You know you're a non-trad when...

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sindadel

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You see a thread titled "Good looking sling to go along with an interview suit" (http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=579978) and start thinking things like:

1. A nice black silk Mei Tai would look sharp and
2. Can't you find someone to look after your baby for a few hours?

lol
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You know you're a non-trad when: your husband is going nuts trying to fill out financial aid forms for you and your 2 kids who are juniors in college.:eek:
 
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Wow! you guys make me so proud and realize that I am so spoiled!
 
...a little part of you dies when everyone at your interview introduces themself and a student who's been out of school for 2 years announces, "I've been out of school for a bit and I feel SOOOOOOO old."

Ugh.
 
... When you earn enough money to comfortably support yourself without having to ask your parents or relatives for money.
 
...When you show up at your old high school for an alumni reception and get mistaken for the parent of a current student.

(This actually happened to me a month ago.)
 
When you go to a medical school "open house" and are asked about which university your daughter/son is attending and what they are studying.

[Actually, I dislike the phrase "non-traditional" -- when will medical schools and aspiring medical students realize that we are all just premed students, no matter what is our background, age, ethnicity, etc.? The fact that we are typically older _should_ make no difference, but unfortunately, it still does.]
 
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student1799 said:
...When you show up at your old high school for an alumni reception and get mistaken for the parent of a current student.

(This actually happened to me a month ago.)
Click to expand...


From my brief experience in the US, I've come to conclusion that you should never go back to a high school reunion unless you can borrow your friend's Ferrari and have an attractive friend of the opposite sex pose as your spouse... that should be the customary American way - kind of like dressing up for Halloween - except Halloween is your high school reunion.
 
You know you're a non-trad when you get parenting advice from your interviewers.

Has happened in at least 4 of my interviews.
 
...you learned how to type on an actual manual typewriter, your first computer was a Commodore 64 (or Apple IIe), you first browsed the Internet in college on Lynx via Unix and know how to use Telnet/FTP, remember when Jimmy Carter was president, wore old school bell-bottom jeans back in the day (the same time you had a "bowl" haircut, just like Sonny, a la Sonny & Cher, I'm embarrassed to say), know who the Bee Gees (and/or Kiss) are, remember the first few videos ever on MTV (watched, of course, on a tube TV with actual channel dials), played Pong on the original Atari system and thought it was a pretty neat game, and first took the MCAT in 1994 (well before most of your medical school peers were even teenagers).

You know you are a non-trad when most of your peers have been married for a while now, have children in late childhood, or hitting adolescence, been working for 15 years or more, and have nice houses out in the 'burbs, when you are still essentially penniless and jobless, working your tail off trying to pass your next medical school exam. Yeah.
 
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You know you are a non-trad if you've had one or more actual careers before pursing medicine, not just working in that retail store, or movie theater over the summer between college semesters, or that brief stint in an academic internship, etc.
 
You know you are a non-trad when you realize that some of your medical school professors are actually about the same age as you are and you start chatting/joking around with them as if they were your peers.
 
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You know you're a nontrad when you're 14 years older than your orgo professor, and you give HIM some career advice. :)
 
you know you're a nontrad when no interviewer shows even the slightest bit of interest in your undergrad years.

In 7 interviews I have yet to field a single question about my undergrad experience (and choppy performance).
 
student1799 said:
You know you're a nontrad when you're 14 years older than your orgo professor, and you give HIM some career advice. :)
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That's pretty cool. Hope he gives you a good recommendation letter!
 
When the other interviewing students were pre-pubescent when you graduated college.
 
When you are capable of studying OChem while soothing your youngest and keeping the older two from killing each other...

When you stay up until 4 am Saturday.... studying.
(Oh how the mighty have fallen...):laugh:
 
I remember doing ochem study problems while nursing a baby back to sleep...
 
..when your professor makes an 80's reference and you are the only one who knows what they are talking about.

..when you realize that you were in grade school when your classmates were born
 
Sorry about that last post, I don't know how to work the quote function. I guess when you learned how to type on a manual typewriter, everything else on a computer still seems like **MAGIC**!!
 
this just happened the other day. my attending referred to hanging out at the regal beagle and none of the residents know what it was.... sigh.
 
you know you're a non-trad when......... your study group of 2 months (who thought they knew you) takes a collective gasp when you tell them how old you are... and back away.:confused:
 
Setting: Thanksgiving Day. Afternoon. Time for TV.

Me: Hey, who is that in the robe?
My Son: That's Qui-Gong Jinn.
Me: Who is the kid standing next to him, Luke Skywalker?
My Son: (scoffs) DAD, that's Anakin Skywalker. This is Episode ONE. :cool:
Me: Oh. :confused:

Only topped by another moment from earlier in the day. Watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade...

Me: Hey look, it's a Smurf! :thumbup:
My Son: What's a Smurf? :thumbdown:


:D
 
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you are asked by your interviewer if you are going to allow your son get a hardship license.
 
So, there I was. In the back of a line of Med Students, getting IDs for Shadowing/Observing today. The students get addressed as, "Please smile for the camera, Ms. M. Thank you, Mr. P." To me: "Please smile for the camera Doctor."
 
your professor talks about when HIV/AIDS first hit the news and how we knew nothing about it and people were dying left and right, and you remember everything he just said.

When you tell your classmates that you actually had to use a card catalogue and go to the reference section to find information because there was no such thing as wikipedia, they have no idea how to use a card catalogue.
 
You know you're a non-trad when you are the only grad assistant in your department going on to do a PhD (instead of taking a year off before applying to med school) because at least that way you will have guaranteed health insurance :D !!
 
You know you're a nontraditional when...your fellow classmates receive their first W2 when they get to their residency, while you have lost count of how many different W2's you've collected over the years.
 
Signal9 said:
You know you're a nontraditional when...your fellow classmates receive their first W2 when they get to their residency, while you have lost count of how many different W2's you've collected over the years.
Click to expand...

Wow, that's a scary thought.
 
OH!! I just thought of this... You know you're a non-trad when one of YOUR students is in medical school. LOL... life is funny:laugh: (yeah, true story)
 
you know you are a non-trad when all you want to do when you get home from school is to veg in front of the TV and not go bar hoping because it is not new anymore.

A hot saturday night is dinner at 6, movie at 8, bed at 12.

you can't make it to a study group because of parent/teacher conferences.

you have more in common with your classmates' parents.

you are worried about the market crashing because you know that your 401K is in the toilet and you are not making any new money (yet)

you are watching the traffic report and are laughing because you USED to be in the same jam, day after day after day. And now.... you're not.
 
You know you are a non-trad when: In an interview you talk about rediscovering "Murder She Wrote" and the student interviewer looks at you with a quizzical brow. Of course the title of this could have easily been "You know when you are a loser when: You talk about renting Murder She Wrote from the library."
 
KidXFiz said:
OH!! I just thought of this... You know you're a non-trad when one of YOUR students is in medical school. LOL... life is funny:laugh: (yeah, true story)
Click to expand...


Yep, I wrote LORs for students the same year I was collecting them myself. I almost ended up in the same class with one of my students.


Had to laugh today because the professor commented about how he graduated from med school in 1981......"way back before any of us students were even born" . I wish!
 
You know you're a non-trad when:

you discover that the grandmother of one of your classmates is a year younger than you!

you've been married longer than most of your classmates have been alive.

your classmates' seminal moment is 9-11, while yours is the day Kennedy was assassinated.

you can remember the British Invasion (when the Beatles first came to the US).

you help the physics professor explain to a classmate the concept of "turntable" and "record".

you remember when a computer took up an entire room, PC's hadn't even been conceived, and your job required the use of IBM punch cards.

you realize that your grandmother moved from Georgia to Texas when she was a child in a covered wagon and your grandfather was born just a few years after the Civil War.
 
nontradfogie said:
you know you're a nontrad when no interviewer shows even the slightest bit of interest in your undergrad years.

In 7 interviews I have yet to field a single question about my undergrad experience (and choppy performance).
Click to expand...

LOL-- so true. Just went on clinical psych internship interview where the interviewer was far too busy asking about my reasons for switching careers from law to even bother with where I went undergrad.:D
 
Haha, how do you all feel when you're being interviewed for med school by someone much much younger than you? At my school, the M3/M4s get to interview applicants, and most of us are 24-28 years old.
 
TheProwler said:
Haha, how do you all feel when you're being interviewed for med school by someone much much younger than you? At my school, the M3/M4s get to interview applicants, and most of us are 24-28 years old.
Click to expand...

Haven't had a problem. I've been very impressed with my student interviewers and often envy how accomplished they are compared to what I was doing at there age.

One of my faculty interviewers was younger than me as well. She was a 33 yr old urologist. It was very collegial and laid-back.
 
Setting: OR
Procedure: Discogram (not a fun procedure for the patient, it's diagnostic and painful)
Attendees: MD (Anes), CRNA, Nurses, X-ray Tech, Me - the observer.

In this procedure, the Anesthesiologist is actually on the "other" side of the curtain, doing the procedure on the patient. While a 2nd MD/CRNA controls sedation.

FADE IN:

INT. OPERATING ROOM - DAY - PROCEDURE BEGINS

Anesthesiologist: So, Dr. 712, thank you for coming down from Harvard Medical to visit us. Everyone, this is Dr. 712, a Visiting Professor from Harvard.
Nurse: You're from Harvard?!
Me: Sure. :eek:
Anesthesiologist: Do you prefer Professor or Doctor?
Me: Professor. (WHY DID I SAY THAT?!?!?!?)

DISSOLVE TO: SOON AFTER

Anesthesiologist: So, do you do this procedure the same way up in Harvard?
Me: Well, not exactly. But do you want me to go into the subtle differences Doctor, while you're in the midst of your procedure?
Anesthesiologist: Not necessary. So, do you use contrast for this next part?
Me: Yes, Doctor. (?????!!!!)
Anesthesiologist: 1% such and such.
Me: :eek: Yes. (Faux Arrogant) I was actually the first to do this procedure, did you know that?
Anesthesiologist: I didn't. I didn't.
Nurse: (whispers) Is it true?
Me: The Harvard part of the "other" part?
Nurse: The other part. Forget Harvard!
Me: Yes, I did write for "that famous" TV show...
Nurse: I thought so. We've all been talking about you. :laugh:
Anesthesiologist: Well, we're done here. How'd you think that went?
Me: I couldn't have done it better myself.
Anesthesiologist: Please come back again.

FADE OUT.

True Story. Tee hee. I'm convinced this doesn't happen to 22 y/o students who couldn't possibly look like Visiting Professors from Harvard. I'm tellin' ya, it's all in the salt and pepper. :cool:
 
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In a psych class we talked about a situation a few years back where a few kids committed/attempted suicide after listening to Judas Priest.

And no one but the instructor and I had ever heard of Judas Priest.
 
You know you are a non-trad when you and your child are both M1's!....

you have more gray hair than color.....

you need a walker to get to class.....

you start a conversation by saying, "back in my day".....and

you forget the rest of the examples you were going to say....:D
 
When I first went back to school, I took a my freshman level pre-req's at a CC. The CC I went to had a fairly large number of high school juniors because of the acclerated program they between the CC and the local HS's. Anyways, I remember this one time I made a reference to the old floppy disks and this one girl asks, "What? You mean those little square things? I've seen them once or twice but never actually used one before." She was referring to the 3.5" disks, where I was referring to the original floppy disks! Man I felt old at that moment.
 
wepio said:
When I first went back to school, I took a my freshman level pre-req's at a CC. The CC I went to had a fairly large number of high school juniors because of the acclerated program they between the CC and the local HS's. Anyways, I remember this one time I made a reference to the old floppy disks and this one girl asks, "What? You mean those little square things? I've seen them once or twice but never actually used one before." She was referring to the 3.5" disks, where I was referring to the original floppy disks! Man I felt old at that moment.
Click to expand...

:laugh: :thumbup: I still use 3.5" from time to time . . .
 
Signal9 said:
You know you're a nontraditional when...your fellow classmates receive their first W2 when they get to their residency, while you have lost count of how many different W2's you've collected over the years.
Click to expand...
Ugh please tell me that's not true for most people in med school. I'm only 24 but have had a handful of jobs over the years, are there really people who have never been employed at this point? Amazing.
 
In my A&P class, when I told the other two people at my lab bench I'm 28, both of their jaws dropped. I guess that's a good thing, but then they asked when I graduated from high school and I said 1998, what were you doing in 1998? The senior said she was in middle school, the sophomore said she was in elementary school. Niiiiice.

My easy way of figuring out how old people are is usually asking what song played at their senior prom.
 
......when you are contemplating asking a prof from uni where you got your undergrad a gazillion years earlier to write a LOR and realize of your two best options - one is retired and one is dead!
 
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