Medical School?

There are very few times in my life where I've questioned my desire to become a physician......until I completed this med biochem class. I have an MS in Chemistry with a specialization in Biochemistry completed in 1999, still this class managed to challenge me in ways that seemed waaayyy over the top. So in a med biochem class, I ask myself what is the medical relevance of knowing which carbons of estrogen have OH groups? I dunno why, but questions like these seem like such bullshit and I guess at 40 years old, I'm not in the mood these days for bullshit. The thing is that a question like this makes a lot more sense to me for a graduate class where things like structure become important. But having taken many hours of various types of biochemistry classes at 6 different universities, I have never ever been asked where the freakin OH groups on estrogen or any other steroid are located!!!!

OK, enough of that, I have to admit to having a moment where I said to myself that a PhD will have to be enough for me. Interestingly, I never considered Pharmacology for a doctoral program but I'm so glad I did. My department while having tedious moments like everything else in life, is a perfect fit for me! The academic support, research opportunities, faculty, are all great!

The one good thing I can say about my med biochem experience is that MCAT studying has become a breeze. I probably mentioned that my exams were structured in USMLE style which apparently means learning how to pick the best answer on a multiple choice test where more than one answer is correct and where there are 5 answers to choose from. The MCAT so far isn't administered like that (thankfully, there seems to only be 1 right answer), but I can certainly see that changing having already seen the MCAT change from an exam of discrete questions only to the mainly passage style exam seen today.

With that, I'd better get back to work!