In Between Two Worlds

The engineering major is thought by most to be a rigorous, nerdy, and with few options for deviation; something that I learned to be true. In my mechanical engineering department I quickly learned that the advisers didn't know a single thing about pre-med, they didn't even know who the school's pre-med advisor was. This being with the fact that the son of the department head is pre-med. Normally engineers don't do minors/second majors simply because the course load is large. Then there is the fact that engineering students hate science, as indicated by their hatred of general chemistry and physics. Because of these things our department simply never had experience with students who were interested in medicine.

I was in uncharted territory, a mechanical engineer doing pre-med. The main task and a big worry was to determine how much time would be required to fit pre-med classes into my schedule. After all was said and done, and a couple of months of playing with the schedule, I determined that I would need an extra two semesters on top of my degree. This brings me to an important point, it is not possible to be a pre-med engineer and do everything in 4 years. The amount of courses doesn't fit into that schedule, and when you add volunteer/lab work then it becomes impossible for even the most hard working. So for a while I was stressing out about going for an extra year, as if that would hurt my chances of admission. Eventually I figured out that this was not a problem, and the main thing is for a student to be ready.

Any engineering degree covers chemistry and physics, but biology and organic chemistry are left out. I ended up taking biology and organic chemistry my junior year, along with 6 labs and 3 engineering courses. Yes, I had 6 courses fall semester and 7 courses spring semester. This schedule was in my opinion very difficult, simply because of the number of labs and classes I had limited time to study. But I pulled through, and got As in both Ochem's, so you see it can be done.

Over the last couple of years I have come to feel as the anomaly of our department. I didn't really want to be an engineer, but I wasn't doing science either. I had to constantly deal with the problem of not having fellow engineers who were going through the same problems as I was. I also found myself to feel uncomfortable revealing that I am doing pre-med, being afraid of the ridicule of the engineering nerds. I can vividly remember the questioning looks I got in my mechanical design class when I would come in carrying my ochem book.

Volunteering

Getting the volunteer position wasn't hard at all. After I got my scrub card and TB test, I went to search for the OR. In our hospital the OR takes up almost all of the second floor, it has 36 rooms along with ICUs , pharmacy, etc. The hospital has the layout of a large X, making navigation difficult. As I entered the second floor, a strong smell that most associate with the hospital hit me, and I have to say that I liked it. I went to the large scrub machine and chose large bottom, large top out of fifteen different variations. Then I went to the changing room and quickly learned that a large is more like a XXL. Because the scrubs are unisex, you might have some 300lb woman wear a brand new pair of L size scrubs, that become XXL after she takes them off. My volunteering assignment was in the anesthesia work room; a place where anesthesia support staff work and supply all the rooms with needed equipment. In the first few weeks I quickly learned that for every surgeon there are at least three support people, making the OR a busy place. My assignment was to make packets of forms, and connect IV tubes to IV bags. Volunteering in the OR is the best kept secret in the pre-med crowd, because students are allowed to be in the operating rooms. It is perhaps the closest that you will come to seeing real doctors do real medicine; I have had more than a few cases of blood splash on my scrubs during some amputations. The other positions are mainly paper work.

The first week I mainly did manual labor, but on the second week I saw my first surgery. I kept a journal of my experiences and here is my entry from that day:

Procedure: (1) Gastric bypass laparoscopic
Notes: This is my first surgery ever. I was really nervous before coming in. When I entered I saw a large man lying on the table asleep. His stomach was covered with iodine. And I thought that’s it, they are going to cut him open, and I will faint. But nothing like this happened. The surgeons came in, made some incisions in his stomach and then inserted long tools. IT turns out that these types of operations are done with little invasiveness. When the lights were off, the cord from the light going into the stomach looked super cool. The nurse anesthesiologist was awesome, and we talked a lot. I got to sit right next to the patient.

Was I nervous during the first time? Of course I was, the anesthesia tech that took me into the room sensing that I was a little pale, told me to sit down on the floor if I felt sick. Everything in there was unfamiliar; new smells, surgical tools, racks with gowns and sutures...all new and exciting.

The experience of volunteering that first month can be compared to the first roller coaster ride, lots of anticipation followed by a spike in the heart rate. In the four week period I observed a heart beating in the chest during valve surgery; a double-lung transplant performed by a famous transplant surgeon; and a grizzly tumor that destroyed half of a man's face. Pretty big stuff for a 19 year old kid.

The Story Of It All

...the first post on a blog that I hope will bring interesting information to all those undergraduate engineering students who ponder the possibility of doing medicine.

I had just finished my freshman year in the school of engineering, a year that was mostly a catch-up on science courses. I was glad to be free for the summer, and took up my regular summer job that I was doing since beginning of high school. One warm weekend in June, I was with my old high school buddies. We were lazily drinking coffee and talking about the year that had gone by. Conversation shifted from parties, to annoying courses, and eventually again to parties. My friend Alex mentioned his experience volunteering at a local hospital's OR. His story about watching some guy with blood gushing out of his neck was quite interesting. At that time, the hospital world was a big mystery to me, making any first-hand account of that place very interesting.

As the summer progressed I kept with my job and enjoyed the free days. At my place of work there was an old Jewish man who had come to this country following WWII. He and I would often talk about the war; well mostly me listening. Along with his stories there would be suggestions as to what I should do with my life. He had a daughter who married a doctor, and to the Jewish family this is the biggest joy in the world. I have heard this story close to a dozen times and at the end he would tell me that in America the best careers are doctors and the crooked lawyers.

By August I kept rolling the thought of medical field in my mind, and finally decided to volunteer at the local hospital. Looking back, I decided to do this mainly because of my friend Alex. I didn't want him to be the only one with that experience and felt some inferiority because of it. But after I started my volunteer position, things took a different turn; I stumbled onto something big.