43:21

Yeah, I think you know, obviously medical school is a time-intensive, expensive process. Um I think, you know, and for a lot of people, it's kind of during the prime years of your life, you know, it's you know, my mid twenties was basically zapped by medical school. We missed, you know, a lot of friends' weddings and things and continue to miss them. It's you know, it it sucks. Um we were able, you know, you're may able to make it to some, but you know, it's just not always possible to. Fly across the country and spend the money that it costs to go and and celebrate the people that you do care about. Um, and so you know that's that's hard, um, especially when you have a lot of friends who are not in medicine and you know you also see them and they're you know making good money and they're going on fun trips and that kind of thing, and you're stuck inside studying again. Um I think that's the biggest thing is you know, you're at such a prime time in your life, and you're using it to kind of further your career uh in a way that is not immediately gratifying, maybe, but you know it pays off in the long run. Um, you know, everyone I think who becomes a doctor understands that, but that doesn't mean that it's any less hard when you're going through it. And you know, a lot of people, you know, are able to kind of find that balance and you know go out and celebrate their friends and go to weddings and that kind of thing. It's not to say that you can't do any of that stuff, but you know, you have to realize that you're not probably going to be able to make it to everything that's going on in your life.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

No, I definitely agree. And I also think that there have been multiple holidays as well that we have missed out on being back home, being with our family, celebrating, I know Easter almost every year you had a test the Monday after Easter, or sitting for a yeah, Tuesday after Easter, or even sitting for your boards like a week and a half later. Like there's been so many things that we have had to make sacrifices on, even as a family, to not go home Thanksgiving and things where I'm here with you. But I think it's so important that when we stress finding people in this season with you that are going through the exact same thing as you invite them over for a few hours. You take that study break and you celebrate Easter together, you take that break and you celebrate Thanksgiving. I think this past year, as fourth years, we celebrated Thanksgiving early because most of you were working Thanksgiving on rotations as fourth year medical students. Um and some of you guys, big foodies over there, didn't want to miss out on your turkey or your stuffing. So David ended up cooking Thanksgiving dinner early and we celebrated it. So really kind of flexing and adapting really to this lifestyle that just because the rest of the world is celebrating Christmas on December 25th doesn't mean we celebrate Christmas on December 25th in this household.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Luckily, during medical school, usually you get a Christmas break.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

Well, yeah. But even in our future, I don't think that's really gonna change.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

Yeah, come resident, well, especially emergency medicine. The ER doesn't close on the holidays, so be ready to work.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

What year of medical school was the most challenging and why?

SPEAKER_00 47:06

Yeah, I think probably the most challenging year was first year. I think it's you know, you're maybe you've been out of school for a little while, you don't really remember some of your study habits, it's you know a new environment that you're adapting to. Um, you know, if you're someone that is coming right out of college, maybe you're learning to cook for yourself for the first time, in addition to learning all about the human body and medicine. Um, so you know, it's kind of like a like coming of age as well as intense academic time in your life, and I think balancing all that can be hard. Um, you know, I'm lucky that I kind of knew how to cook coming into medical school. I know a lot of people didn't, and they're spending tons of money on DoorDash and other things, and you know, that's definitely uh a hard, it's it's a it's a tough, it's tough on the wallet uh when you're already kind of broke in medical school. Um like I kind of said earlier too, I think finding those study habits that work for you, maybe you find it quick, maybe it takes you a little while. Uh, so that can definitely make things challenging. Uh for us, you know, we had tests almost every Monday. Um that kind of kills all your weekends and your weekend plans and that you kind of have to get used to.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

What is the weirdest question you were asked in a residency interview?

SPEAKER_00 48:41

Ooh, I like this one. So, you know, again, for people who are not maybe super familiar with medical school and residency and interviews and stuff, you know, a lot of the interviews, at least for me in emergency medicine, it's more just kind of like getting to know you questions. They're not asking you usually super technical things like, hey, you have this patient and heart failure, and what dose of LASIKs do you want to give them and that kind of thing. They're not asking you that. They're more just, like I said, getting to know you and get your your vibe and see if you're someone that kind of clicks with their their program. Um, I think probably the funniest question that I got was so he it was a very long-winded question. He was like, All right, like, you know, me and you were we're working a shift together in the ER, it's night shift. He's like setting the scene. He's like, the cops show up. I'm like, oh, I was like, what's going on here? He's like, the cops show up, they walk into the dock box and they say, We're here to arrest you. You have the right to remain silent, and they, you know, read you your Miranda rights, the whole thing. He's really like amping up the drama in this question. He's like, What did they arrest you for? And I'm like, ooh, it's a tough question. Because like you don't want to paint yourself in a bad light for this interview, like saying, you know, incriminating yourself that like there's this dark side of you that commits crimes. But you know, so I thought on it for a second, I was like, hmm, how can I answer this in a way that you know doesn't make me seem like a bad person? And I was like, well, you know, I have a wife and a daughter, and I was like, they mean the world to me. It's like if someone did something to my wife or my daughter, I would probably retaliate in some way. And I left it pretty vague, and I was like, I was like, I'm not a guy who's you know quick to anger. I'm like, but if you mess with my family, I'm not gonna be happy about it, there's gonna be consequences. And the guy was like, I love that answer. So that was funny. Uh you get a lot of like goofy questions too. Like, if you were an instrument in the ED, what like tool or instrument would you be? I was like, I'd be an ultrasound machine because you know it's kind of slept on and underutilized, and there's a lot of different applications for it, and that kind of thing. So they just they just ask you a lot of odd questions like that.

SPEAKER_01 51:11

What is something you will weirdly miss about medical school?

SPEAKER_00 51:15

Ooh. I mean, there's definitely a lot of like fun parts of medical school that I'll miss, like getting together with people and you know, watching sporting events and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

That can still happen.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

Yeah, you can still do that. Um, I think like a weird thing that I'll miss that like again, like why will I miss it, is like the post-test like debriefs that we used to have. Like me and my friend group, like you know, we all take the the test on Monday morning, uh, and then usually we'd have like an hour or two before we have lecture again. So we would all like meet in like a little conference room and we'd be like talking about our our answers and questions and stuff, and we'd be like, Hey, like, what did you think for this question? Like, like, oh, this is a bad question, they gotta throw this question out. I don't know why they would ask that, or something like that, or like you know, debating what the question actually said, because we don't get the test questions, we just are shooting them off the top of our head and trying to remember all of them. Um, I don't know. There was something fun about that. Uh, and you know, we get into some some heated, heated conversations. There's one test I think we actually remembered, like like between all of us, we remembered I think every question. Like we had talked over the whole test, and we got to the we were just like in the conversation, we're like, I think that was all the questions. You know, usually there's some that are like contentious that you're like, all right, yeah, like I know I'm gonna talk about this with the guys after, but then yeah, one test was just like, I think we did the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

Gosh. I think you win the award for pushing through medical school, not really asking for any handouts or makeup tests, nothing, because you even sat through a Monday test with food poisoning.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

Oh, yeah, that was not fun. I forgot about that. Yeah, so this was bad because it was like we had this was kind of like a final, like a pseudo-finals week. So we had tests like Thursday and Friday, and then like Monday and Tuesday, and so like after I think it was after Friday's test, me and my friends we went to an all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue place, which was awesome. It was Korean barbecue and hot pot combined, and it was great. No, but I got food poisoning, no one else did. I don't know how, probably because I was just the sheer load of bacteria was higher in my GI system because I ate probably double what everyone else ate. Um, but yeah, I got food poisoning really bad. It lasted like a week, and I I think it was E.

SPEAKER_01 54:08

coli.

SPEAKER_00 54:09

It probably was. It was probably some undercooked meat or something. I don't know. But yeah, so that was Friday, you know, Friday we go and eat it. Saturday, I got the bubble guts, and I'm like, oh, this isn't gonna be good. And I'm just thinking that okay, maybe it's just like I ate a lot and this will kind of work its way out, and in a day I'll be back to normal. But no, Sunday was even worse. So I I was on the toilet the whole day, basically. And I'm like, I have a test tomorrow. Like, what am I gonna do? Like, I have to sit in a room for at least an hour and not leave, really. I mean, like, yeah, you can go to the bathroom, but like you're on a timer, you don't have time to be taking a dump in the middle of the test. And you know, I was like, all right, I'm gonna go in, I'm gonna go to the bathroom right before the test. I'm gonna sit there, take the test, and then as soon as I'm done, I'm gonna go back to the bathroom. And I did it, and I made it through okay, I did well, and then it kind of worked its way out of my system by the end of that day, so I didn't have to deal with it the next day, but that was not fun. I went crazy weight swing because I had like been losing a lot of weight, and that was like a celebration of like, all right, I'm gonna go and have this big meal because I lost so much weight. So, like beginning of the day, Friday, I was like 220. And then after the Korean barbecue, I was like pushing, well, after the Korean barbecue and like everything else I ate that day, I was like close to 240. 240? Yeah, it was a big swing. It was like, yeah, food weight, but also like water weight and that kind of thing, but still, like 20 pound swing, and then coming back down from the food poisoning, I was like under 220. So it was like 20 pounds up, 20 pounds down, and I was like, oh, that was hard.

SPEAKER_01 56:00

Never again.

SPEAKER_00 56:01

Yeah, I had well, we went back one other time to the Korean barbecue since then.

SPEAKER_01 56:06

But did I know that?

SPEAKER_00 56:08

Yeah, you weren't happy about me going back, but we went back. I was okay that to the same place?

SPEAKER_01 56:15

Yeah, you went back to the same exact restaurant.

SPEAKER_00 56:20

We ordered different things.

SPEAKER_01 56:23

I don't think I could ever walk back into that kind of restaurant, let alone the exact same restaurant.

SPEAKER_00 56:31

You gotta face your fears.

SPEAKER_01 56:36

Looking ahead, I do want to briefly touch upon residency and what's coming next. What are you most excited about in our new hometown?

SPEAKER_00 56:46

Yeah, I mean, I think I'm just really excited to experience a new city. Uh, that's part of it. That's part of why I chose where I chose. Um, you know, our our current living, our current area that we're in, it was nice for medical school. I think we kind of exhausted this area as far as places to eat and things to do and that kind of thing. We met some great people here, but I think we were both kind of ready for for a new environment. So that's super exciting.

SPEAKER_01 57:14

Um also like the closest Trader Joe's and shopping.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

Trader Joe's is an hour and a half away. Yeah. Simply, simply would not do. So no. Uh much closer in our in our next home. Um, I also think, again, just like uh a paycheck is nice. So there's there's money coming in versus going out.

SPEAKER_01 57:35

Also, we didn't really have the choice to stay in Lynchburg because there isn't an emergency medicine program here. Um, so even like the closest emergency medicine program to here, we still would have had to move no matter what.

SPEAKER_00 57:50

So that's part of it. Uh I also think I'm just you know excited to again do what I want to be doing uh for my career. You know, emerge I again loved all my fourth year rotations doing emergency medicine. Now that's like what I get to do all the time. Uh so I'm super excited for that. Um excited to learn a lot. Um, you know, you think you know a good amount coming out of medical school, but from what I've been told, once you get to residency, it kind of resets and you realize you don't know anything. Uh so excited to be humbled, I guess, and work hard and you know become a good doctor. Uh excited to meet my co-residents. Um it was really cool, actually. One of uh one of the other interns I had done a rotation with at a different hospital uh during fourth year, and then they when you know they kind of posted on social media like a picture of all the interns, and I texted them, I was like, yo, I was like, I'll see you the next couple years. Like, that's so cool. Um yeah, that's one of the things that I feel like you don't realize is like regionally, like in within a specialty, it is such a small world. Like, you know, you see a lot of the same people over and over again on like interviews and rotations and all this kind of stuff. Like the same people keep coming up, and you know, you go somewhere and you're like, Oh, like did you like interact with this person in this place? And they're like, Oh, yeah, I love that person. So it's just super funny, like talking to everybody, and you know, everybody kind of knows everybody a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 59:29

Yeah, that's crazy. When you think about starting residency next month, how are you feeling? Are you feeling the excitement, the pressure, or the unknown?

SPEAKER_00 59:40

Yeah, I think it's a it's a combination of of the three, definitely. I think mostly excitement. Uh, you know, I think it's again cool to be in a new place, cool to be doing what you're doing, and you're finally a doctor, and it's exciting. Uh, you know, I think there's pressure to be expected. Um, you know, I think they, you know, the programs realize that you're not gonna know everything as soon as you get there, but you you better learn quick. Uh, and so, you know, there's there's definitely pressure in that sense, but I think that, you know, you have faith that the programs are are gonna train you well as long as you're willing to put in the work. Um so you know, I don't think that I'm super worried about that. And again, I think that you know, sometimes it can be a little bit daunting, you know, putting yourself out there and meeting new people. But you know, once you like I said, it's kind of a small world and within a specialty there's a lot of the same personalities. Uh, I felt like I got along really well with all the ER people, the students, the residents, the attendings, uh, everywhere I went, and I I feel like my my co-residents will be it'll be easy to get along with them too.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

I think that's a wrap.

Outro

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

Dave, thank you for being here and opening up about your time in medical school because I know it's not always easy, but I think your perspective and advice can really help other med students. And to anyone listening, whether you're in medicine or loving someone through it, I hope this reminds you that what you're feeling is valid and that you're not alone in it. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and follow along so you never miss an episode. It helps this little community grow in the best way. You can find me on social media at Life of a DR Wife. Until next time, take a breath, pour yourself a nice coffee, and be kind to yourself. I'll see you in the next one.