why am i still on here at 2 in the morning, i have no idea. but there are plenty of reasons why it's great to have threads like these.
1. it allows for sharing of experiences that are common in the asian/black/gay/martian pre-med community, which is extremely therapeutic in times of high stress, such as the med school application process, or even being a med student.
2. in situations of discrimination (yes, it still happens) there is an opportunity for advice to be given in these scenarios, the most helpful maybe from people who have encountered them before, personally. (black student encounters older racist doctors, gay student having to deal with bigotry and harassment in the work place.)
3. it help students who feel like there are very few people who are like them in their immediate environment (i know one lesbian and one other gay boy in my med school class) to reach out to people they are similar to across the nation.
i know it's easy for you to say that we should all be "pre-meds" without any of the other factors, becasue that would be drawing a line that divides people and we've all learned since preschool that dividing people is bad. but if you just ignore the differences that people have, you also ignore certain problems in society by just deluding yourself that the differences don't exist (i really hope my classmates aren't reading this...) as a gay/non-white/female med student, i will be dealing with issues that my heterosexual/white/male counterparts won't have. the fact that no one talks about the differences won't make my problems go away. in fact, talking about it in a realm of openness and professionalism might make things better (not that SDN is exactly the center for either of those ideals, but one can hope 🙂 ).
my point is, having an appreciation for similar cultural features and bonding over them is different from "self-segregation". i'm not saying, hey this is something that makes me different from these people so i will detach myself from them, but rather hey, this is something i have in common with these people so we should get to know each other.
anyway, just some things for the masses to think about.
happy post-thanksgiving and black friday! (don't get trampled while shopping!!)