Alright, what's up guys?
So, I'm back from New York, this was an awesome trip.
So I got invited to be a keynote speaker at the Rutgers AMSA Conference, which was pretty
awesome.
So first, shout out to the Rutgers AMSA team, you guys did a fantastic job and it was a
lot of fun coming out and speaking.
So I gave a speech for about like 35 minutes and then we had a Q and A after.
And possibly the highlight of this experience for me at least was meeting so many pre-meds
and Med School Insiders viewers in one spot and being able to talk to them and answer
their questions and just like connect with them.
So that was - that was really cool. I hadn't done something like that before, so thanks
again guys that was great.
Now, most people in medical school and residency don't get to travel that much, and I did - I
did technically travel in residency to Florida for just like present my research at ASPS,
which is the largest plastic surgery conference.
That's really very different, when you go to a conference is very different than like
traveling for fun.
So I was like you know what, I'm going to the East Coast six hours away from California,
let's do some traveling.
And I loved New York City, that's - that's the summary right here.
So the first night I went to VR world, which is this virtual reality arcade essentially
and it was awesome.
Now as someone who is hugely obsessed with cars I mean, like my earliest childhood memories
are somehow related to cars, I was like a kid in a candy store.
And they had this VR game where you know, you sit down, you have the steering wheel,
the pedals, the - the racing seat and you put on the headset and now you're like racing
a - I did a BMW M3 GTR in like a Southern California racetrack, which was super fun.
Uh, I went to a comedy show, I got to hang out with a lot of cool people, shout out to
Jane and Jady, met up with them, Aaron Hayes, she is also a YouTuber who's helping me a
lot with these Save Our Doctors grant.
So, shout out to her she's doing a fantastic job, and I got to just meet a lot of cool
people.
I did also get a chance to do some sightseeing, so I went to the 9/11 memorial, they did a
fantastic job with the memorial.
It's obviously very - it incites a lot of emotions, right and at the same time they're
able to do a lot of effective teaching and effective like, um, history lessons and overall
it was just like so - so well done and I felt that it was really a good use of my time and
my money.
It was - I was spent several hours there.
After that of course, I went to the One World Trade Center and went to the observatory to
get an amazing view of the city which was really quite a treat.
Now one of the - the lessons I learned, one of the things that really hit me on this trip
to New York which - I actually - so I talked about this on my newsletter, I send a newsletter
out every - every week, so if you guys wanna sign up for that, uh, I include little like
insights and things like that.
And the lesson was or the insight was, how working hard in one area and really giving
it your all can open up so many other opportunities in areas you had - you wouldn't even expect,
it's really wild.
It's kind of surreal you know, looking back, it actually really just hit me all while I
was traveling.
I said Look at my life now, I'd not like, one or two years ago I would have had zero
idea that this would be my life and what has happened since.
Obviously, I'm no longer in medical school, I'm no longer in residency but even as a pre-med,
let's start there, as a pre-med I worked very hard.
I ultimately did well in the MCAT, I was a competitive applicant, I got accepted to a
lot of schools.
I had my choice and I didn't really see this coming but because I was such a strong applicant,
I just wanted to get to a good med school.
I was like you know what, I want to be in California somewhere and I didn't realize
at the time that by doing that and by having multiple school acceptances, I could actually
get schools to give me offers such that my out-of-pocket costs from that school is minimal.
So by working hard on one thing I had all these other side benefits.
Not only do I get my choice as to which med school I go to, I know I'm saving hundreds
of thousands of dollars in tuition and living costs which is just absurd, right?
So starting med school I think - you know let me do pediatric gastroenterology and the
big reason I wanted to do that was because of my - my own story with Crohn's disease
and long story short, I didn't do PGI, I ended up going to plastic surgery which is
one of the most competitive specialties, most difficult to get into.
And peds on the other hand is one of the easiest specialties to get into, so you don't need
to be a top student by any means.
But I can't do, I can’t half ass anything, right?
So what I ended up doing was still working really hard in med school, I did well in Step
1, did well in Step 2, did well in my clinical rotations and by the time I changed my mind
that I no longer wanted to do PGI and now I wanna do plastic surgery, I was in a position
that I had that opportunity available, because I applied myself fully and I didn't just take
you know, I didn't just half ass it or take the easy way out because I thought that oh,
this path of PGI is not too bad, so I can just kind of chill and "enjoy med school".
Um, the reason I used the quote is that I still totally loved med school even
though I was working really hard.
So now taking it further, when I first started Med School Insiders, it was literally an iPhone.
Not even this iPhone, it was an iPhone 6 on a 18 dollar Amazon tripod strapped together
with a selfie stick over a table and then I got a 8 by 11 piece of like printer paper
with a black pen and just started writing.
I started talking to the phone, no external mic like literally the production quality
was total garbage.
But over time, I was like you know what, I can't - can't half ass this, I gotta to do
a good job.
So I kept honing my craft and then we went animated and then we had some iteration there
and now the channel is - is like 450,000 subscribers just two years later.
And because of that mindset of constantly improving, the channel took off and more importantly
a lot of opportunities that I never would have anticipated have opened up.
So on this trip for example, the speaking engagement right?
So like people are flying me out to go to other cities and pay me to speak which is
something I never thought I would be doing, especially as someone who used to absolutely
hate public speaking, right?
So and this wasn't even the first invitation, I've gotten multiple other invitations to
speak but I've turned those down for various reasons and now there are these other things
that have opened up as well.
I'm not really at liberty to say what those things are yet, but these other opportunities
have grown out of Med School Insiders.
So, on this trip to New York, it was - it was really reaffirming this idea that it's very
important to fully apply yourself in anything you do because, first of all, you may change
your career trajectory like I did, right?
And you wanna be in the best position possible to open up other opportunities.
So, if you are wanting to go to a medical school, let's say you're pre-med, doing really
well as a pre-med could result in you going to med school for free, which is a solid deal.
That shouldn't be your primary goal because that's still very - very low chance of that
happening, right?
But by working hard at anything you do, you're gonna open up so many opportunities and have
so many benefits down the road.
But I do want to add one caveat which is... don't go overboard, don't try to optimize and perfect
every single aspect of your life.
That is a mistake that I learned the hard way because you still need to have fun so
long as you'll be sustainable, you still need to be at balanced overall in your life.
So when it comes to your professional pursuits in particular, definitely give it your all,
don't compromise, don't half ass things.
But when it comes to other things like, I like cycling or I like you know, weight training
in the gym, I'm not - there were peers where I was more hardcore about those but I have
learned that those are things that I enjoy and if I get too structured and too regimented
and too extreme with them, then I'm gonna lose some of that magic and that like zen
mindfulness that I'd get while I'm doing it.
Alright guys, that is it for this video.
Thank you all so much for watching and I will see you guys in the next one.