Amazing news!

I GOT INTO MEDICAL SCHOOL!!!!

It's been a journey to be sure.  This is my third time applying to medical school.  But I was/am determined.  I boosted my MCAT score with a Kaplan course, I had my graduate school courses to boost my overall GPA, and I've worked as an EMT for the past two years.  I had a good feeling about this cycle and I was right!  I got (as of today) five medical school interviews.  I interviewed at four schools, two M.D., two D.O., and got accepted into TWO!  The other two I still have yet to hear from so I may have even more choices!

With my acceptances in hand I started talking to the Army medical recruiter in my area.  Since my undergrad GPA is below their minimum (3.2), they have to file a GPA waiver for me to apply for the Health Professions Scholarship Program.  I have an appointment next week to chat and hand over my transcripts, and MCAT scores so my recruiter can get started.

I'll keep you apprised of the situation as it goes.

Last note.  A lot of medical schools seem to want to keep anything relating to their possbily homosexual students under wraps.  I never said I was gay.  They didn't ask or assume.  Don't Ask, Don't Tell, is alive and well in our professional schools.  However one of the medical schools actually brought the issue up in the interview.  The interviewer was gay and I acknowledged that I was as well.  They went on to tell me how the school is making slow and steady progress in celebrating its diversity (of ALL senses).  It was comforting to know that I can exist as a gay person and not just as someone who is asexual until further investigation.

(Nearly) all schools will say they embrace diversity, but it seems at least in the South and midwest, that few actually stand by those words.

Anyways...I am amazingly excited to finally move forward in making my dream of becoming a doctor come true!


Thank you all for reading and supporting this blog!

My month long absence

Sorry readers about not posting for so long!  I have some catching up to do!  Have to post the new Butch Symposium Round Up!  Also I've got a religious contemplation entry to post after that.

The short of the long, is that I got rejected from medical school for a second time, the military thing fell apart and family issues equals not really want to do anything except brood and sulk for weeks.  I've finally got my head back on relatively straight now though.  

So I'm back.  I'll try and keep the post twice a week schedule, but it may devolve in a single post a week as I try just what in tarnation I am going to do with my life.

Also I just want to thank everyone for reading and commenting on my second Butch Symposium Post.  Now that I'm back I'm going to do my best to comment on the other extremely well written posts that put mine to shame.  

Enlisting Update #2

The military is so aggravating. So finally the chart records I've been waiting for come, years 12 and older. No record of asthma. Should be a good thing right, because I'm not supposed to have asthma then, but no. That's a bad thing.

My recruiter told me that my records are off to the doctor to be approved/disapproved. Which to a logical individual means oh hey no asthma after age 12, you're good! But since there is no mention of it, BECAUSE I WAS 10!, my recruiter thinks they'll send me to get a pulmonary function test...which they won't pay for!

I am beyond livid. Please if anyone has other options for me to do in life, please tell me cause this is stupid. Logic...apparently not a factor in the military.

Enlisting Update

Still waiting on medical records to come down.  After we finally get them, my recruiter will send them on to MEPS.  Two or Three days later we'll get final word of whether I can move forward.  If I do then it is looking like next week for the eye consult and hopeful job selection.  Hoping for the best.

My First MEPS Experience and How Stupid I Was

     I arrived at the recruiter’s around 1400 or 2:00pm.  I filled out a few pieces of paperwork, and then he questioned me again about the hot topic questions.  He did this in the hopes I would not suddenly reveal something at MEPS  (haha yeah…that didn’t work…).  After this I waited for him to finish his own work, and we headed out to the hotel around 1600. 

What to bring to MEPS:

                -ID and Social Security Card

                -Any forms or documents your recruiter told you to bring

                -Change of clothes (x2 if you’re there for two nights)

                -Pajamas or something to sleep in

                -Toiletries

                -Contact lens case, contact solution (or just bring and wear your glasses)

                -A book to beat the boredom

                -Change for a snack or drink from a vending machine

                -Cell phone (though there are specific rules for where you can have a cell phone)

     For the rest of My MEPS Experience, Advice about whether or not to withhold information, and a video of the Duck Walk click "Read More" or read below.

Off to MEPS and Hoping for the Best

     The roommate and I woke up early and headed to the recruitment office.  As soon as we walked in, my recruiter ushered us to the back room.  He had me initial every answer I jotted down on my pre-screening medical form and signed the form.  I had to check and sign a tattoo form for the single tattoo I have: a moment of planned impulsivity much like my choice to join the military.  A few other forms and then the recruiter gave me the hard truth.

     Across all the services (perhaps this is true, perhaps this isn’t) there are no medical spots for females and in at least my service there haven’t been for four/five weeks.  So that’s the bad news.  However the recruiter and his boss and his bosses’ boss are trying their hardest to get me this job.  Their plan of attack?  They are going to send me to MEPS to get my physical done without a job.  They hope that by showing my commitment to follow through with the physical (having high ASVAB scores and a college degree doesn’t hurt) the higher ups will feel pressured to give me the job I want.  The jobs do exist; they’re just reserved for those already in the military, and not those initial entry slobs like me.

     My recruiter said I had about an 80-85% chance of getting the job.  What will happen if I don’t get the job is that after I pass the physical, they’ll send me to the job counselor.  He/She will try and convince me to take another job.  I don’t have to accept a thing.  If I don’t choose anything, I simply go home.  Then the recruiter and I will simply wait for the job to become available.  At the very least I will have taken the physical and gotten it out of the way.  Then when the job does pop up, the recruiter will jump on it.  All I’ll have to do is go into the MEPS station, sign and take the oath of enlistment.

QBP: "Luck is what you have left over after you give 100 percent." -Langston Coleman

This could be me tomorrow.

pic source from a great Army female blogger

 

The ASVAB, TAPAS, and why being a girl sucks right now

 Second installment of the "Hey wow I'm enlisting in the military!" series.   

     My roommate dropped me off at the recruiting office, and after a few questions and instructions we were off to take the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery).  Making sure I had no weapons, my driver’s license and my social security card we drove over to the federal building housing MEPS and ASVAB testing in our area.  We went through a metal detector and went up to our floor.  Apparently the recruiters can only go so far, so soon I was on my own.  I handed over my paperwork, showed off my license and social, signed in (felt embarrassed because I didn’t know my recruiter’s name) and got a binder of general info/rules.   Then I sat and chilled and watched Sportscenter in a waiting area.

   

The Recruitment Experience

     I walked into the recruitment office with my roommate as moral support.  I told her she didn’t have to come, but she was curious about the process.  As soon as we walked in a recruiter ushered us to the back room. 

     He sat me and my roommate down and asked me a lot of questions.  Active versus Reserve?  Field of interest?  Educational experience?  Married?  Kids?  Any medical issues?  Legal issues?  Issue issues?  When he was satisfied, he answered my questions.  With a college degree what level would I be entering at?  E-4.  What about the loan repayment program?  Availability depends on the MOS (Military Occupational Specialty or Job).  How long is the wait between MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station – where you get your physical, job counseling, and take the oath of enlistment) and Basic?   Anywhere from a couple of weeks to 3-5 months.  Depends on your MOS.

     He was surprised to hear I haven’t gotten a speeding ticket.  I wasn’t.  When you don’t own a car or drive, it’s hard to get speeding tickets.  He also asked me in a whisper (so quiet that I had to ask him to repeat his question) when the last time I smoked weed was.   I told him never, which is true.  I’m pretty straight laced.  (It made me wonder what he would say if you did smoke weed.  MEPS can read drugs in your urine up to 45 days.  So I guess he would delay the MEPS visit until your urine was clean if he was a nice guy or hard up for recruits.)  I asked him how many women he saw in ratio to men.  He said about 1:10, or 1:15.  Though “more women are coming in lately”.  The last thing I wondered, to myself, was how colorful everyone’s language was.  I mean I get it.  Military folk equals colorful language, but in a recruiter’s office I guess I expected everyone to be on their best behavior.  They were extremely polite otherwise.

     I told him I wanted to become a combat medic.  Apparently everyone and their age appropriate buff grandfathers either want medical field or military police right now.  They guarantee jobs to recruits based on ASVAB scores, passing the physical, but most importantly availability.  The recruiter’s next step was to have me take a practice ASVAB test, which had four sections: word knowledge, arithmetic reasoning, paragraph comprehension, and mathematics knowledge.  (The actual test has nine sections.)  A couple of the arithmetic reasoning questions gave me pause since they’re basically math word problems, but I ended up with a 96 out of 99.  Potential recruits usually score within 5 points of the practice.  My recruiter said he thought I might get a 99 on the real thing. 

     The recruiter said they don’t often see such a high score.  To be able to enlist you just need a 31, but it’s good I had a strong score.  When jobs are as popular as the one I want to do, having a high ASVAB score gives me a better chance at getting that job.  Also my recruiter says he “has the hook up” on job selection, so that seems promising.  He said if he couldn’t get me that one, he would try for “bigger and better things” such as the really competitive medical jobs.  The whole point of this is to get real life medical experience and training, so if I don’t get one of three jobs I’m out.  Luckily I have that option.

     The next step after the practice test was to put me into the system and fill out some paper work.  He tried to look for jobs for me, but the system was being screwy so he’s going to have to try again later.  I gave him the important papers I brought: social security card, birth certificate, driver’s license, and he’s going to have my college fax over my transcript.  He also needs my high school diploma which I just found under my bed.  So that’s good.

     The plan is to take the official ASVAB test tomorrow.  Then armed with that score, my recruiter can go after the job I want.  Once he books me a job I have seven days to go to MEPS and enlist.  After that there’s the wait until I ship off to basic.  I’m not nervous about the test tomorrow, but I am about the physical.  I’ve never had any health problems, but the way the recruiter made the MEPS doctors out to be, it seems like they’re dead set on disqualifying every soldier that walks in.  I mean I have a couple of scars, but people have scars right?  Shit happen.  Scars happen.  Whatever, I have nothing to hide.  Doesn’t help the nerves so much though.  

     And because you were just dying to know this (or my roommate thinks you all are) I enjoyed a hearty fist bump with my recruiter.   

QBP: "The medic takes not his courage from anger.  He runs the same or greater risks of death and injury, but he, or she, is given over on the battlefield not to Thanatos and anger, but to kindness and Eros."  -Lt. Col. Dave Grossman