…if only I had a dime for every time someone asked me that question, I assuredly wouldn’t have to do a thing after graduation. I could use all the dimes to pay off my uber-steep student loans and go teach dance somewhere. Alas, the question never actually came with any monetary gain, so it actually stands as the reason why I started this blog in the first place. Because after graduation I want to do something different. I don’t want to work in a clinic, or a hospital, or a nursing home, or at campus health. I want to work here. Yep, right here.
So let’s back up a little…ok, a lot. Ten years to be exact. In 1999 I was a working multimedia designer (not a brilliant one, but an employed one nonetheless). I was also halfway to a Masters in Interactive Multimedia Design. Then I quit. I was so sick of looking at the blue screen of death and not knowing how to fix it (because it wouldn’t tell me what was wrong) that I decided I was going to try to fix something that *could* tell me what was wrong…namely people. And since I had clearly picked the wrong field in my first career path, I decided to do a LOT of research before I went down another path. Somehow, that research led me to one conclusion: I wanted to do sports medicine.
So with zero undergraduate credits that resembled anything like biology or organic chemistry (my liberal arts university featured such uber-transferable classes as “What is reality” and “Ethics in Cyberspace”), I was kinda starting at square one. Somehow I found a chiropractic school with an accelerated pre-med program, which I finished in 9 months, and then took the MCAT at the end of that 9 months and then applied to medical school. (When you look up non-traditional paths to medical school, I’m pretty sure chiropractic pre-med ranks way up there) In the interim I worked at the requisite ‘research assistant’ jobs in both a pharmacology lab and an ECG lab. By the grace of God or whomever is running the show, I got into medical school.
I plowed through four years of medical school, and at each turn, I stuck to my “I want to do sports medicine” story…despite the fact that the ensuing question was always “Oh, so what sports do you play?” Um, exactly none. “I’m a dancer,” I’d reply, “and sports medicine is the closest thing to dance medicine.” Close, but years later I’d realize, absolutely no cigar. So before you can do a sports medicine fellowship, you have to do a residency in a primary care field (because if there was one thing I knew, it was that I was *not* cut out for surgery, pardon the pun). So again, the big man (or woman, or elephant) stepped in and somehow I got into a residency at the WFMC. (I’ll pause while the 20 or so people I know who went through residency with me get a good laugh.) That stands for the World Famous Mayo Clinic (WFMC was a derrogatory term that others who weren’t Mayo-nites would call it). Yes, somehow my CV actually says I was trained at the Mayo Clinic (again, I’m sure the Mayo brothers are rolling over in their respective graves at the thought that someone who blew through pre-med at a chiropractic (gasp) college had entered their hallowed halls.)
ok, it’s late, and I’ve got refugee clinic in the morning, so suffice it to say that we’ll start from here next time…and really, I promise I’m going somewhere with this…and hopefully you’re coming along for the ride..
