Another Overdue Update – I MATCHED!

It looks like ~two years is the sweet spot for me updating this. 😂

Wow. So much has happened since. Where to even begin?

Oh, I know. How about…

I’M GOING TO BE A SURGEON!

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Where we left off… I started, and finished, my second third year, core rotations, and my fellowship. Being a senior fellow was hard. I had a great group and my co-fellow and juniors were amazing. There was a lot of self-discovery and finding out my teaching style. The biggest thing I learned was how much academia isn’t for me. There’s too much behind the scenes that I didn’t care for. The best part (besides my co-fellows)? My students. I LOVE (most of) THEM. They are the most precious angels and must be protected at all costs. I also got so much better at OMT. Like I felt like a true wizard. I would find something off, like a tight back muscle, poke something and say, “Does this hurt?” And they’d flinch and say yes and I’d say, “Yeah, I figured.” And then I would treat it and it’d go away. I had my own approach to OMT and mixed a lot of methods with great results. It was a wonderful time that I wouldn’t change for the world, but I am glad it’s over. I was ready to move on and go on to fourth year.

Oh, remember my dog that was lost? We caught him after almost four months of being lost in the desert. It was grueling. I was unwell.

Now… he likely has an osteosarcoma and his prognosis isn’t good. It seems to have spread everywhere and we were given two months with him. He’s stable for now, but he had a bone biopsy last week to rule out cancer vs osteomyelitis. I’m not optimistic, but we have to wait till Monday to find out the results.

By the way, this is a very quick overview. I have kept a lot of my day to day life over on insta, so check that out if you want more details of my rotations or how fourth year went!

Oh, fourth year. Fourth year best and worst year. It’s been STRESSFUL but all my hard work paid off!

Okay, okay, I won’t leave you hanging… for long.

During my second block of surgery, I told my attending (a general surgeon) that I was interested in OBGYN. I hadn’t decided yet, because my core was truthfully nothing to write home about. I scrubbed in on my last day, did 1 Pap smear the entire four weeks, and I didn’t deliver any babies. The next day, he sent me to do gyn cases with a colleague. It was the coolest day! The next week, he was out of the office and we could pick what we wanted to do. His PA, bless him, asked his OBGYN attending from back when he did rotations if I could scrub in with her. Well she said yes! And she happened to be my old OBGYN before I moved out of state for my Master’s. 😂

This woman is my role model. She is the kind of doctor I want to be like. We had the best two days in the OR and after hearing about my OB core she told me to do my elective with her in May. I wanted to cry! I was so excited! So I set it up, excited for the following year (my surg rotation was in Oct).

After fellowship and taking Level 2 (I improved so much from Level 1 by the way), I showed up to my gyn elective with her.

It changed my life.

She had dropped OB by that point, so I spent most of the month seeing gyn patients and scrubbing in to surgeries. I fell in love. I knew then that I would never do anything else. Her partners let me tag along for some delivered, but only saw 2 (and delivered their placentas). My attending was on call one Saturday and I asked to come in. She had called a C-section and I was able to scrub in and watch.

It was in the same room I had my twins 7 years prior.

It was a full circle moment. I cried. Nothing was ever going to top that feeling. I knew this was the specialty for me. I had already applied to sub-I’s in OB and one FM in case I changed my mind. I ended up cancelling the FM one and signing up for more OB ones. I finished the rotation and my attending offered to write me an LOR. I think I cried and told her I loved her? I also crocheted her a stuffed uterus. She was mad cute. I left that rotation excited to get back to studying for Step 2 and start my audition rotation era.

Step 2 came and went and I did well! I was shocked and excited. I had done terrible during Step 1 and I thought my chances of doing OBGYN were gone. This gave me hope.

By the time I got my results, I was on my last week of my first sub-I. I don’t want to get too much into this because we’ll be here all day. I did four sub-I’s and 1 MFM elective where I worked with the residents, so it was kind of a sub-I.

Sub-I’s were hard work but I had a lot of fun! I only had one bad experience and it was, thankfully, only two weeks long. But we won’t talk about them. If you’re curious, someone posted them on the Reddit Name and Shame. You’ll find it in there.

I met amazing people that have become life long friends. We would text and give each other pep talks or chat about programs/interviews as we went through the interview trail. I heard a lot about how OBGYN was cutthroat and unfriendly, but I don’t think that’s true. There was nothing but support and collaboration between me and fourth year students I worked with (exception: the students I met at that two week audition). I’m glad that most of the women I met (I didn’t do any sub-I’s that had men auditioning at the same time) matched. I know they’ll be amazing OBGYNs (especially my bestie Megan. If you’re reading this, I love you and I wouldn’t have survived with you!)

So sub-I’s came and went and interviews came and went. And one week ago…

I matched into my dream specialty! (Click the pic for updates on my medstagram. 🩷)

“She believed she could, so she did.”

That quote carried me from my O-Chem days. When I failed and struggled and cried, but kept getting back up. I would tell it to myself over and over.

I’ve added another quote that kept me going during interviews. My fellow SJM lovers will get it.

”To the stars who listen and the dreams that are answered.”

I wore a necklace with that quote to every. single. interview. I think it brought me luck.

I was in shock. I truly couldn’t believe it. That someone like me, who struggled all throughout med school but worked really hard and tried to improve med it.

ME!

I matched at one of my top choices. Thinking back on my experience with my sub-I and the residents, I know this is the perfect place for me. I vibes well with them and they saw my potential and my worth. I want to cry thinking about it. I’ll forever be grateful that they gave me a chance. I will work hard and show them I was worth taking a chance on.

I’ve been imaging my life there since finding out and I’m just SO EXCITED! I can’t wait. I’m absolutely terrified but I know I picked the right specialty. All my hard work has finally paid off.

Now I just have to survive four years of residency!

And so, we come to the end of the update. I’m in the middle of looking for housing, planning our move, finishing up rotations, and getting ready to graduate May 11th.

I’m finally going to be the doctor I set out to be when I started this back in 2014.

We did it besties.

This girl is FINALLY going to be going from sturgeon to (gyn) surgeon. 👩🏻‍⚕️

A Long Overdue Update

Wow.

Has it really been 2+ years since the last time I wrote something on here? So much has happened since then. For one, COVID wasn’t a thing when I made my last post. It’s crazy how many things have changed since then. I suppose I should make an update on the last two years!

First, I’m almost a fourth-year medical student… sort of. I have completed THREE (3) years of medical school, but I won’t be considered an OMS IV until next year. Why you ask?

Well, because I reached my goal of being selected as one of the OPP Fellows at my school! I’m about to finish my first year of juggling rotations and fellowship. Let’s back up though and do a quick summary of first and second year.

First-year:
Hard. Many tears were spilled and many sleepless nights were had. I thought it would be easy to start school with four-year-old twins and a four-month-old baby… I WAS WRONG. The twins were a breeze, but my baby was a challenge. He was a good baby, don’t get me wrong, but he would. not. sleep. He didn’t sleep through the night until a year old. First-year was all about surviving and having enough time with my family… until COVID hit during spring break. We went all online and we stayed away from everyone for a long time. We spent the summer with my parents and I, stupidly, kept up with Anki. If you’re a first-year, don’t do this. Enjoy your summer. It literally did nothing for me.

Second-year:
Arguably one of the worst years of my life. I was STRUGGLING. We had a lot more free time, but being in the middle of COVID, there wasn’t much we could do. My mental health tanked. I was juggling studying for classes, prepping for boards, and being present for my family. It was hard. I still don’t think I’m ready to unpack that whole year, especially during dedicated. Those were very dark times for me, but I’m glad I made it out. I also managed to pass my boards, so there’s that! We adopted a cute doggo that September, but he’s been missing for a month now, so I don’t want to talk about him. I’ve cried enough this month… I also applied, and got, my fellowship! This extends my med school graduation to 2024, but I have the privilege of learning more about OMM from our faculty, having my own clinic patients, and teaching the first and second years. A dream come true, honestly.

This leads us to now, the end of my (first) third year.

Wow, what a difference. I LOVE third year. Rotations are SO MUCH FUN. You get to help take care of patients and learn on the job. We have to rotate through FM, OBGYN, IM, Surg, Psych, and Peds as our core rotations. So far, I’ve done everything but my two IM blocks and one Surgery block. I think my best experience was with FM; it was all worker’s comp, but I had so much freedom to be a doctor. I saw a lot of patients on my own before my preceptor came in. He taught me how to suture wounds, do digital blocks, put in staples, and take them out… it was the best. He also let me use OMM on my patients. It was THE BEST and truly a great rotation to start third year with. It was also not great to start with because I have judged every single rotation by how it compared to it. Let me tell you, none of them have lived up to it. Not because they weren’t interesting, but because I didn’t have as much freedom to see patients or use OMM. It’s been kind of a bummer because I was so eager to learn but the past couple of rotations I’ve mostly shadowed. It was like being a pre-med over again, except they sometimes ask you questions or let you scrub into surgeries. I also think the hardest thing for me is knowing what my scope is as a medical student. I don’t think preceptors talk about this as much as they should. They sort of expect you to just know what to do, which I most certainly don’t. If you tell me to do something once, I will do it all the time, but I need to be told. I don’t want to just jump in and do things in case I’m not allowed to do them. I also struggle to ask to be involved more. It’s something I’m working on, and I think I’ve been getting better at it… unless your preceptor is a nice but very intimidating surgeon. I just wanted to be out of the way as much as possible. I go into more detail on my insta, so I’ll leave all of those adventures about rotations there. Otherwise, this post is going to be waaaay too long.

Another part of my third year is fellowship! The way it works at my school is that we take two years to complete fellowship and our core rotations. There are four of us selected per year, and we get paired up with one other fellow. I’m biased, but my junior co-fellow is amazing and has become one of my best friends. I really don’t think I would enjoy fellowship as much without her! We also get paired up with two senior fellows. My seniors are amazing and I have learned so much from them. Again, fellowship wouldn’t be nearly as wonderful without them! We have all clicked and worked really well together. I wouldn’t change it for anything.

So our first year we’re junior fellows and the second we’re senior fellows. There are always two juniors and two seniors fellows on service. We alternate between rotations and fellowship every three months, with the exception of summer. I’m on my last block (last MONTH!) of junior fellowship now. I’m about to become a senior fellow and I am not ready. One, because it means my senior fellows are leaving me and I’m going to miss them. Two, because it feels like we just started fellowship. This year has FLOWN by.

That was a very watered-down version of my last three years of school. I’m technically still a third-year until I finish all my core rotations, do an elective, and take my second set of boards, so I can’t upgrade to a fourth-year status yet. That’s all right with me, because I’m still nowhere ready to apply to residency. I’m still figuring out what I want to do with my life!

I might update this in the future, but it might not just be about my med school journey. There are other facets of my life I want to write about. I haven’t decided yet, but just wanted to put it out there. 🙂

Also, happy early anniversary to this blog! I started it before I had kids and it’s just amazing how much growth has happened since then. Maybe I’ll share a little bit about my life with my kids and how we juggle school and babies… I feel like there’s a lot I want to unpack regarding their births and how my experience has changed my outlook on medicine.

Med school is rough

Hi guys!

Wow. I keep meaning to update this but never seem to have time. I’m almost a month away from being done with my first semester of medical school! It’s been such a wild ride and I’ve been HUMBLED every single day. I thought I was ready after doing well in grad school, but I definitely was not.

Oh, I graduated Summa Cum Laude from my grad program! 😊 It was such an amazing 2 years. I already feel homesick and I’m thinking of going back to NC for residency. We also had our littlest boy on March 12th 2019, about 2 months before I graduated. That was fun not.

I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired.

Anyway, where to start? Oh, I know.

I SHOULD be studying right now, but I’m feeling pretty burned out. The exams happen every week or every other week, with almost no breaks. This coming week is affectionately called hell week. We have our cardio final, competency for OPP, an ethics exam, and an SP. The following week we have day 2 of competency and an OSCE.
Med school is no joke. I think it’s true what they say, it’s like drinking out of a fire hose. I honestly don’t know how I’m surviving. Especially when the twins are in preschool and our almost 8 month old baby refuses to sleep through the night.

It’s hard! It’s so hard, but I haven’t failed anything yet (knock on wood). I hope I can keep this up.
It honestly still feels surreal.

I’m going to be a doctor.

What?! Who let this happen?!

Okay, back to studying!

Andrea.

PS: I have a pink stethoscope!

I’m going to medical school!

Hello everyone!

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated this blog. At first, I was busy with MCAT prep, then applications, then life in general. I kept putting it off. I wanted to have an interview before I updated it. Then when I finally got one, I wanted to wait until I had an acceptance.

Well, I have one! I’m so excited! All my hard work has finally paid off! 😄

Let me start from the beginning. I took the MCAT in July. I did dedicated prep from May 1st to July 21st when I took it. It. Was. Rough. My husband changed his work schedule so I could study every morning. I think I did 4-6 hours a day. I took one day off a week and that was basically the only uninterrupted time I spent with my kids and husband together. The rest of the time was shared between studying and taking care of the kiddos while my husband was at work.

I ended up doing okay. I definitely wasn’t a score I was happy with, I wanted at least one more point. I think that would’ve happened even if I had aced it, to be honest. Anyway, I ended up with a 506. I wasn’t sure if I should retake it or not, but it was high enough that I felt I should continue with the app cycle.

Since I took the MCAT in July, by the time I got my scores back I had already submitted my primary application and some secondaries. I applied to 10 Texas schools, 5-6 DOs, and 17 MDs. I wanted my best chance, so I applied widely. I got a few rejections prior to secondaries, but for the most part, I got secondaries from everywhere I applied. I submitted most of my secondaries around August and waited.

And waited…

And waited…

And waited…

Some rejections trickled in, but I was expecting them. We can’t get in everywhere, right? Slowly but surely, they kept coming. At this point it’s November and I’m getting nervous. I still have secondaries to turn in, but for financial reasons, I was waiting to submit them. I wondered if it was even worth it since it was so late in the cycle.

Then, the email came! I got ONE interview invite. It was my top choice DO school! I had submitted the secondary later in the cycle, so I didn’t expect to hear back so soon. I set up my interview for Dec 12th and planned my trip.

Interview day came and went. I met with 2 professors and had a closed interview. They couldn’t see my grades or MCAT, just my extracurriculars and my personal statement. After that, we took a tour of the on-campus housing, met with second-year students. had lunch with them, and went on a tour of the school.

I was in love. The campus was beautiful, the students were really nice, and everyone was willing to come talk to you about what they did. They also let us try on white coats.

It’s the single most amazing piece of clothing I’ve ever tried on, after scrubs. All I remember is saying to myself, “Please don’t let me love this and then take it away from it. Please don’t reject me!”

They told us at the end of the day that we would hear about a decision within a week. A call if you got an acceptance, an email if we were out on the alternate list or rejected. I kept my phone on me at all time with the ringer on as high as it would go. I was a mess!

My interview was on a Wednesday, and by Tuesday, I got the email.

Alternate list.

I was so disappointed.

I had a feeling I would be put on the alternate list. I’m not sure why, but I thought it wouldn’t be an outright acceptance. It hurt. A lot. I moped around for two days, then got myself together. It’s okay to be disappointed, but it’s time to plan for a possible gap year.

I started thinking about what I could do. It was December and no new interviews. I may not hear back about being pulled from the alternate list until May or June. I graduate with my Master’s May 9th. What would I do?

Fast forward to January. I decided to apply to another Master’s program. This time, one with guaranteed acceptance into the med school if you get in and do well. I met all their requirements, I just needed to make sure I got at least a 3.2 GPA during that year.

I think to better understand why I decided this, I need to backtrack a little. I still had some secondaries to fill out, but I decided against it. Seems dumb, why wouldn’t you do that and risk being a re-applicant?

I’m pregnant! I found out a week or two before my MCAT. My husband and I wanted another child, and an easier second year of my Master’s program seemed like the best time. We are very excited and we’ll be welcoming our last little boy in March! ❤

So how does that affect this? All of my secondaries, except for one that I planned on filling out, are on the West Coast. After the first week of February, I will be too far along to fly. I didn’t want to spend money on a secondary if I knew I wouldn’t be able to attend an interview. Instead, I was going to complete the secondary for the school in my current state and apply to this Master’s program as a backup. The Master’s program has an interview process as well, but they don’t start them until May. I will be done with school by then and hopefully be recovered from giving birth, so it made sense. If neither of these options worked out, I was going to retake the MCAT, re-apply, and work during that gap year.

I was very nervous about the future. I wasn’t sure what to do. Uncertainty is not fun, but it’s really scary when you have young children.

Thankfully, the uncertainty only lasted a month! I was folding clothes and playing with my twins when I got the call. I saw the caller-ID and knew it was the acceptance call. After all, they only call you with an acceptance!

I was right! The school called to say they were pulling people from the alternate list and wanted to know if I was still interested. I said, “Yes, of course! Thank you!”

I think I thanked her like 10 times for during the call. The twins were staring at me and I remember saying, “MOMMY’S GOING TO BE A DOCTOR!” They’re almost four now and I don’t think they know what it meant. I will always remember the big smiles on their faces after I told them. It was my favorite reaction, followed by my husband’s when I told him where we were going. This was his first choice too, based on location.

So here we are! I started this blog as a pre-med struggling with her classes. You’ve followed me through my Master’s program and excelling at it. I’m happy to say you’ll now be able to follow me through med school! 😊

I’ll try to update this more often. With a baby coming and finishing my Master’s, it might be a while though. If you want more updates, follow me on Instagram @studentdrd I’m thinking about doing a giveaway for some of my MCAT materials there. If you’re taking the MCAT this year or next, keep an eye on my insta!

Guys… I did it!

Andrea

Reflecting on the Past Year

I can’t believe I’m officially done with my first year of grad school! I’m half-way to my Master’s degree, and only a few weeks/months from applying to medical schools. What a journey this has been!

This year has challenged me more than I could ever imagine. The first semester was rough being away from my family, but I managed to come out on top. This semester was even more challenging, juggling full-time parenting of my three year olds and full-time school. I was close to a 4.0, but I fell one point short in Anatomy and got a B (my school doesn’t do +/-). I was upset at first, because I wanted to crush it like first semester and be a super mom while doing it! But… I learned I can be super mom without having perfect grades. My kids still love me and they’re healthy and happy. My marriage is in a good place and my husband is amazing and supportive. My life is everything I could’ve possibly dreamed of; I’m pursuing my dreams and I have a wonderful family.

If you had told me I would be here a year ago I wouldn’t have believed you… I didn’t even know I was even going to grad school! I was relentlessly chasing after my advisor to send my LORs so I could finish my apps. I was worried I would take a gap year and I wouldn’t get a chance to improve my GPA. Yet here I am, having done just that! It’s amazing and I feel so blessed to have all these opportunities.

Now that I’m 27, I wanted to set some goals for myself. I have a lot of self-doubts, and I think it’s about time I put those behind. My goal for this year is to stop doubting myself and my abilities. No matter how much I prove that I can do something, I always bring myself down instead of enjoying it because it’s not “good enough.” Well, not anymore. If I don’t believe in myself no one else will either. Besides, it only adds to the stress I have, it doesn’t alleviate it.

Here’s to 27. Here’s to always being a better person than I was yesterday. Here’s to not being afraid and to believing I can accomplish my dreams. Here’s to failure so I may learn from it and keep going. Here’s to my family and friends for always being there for me. And here’s to my future dog, may my husband let me get adopt you sooner rather than later! 😘

Andrea

Almost done with the semester!

Hello everyone!

Hope your weekend is going well! Life has been pretty hectic lately. I have a final lists of schools I’ll be applying to and I’m getting ready for 3 more quizzes and 1 more exam before I finish the first year of my Master’s! It’s so crazy to think about that.

By this time last year I had submitted my applications for post-baccs and I remember how stressed I was. With med school apps right around the corner, I can feel the stress creeping up again. We’ll see how it goes!

Andrea.

Quick update

Hi everyone!

The semester has been crazy busy. We just finished our second exam and got our results today. I’ve been doing well in two subjects but anatomy is not my favorite right now! I hope it’ll get better now that we’re getting into the brain! It should be more enjoyable.

MCAT is… MCAT. I have no motivation and I feel discouraged every time I study for it. I’m not sure how to get out of this rut. 😕

Now it’s time for some well-deserved sleep!

Andrea

Self-care

Hello everyone!

Wow, this week has both gone way too fast and dragged! It was a tough one; the boys completely switched and didn’t seem to want to nap and kept fighting. My study time has significantly gone down this week, but I still managed to preview, review, and do some MCAT prep. It wasn’t perfect, but something is better than nothing, right? That’s what I keep telling myself anyway. 🙂

This week has been particularly difficult in terms of self-care. I haven’t gotten nearly enough sleep, even when I tried to go to bed early. I felt pretty burnt out… so this is what I did to try to help me through it.

After taking care of my favorite alarm clocks, I made some tea. I love tea, it always helps me relax. I opted mostly for black tea so I could get my caffeine fix too, which helped me wake up.

After the boys nap, if they napped, I put on some makeup. I realize I always feel better after makeup, so I made it a point to it even if I was too tired. It made me feel so much better; I felt pretty and I ready to take on the world! (I can’t be the only one that feels this way, right?)

Finally, once I got home, I waited to study until after I was done working out and showering or after I watched 30 mins of TV. This made my night a little longer, since I still needed to get studying done, but it was so helpful in the long run. I was able to concentrate more, and even though my sleep wasn’t as great, I didn’t feel like I had done everything for everyone except for myself. Once I was done studying, I did some guided meditation before bed to help me relax.

Here’s some other ideas for self-care that I try to do when I have a bit more time:

• Bubble bath
• Dance
• Hang out with friends
• Watch a movie
• Listen to music
• Read
• Go for a walk
• Get my nails done
• Grab some coffe with the hubby
• Visit the animal shelter (it’s been a while since I volunteered there, but this is by far my favorite thing to do!)

Here’s hoping I can get a better night’s sleep this weekend! Just not tomorrow because I’m forcing myself to take a practice MCAT under test conditions. 🤤

Have a wonderful weekend!

Andrea.

PS: If anyone is wondering, the movie from the picture is called Sing. I love it, it’s one of our favorites!

Mom in Grad School

Happy New Year!

I’ve been thinking a lot about the past year and all the wonderful things that have happened. Going forward, I would like to write more helpful posts pertaining to grad school and not just updating you all on how I’m doing although there will be plenty of that too!

This first post will talk about being a mother in grad school and how I’m trying to make it work. I’ve only been in class for a week but I haven’t felt like I’ve missed out on anything studying while caring for my almost three-year-old twins. It hasn’t been easy, but with some planning, I’ve had a pretty successful week!

To keep myself organized I use a planner. The one I have is from popflexactive.com and it has everything I need; a monthly calendar to put important dates in, like quizzes and exams, a weekly schedule with space for goals, ideas, reminders, projects, and things due, and daily to-do lists, space for water intake, food journal, workout journal, and notes as well as a doodle space. This one is sold out, but I’m sure they’ll have a new one for the next school year.

I’ve used planner since 2016 but I had to force myself to use them. After finding one that was specifically made for school I’ve actually looked forward to writing down everything. It helped so much last semester when I wanted to remember when my biostats assignments were due! So far, this semester it has helped keep me accountable for studying for the MCAT, which is the hardest thing for me to study for (Physics and I don’t get along).

Here is what my last week looked like:

You do not need to get a fancy planner like this. You can use a notebook and personalize it however you want or use an app on your phone. For me, writing it down and being able to see it without using my phone is more beneficial; I’m more likely to start studying without going through Facebook.

So now that I have a schedule, how do I use? It’s easy to write stuff down, but it gets more difficult to actually follow it. If we’re being honest, I don’t follow this exactly; it just isn’t realistic when you have potty-training toddlers. However, if I have it written down, I know what needs to get done that day and will try to follow it. Certain things I do not move, but they don’t have set times during the day. The best example is my MCAT prep; if the kiddos are napping, mama is studying! The time varies but it’s usually 1-3 PM during weekdays. I’m hoping to put in closer to 3 hours a day during the weekends; I’m making a study group with some friends from school to keep each other accountable. According to my Kaplan course, you’re supposed to take one day off a week, but I schedule it in any way to keep things neat.

Another thing that has helped a lot has been meal prepping. You know, that thing everyone tells you to do and you say you’ll do it but never get around to it? Or is that just me? On Sundays, I take a couple hours to find vegetarian/vegan recipes, prep them, and put them in gallon-sized zip lock bags that go in my freezer. I take whichever one I want to have for dinner out the day of and thaw it a little bit before throwing it in my slow-cooker. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner; it saves me so much time! You can do this with every meal, but so far I’ve only tackled dinner. I might start doing it for my breakfast smoothies as well, so we’ll see how that goes!

As far as my study schedule goes, I try to study while I watch the boys play. I take plenty of breaks to join them in the fun and take them to the potty. Sometimes I put on a movie for them if I need to get something done right away, but I try to avoid this since I don’t want them watching too much TV. This isn’t really the greatest way to study, but it’s more of a quick review to make sure I get it done. That means I do a quick review in the morning and MCAT prep during nap time, so what about the rest of the day?

When they wake up from their nap it’s time for me to spend uninterrupted time with them. We eat together, make silly jokes, and play until our wonderful nanny gets here so I’m able to get to school early. Some self-care takes place on my drive to school; I’ve been listening to the Harry Potter audio-books while I drive. 10/10 recommend the British version; the voice actor is fantastic! If I’m not listening to books, I put on my favorite music and pump myself up for class. Once I’m in school I take the time to preview my lectures and whatever time I have left I use it to finish reviewing previous lectures. I get home around 9:30 PM and this is where my schedule is a bit more flexible and where most of my self-care takes place.

Let’s take a moment to talk about self-care…IT’S SUPER IMPORTANT! If you don’t practice self-care you WILL burn out! My self-care during the day is focused on my kids so I feel like I get a little break throughout the day, but by the time class is over I’m pretty tired. I take this time to do things that make me happy!

This is what my self-care looks like:

If I haven’t worked out, I will do a quick 15-minute workout. I’ve been following the daily workouts from Tone It Up and I love it! It’s simple and it doesn’t take very long, which is exactly what I look for in a workout. I try to do this at least every other day, but I’m going to try to get it in every day since I always feel better afterward.

If I don’t work out that night, I take a 10-minute break before I start reviewing the lectures from the day. I will do this until 10:30 PM, but sometimes I don’t do it at all. At that point, I get ready for bed and try to relax by spending time with the husband, watching TV or makeup videos on YouTube I’m obsessed, and texting family and friends. I like to play video games, but I can’t keep those sessions to 30 minutes so I try to avoid them during the week. I usually save it for the time after an exam when I’m too exhausted to do anything but play Sims 4 mindlessly while the TV is on. I’m trying to find books to read as well, so if you have any suggestions let me know! I’m concentrating on pre-med books right now, but I also love fantasy. I’m still working on the third Eragon book; I keep forgetting I have it on my phone! The boys wake up around 7 AM, so I try to go to sleep by 11:15 PM to get enough sleep. Make sure you get enough sleep! I function best with 9 hours of sleep, but that doesn’t happen unless it’s the weekend, so I aim for 7-8 hours. Residency will change this, but until then I plan on getting plenty of sleep!

The last thing that needs to get done during the week is the cleaning. I take one day a week where I clean EVERYTHING. I did it yesterday by myself, but I usually do it on Saturdays or Sundays so I can get my husband’s help. The only thing I do during the week is wipe down the table and kitchen counters, take care of the dishes, and clean up any food that falls under the table. Sometimes I do laundry if my sons are out of clean underwear, but I try to leave that for the weekend if possible.

That’s it! That’s how I’ve been trying to make it work and I’ve honestly been surprised at how much I’ve been able to get done. I was really nervous about it before classes started, but a bit of planning and some help goes a long way.

I hope this was helpful! If you have any tips and want to share them please leave a comment! 🙂

Have a wonderful weekend!

Andrea.

Happy Holidays!

Hello everyone!

Just wanted to write a quick post wishing you all a wonderful holiday season! It’s been crazy at our house; we finally moved the babies out here, got everything set up, found a babysitter, and are ready to take on next semester.

I ended up with a 4.0 from my very first semester of grad school! I’m very proud and excited to see how the next semester will go. I will do my best and will aim for a 3.5 at the very least. 🙂 I’m also trying to figure out a new MCAT study schedule so we’ll see how that goes!

Hope you all have a happy new year!

Andrea.