The Path to Medicine Is Winding and Steep

...and I do not know if I can wend my way down a path so deep.

Readers, you know me. You know that ever since Mrs. Genova got metal filing to move around with magnets I've been obsessed with science. When in grade five Mr. DeKort handed out sheets with pictures of skeletons on them I couldn't get enough of health. That year I memorized every single bone on those sheets. The next year, I did a science project on cells. That's right, a whole project just on cells and how cells work. I thought it was mesmerizing. I could have stood up there and talked about cells for hours, "this is the mitochondria it processes and creates energy and it-" on and on... I really didn't understand why people weren't excited about it! Gosh, I was such a nerd...

From the moment I memorized that skeleton I knew I wanted to be a doctor. I'd "get into" Mary Ward CSS, (that was when I thought you had to apply for and be accepted to high schools) which would foster a strong foundation in independent learning while managing a part-time job and occasionally volunteering. I would then seek a spot at U of T in the Health Sciences: Human Biology and Disease program. I would try to continue working but would find that the coursework is too heavy, (yes, I planned on that) and would drop the part-time job. I would live in residence to experience university life. In second year I might actually end up moving back home to save money- I wasn't sure at that point. I would begin taking MCAT prep courses on the side and during third year I would write the MCAT. I would get quite nervous while doing it and void the exam. I would take it again and do well, enter medical school, struggle with all the memorization but in time become an excellent diagnostician and make some small headway in the specialization of my choice. Oh, I would also have 2 or 3 kids and get married in a medium ceremony in a park at dusk but without mosquitoes. (I had figured that by the time I met the love of my life the world would have invented a way to have outdoor night parties without bugs.)


Somewhere I got off track.

No, I'm joking, I know where I got off track. Two years before I "got into" Mary Ward CSS Centre for Self-Directed Learning I discovered that things don't always go as plan. Two years AFTER I was at Mary Ward my world finally, gratefully, stopped. I had been trying to slow it down for ages.

So it happened that when I was 15, I became a high-school drop out. Oh, don't get me wrong, I was enrolled for 3.5 more years, but I hardly attended school. I waited for death. I waited on the off-chance that I would be happy. It worked! One day I woke up and said, "g'day mate!" and emerged into my new Australia, care of Dr. Horrible. (That joke was horrible, I'm sorry.) (I'm also sorry for the pun.)

Throughout that time I was learning that my life doesn't revolve around school. There was more to me than being a student. I have had the most excellent summer. I went to the beach, shopping, rode the streetcars, cheap stuff. Free stuff, mostly. Then I applied for the pre-health science program at George Brown College.

The funny thing about pre-health science is that it does not get you into any science program at any university. You study courses like biology, chemistry, mathematics, anatomy, and physiology, but if you transfer to a university level institution you will not satisfy the requirements for a science program.

I must go to university. There is only so much a girl's family can take, I need to go to university. So I'm going to transfer from the field I love to one I might not hate- social work. Several schools offer the BSW program that can get me into advanced standing for an MSW should I not be able to get into medical school. Four years down the road I will discover that I...still need science courses.

Unfortunately I didn't get into the science programs for uni so I will have to take those separately, (and pay separately) in what is called a postbaccalaureate premed program. THEN I can take MCAT prep courses and apply for medical school.

~

I love medicine. I think it's facinating. I think it's awesome, the way a zygote turns into a full-grown human being, I think it's cool that on Monday I came in with a bit of extra bone in my feet and on Tuesday I left with less bone but stronger feet. I think washing out wounds and suturing them is like a dance, flesh and needle. I look at my xrays and I think, "look at that. Look how my bones have displaced themselves, the strange angle they're at. Look at how they're normally placed, how that all works together. If I just look at the bones in this xray and ignore the outline of flesh, it's like wearing a pair of heels all the time, there's hardly any bone holding me up! Piles of tiny tiny bones working together to keep me upright. Tendons and muscles and tissues and flesh just to make that one pinky toe work."


Out of all of my friends I am the one who knows most what I want to be doing when I'm old and grey. I don't have the certificates or the papers but I know what I love and I'd be good at it, I just need somebody who can teach me. I'm ready.