Lucky Failure

catullus · Mar 9, 2009

I work at a hospital in rural Rwanda. In my free time, I coach the local soccer teams. Yesterday, I took the boys and girls teams to the capital city, Kigali, to play against city schools. Many of the soccer players had never been to Kigali before, and they gaped at the ten-story buildings and rivers of cars and trucks. We lost to the city kids, but winning wasn't the point. The players sang the whole bus-ride home.

Why am I writing about soccer on a pre-med forum? Last year, I applied to fifteen medical schools. I interviewed at two schools, and was waitlisted and eventually rejected from both. At the time, I felt that there was nothing I could ever want more in life than to get off one of those waitlists. Rejection hurt. It hurt more than any other rejection or failure in my life.

Little did I know it then, but I was lucky to have failed. If I had gotten in last cycle, I wouldn't have been able to stay in Rwanda for another year, to see my teams get trounced in Kigali, to shadow doctors, and to continue my real job of installing and maintaining electronic medical records in rural hospitals and clinics. It's given me something to look back on during medical school to remember why I am working so hard, whom I am working for. When I stay up all night studying the immune system, that's for Agnes, the single mom with a CD4 count of three and a beautiful five-year-old HIV-positive son. When I memorize congenital deformities, that's for Jean, who walks twenty miles several times a week to the market on severely deformed legs. The extra year I've been able to spend in Rwanda will make me a better student by giving me motivation to work harder and happier student by giving personal meaning to the esoterica in my medical textbooks.

To all of you reading this who don't get into medical school this year, congratulations. You may have just won a ticket to the best year of your life.

chiz2kul · Mar 9, 2009

wow 👍

justpremed · Mar 9, 2009

such an inspirational story! and something great to write about in a PS 🙂

Vido · Mar 9, 2009

Inspiring words. Was that a passage from your personal statement??

Charles_Carmichael · Mar 9, 2009

catullus said:
To all of you reading this who don't get into medical school this year, congratulations. You may have just won a ticket to the best year of your life.

Amazing line! 👍

Siverhideo1985 · Mar 9, 2009

👍

I didn't get in last cycle either but this year has been a ton of fun.

There are always new and exciting opportunities.

GoSpursGo · Mar 9, 2009

I nominate this for post of the year 🙂 It's nice to get away from they gloom-and-doom neuroticism that is rampant here; your positive attitude is refreshing 🙂

catullus · Mar 9, 2009

Vido said:
Inspiring words. Was that a passage from your personal statement??

I wrote this for SDN.... in a contemplative mood on my final night in rural Rwanda.

phospho · Mar 9, 2009

catullus said:
I work at a hospital in rural Rwanda. In my free time, I coach the local soccer teams. Yesterday, I took the boys and girls teams to the capital city, Kigali, to play against city schools. Many of the soccer players had never been to Kigali before, and they gaped at the ten-story buildings and rivers of cars and trucks. We lost to the city kids, but winning wasn't the point. The players sang the whole bus-ride home.

Why am I writing about soccer on a pre-med forum? Last year, I applied to fifteen medical schools. I interviewed at two schools, and was waitlisted and eventually rejected from both. At the time, I felt that there was nothing I could ever want more in life than to get off one of those waitlists. Rejection hurt. It hurt more than any other rejection or failure in my life.

Little did I know it then, but I was lucky to have failed. If I had gotten in last cycle, I wouldn't have been able to stay in Rwanda for another year, to see my teams get trounced in Kigali, to shadow doctors, and to continue my real job of installing and maintaining electronic medical records in rural hospitals and clinics. It's given me something to look back on during medical school to remember why I am working so hard, whom I am working for. When I stay up all night studying the immune system, that's for Agnes, the single mom with a CD4 count of three and a beautiful five-year-old HIV-positive son. When I memorize congenital deformities, that's for Jean, who walks twenty miles several times a week to the market on severely deformed legs. The extra year I've been able to spend in Rwanda will make me a better student by giving me motivation to work harder and happier student by giving personal meaning to the esoterica in my medical textbooks.

To all of you reading this who don't get into medical school this year, congratulations. You may have just won a ticket to the best year of your life.

very awesome post...👍

can you tell us more though? what do you eat over there? also, did you bring your pocket money with you, or do you get paid a stipend? what do you do for fun on the evenings when your day is done? how's the weather right now?

again, great post! :luck:

dragonfly99 · Mar 9, 2009

You should use that for your personal statement.

funkydrmonkey · Mar 9, 2009

dragonfly99 said:
You should use that for your personal statement.

The OP has already been accepted.

catullus · Mar 9, 2009

phospho said:
very awesome post...👍

can you tell us more though? what do you eat over there? also, did you bring your pocket money with you, or do you get paid a stipend? what do you do for fun on the evenings when your day is done? how's the weather right now?

again, great post!

Thanks for the thumbs up =). The food is very starchy. Mostly rice, pasta, potatoes, cassava, beans, and the occasional meat.

I do get a stipend. You don't have to do global health work for free, if you are willing to make a substantial commitment. A good example is the Global Health Corps, which just started this year, and is funding 10 year-long global health fellowships for recent/soon-to-be graduates. Check it out at http://ghcorps.org/. (Full disclosure: I'm not completely uninvolved in GHC).

For fun, I play soccer with the kids, read, and go to the local "bar".

Weather's great! It's about 64 degrees F and it's 9:50pm! During the day it was a bit hotter, but not too hot.

dragonfly99 said:
You should use that for your personal statement.

Already done with PS (thankfully), but maybe I will use some in an LOI.

ACSurgeon · Mar 9, 2009

catullus said:
I work at a hospital in rural Rwanda. In my free time, I coach the local soccer teams. Yesterday, I took the boys and girls teams to the capital city, Kigali, to play against city schools. Many of the soccer players had never been to Kigali before, and they gaped at the ten-story buildings and rivers of cars and trucks. We lost to the city kids, but winning wasn't the point. The players sang the whole bus-ride home.

Why am I writing about soccer on a pre-med forum? Last year, I applied to fifteen medical schools. I interviewed at two schools, and was waitlisted and eventually rejected from both. At the time, I felt that there was nothing I could ever want more in life than to get off one of those waitlists. Rejection hurt. It hurt more than any other rejection or failure in my life.

Little did I know it then, but I was lucky to have failed. If I had gotten in last cycle, I wouldn't have been able to stay in Rwanda for another year, to see my teams get trounced in Kigali, to shadow doctors, and to continue my real job of installing and maintaining electronic medical records in rural hospitals and clinics. It's given me something to look back on during medical school to remember why I am working so hard, whom I am working for. When I stay up all night studying the immune system, that's for Agnes, the single mom with a CD4 count of three and a beautiful five-year-old HIV-positive son. When I memorize congenital deformities, that's for Jean, who walks twenty miles several times a week to the market on severely deformed legs. The extra year I've been able to spend in Rwanda will make me a better student by giving me motivation to work harder and happier student by giving personal meaning to the esoterica in my medical textbooks.

To all of you reading this who don't get into medical school this year, congratulations. You may have just won a ticket to the best year of your life.

Write back again as an M2 or M3 and let us know if that's still how you feel

On a more serious note, it's great that you have this motivation. You are correct, what keeps us going in med school are our life experiences that drew us to medicine to begin with. The only tricky part now is to be able to convey that in a genuine manner on paper and during the interview (people like to be skeptical of everything, if it sounds to good or ideal, it probably isn't true, type of thing).

Lucky Failure

catullus

Full Member

chiz2kul

t.roll.ed for Banning

justpremed

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Vido

Full Member

Charles_Carmichael

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Siverhideo1985

Full Member

GoSpursGo

SDN Chief Administrator

catullus

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phospho

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dragonfly99

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funkydrmonkey

They Call Me Dr. Funkmonk

catullus

Full Member

ACSurgeon

Acute Care Surgeon

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