What's going on guys!
In this video, I want to talk to you about my path to medical school, everything from
- starting from high school to med school and everything in between.
The overarching theme and principle of this video that I want you to take home, the take
home message is that if you want - if you want to go to med school, if you want to succeed
as a pre-med in college and in med school, if you want it, you can make it happen.
You don't have to be super smart, you don't have to be a genius.
I'm by no means a genius or super smart.
When I posted that MCAT video, I know because I did well on the MCAT, some people came up
to me and said "wow yo, you must be -" they assumed that I was - my intelligence was off
the scale, off the charts and it is absolutely not.
That could not be further from the truth.
I'm really just a regular guy.
If anything, my ability to memorize, you know, I know my strengths and weaknesses and I think
my ability to memorize is subpar.
I've been putting a lot of time and effort into memorizing things whereas a lot of my
friends will pick it up much quicker.
Anyone can do this!
I don't think it takes any special intelligence or anything intrinsically abnormal or super
unique to do this.
I think if you want it bad enough, if you're motivated, if you set aside the time and the
energy and the effort to do it, then yeah, you're gonna be successful, nothing's gonna
stop you.
But if it's not your priority, for a lot people it's not, you gotta be honest with yourself.
For a lot of people, they want to do medicine when they're in high school or early college
and then they give up "it's too hard, it's too much work for me.
I don't wanna be going to school forever.
I don't want to be in residency.
I want to be making money.
I want to make money now!" and that's not why you should go into medicine.
So really evaluate for yourself if it's what you want and if it is what you want, then
by all means, you can do it, you can make it happen.
And I'm gonna tell you how I made it happen.
So, starting up in high school, I was - I worked relatively hard by high school standards
and I got straight A's but I wasn't a overachiever like many of my friends; I didn't do research
on the side, I didn't have - I didn't participate in sports, I really just did schoolwork and
then tried to have fun.
Did a little bit of tutoring but nothing too crazy.
So, I got into a relatively good college and so at university, I again, I was doing relatively
well, I was getting like a three six, three seven at the very beginning and then some
major life events happened, and I don't want to get into too crazy personal details but
it was a really tough time for me and for my family as well.
And still to this day, one of the hardest times that I had to endure but I really believe
that challenges and obstacles that come in your way are just opportunities for growth,
especially when you're young; you're gonna learn so much about yourself and how the world
works and you're gonna determine the kind of person that you want to be.
So, I'm thankful for that, I'm thankful for whatever hardships I had to go through.
I know everyone has their own hardships and whatever it may be, I think it's key to look
at it as an opportunity for growth.
Not to play the victim card, not to ask "why is this happening to me, to my family?
What did I do to deserve this?" because you'll never get anywhere happy or anywhere productive,
you will just end up spiraling down into a depression if you go down that road.
But if you look at it and say "hey, I want to make this - I wanna make this positive.
I want to take that ugly stuff and make something beautiful out of it", then by all means, what's
holding you back?
I didn't say it was gonna be easy, but if you want it, go get it.
So, at that moment after that hardship, I just went all out.
Like balls, I wasn't even sure I wanted to do medicine at this point.
I was just interested in computer science because I had a knack for it during my AP
computer science classes in high school and I love technology.
I mean, some of that still bleeds over.
I mean, I don't know if you guys have visited the Med School Insiders website, but I taught
myself how to make a website because I find it cool, I find it interesting, I find it
fun.
I like working with computers, I like tinkering and making things.
I think software was a very powerful tool.
I mean, I'm not a programmer by any means.
Web design and programming are two totally different things.
But anyways, I digress.
So, everyone has challenges; I had my challenges and you have your own.
Every single one of you will have a unique challenge that you have faced or are facing
or will face in the future and I urge you to face that head-on, don't run away from
it, face it head-on and determine what kind of person you want to be.
After whatever hardship I went through, that ignited this fire that I was going to med
school.
I took it as a sign.
I'm not religious and I don't believe in fate but if anything, I think that fate is a human
construct that we create to add meaning to our lives in times of difficulty, and I think
there's nothing wrong with that.
I knew that in the moment and I know that now but I gave myself that meaning.
It wasn't faith, it was a meaning that I created, that I assigned myself that I'm doing medicine,
that's my purpose in life and I'm gonna be a damn good doctor.
I was studying, you know, a lot of people have fun in college.
Don't get me wrong, I still had fun and extracurriculars but my priority far above everything else
was 'I'm going to med school and I would study hard'.
You know, everyone tells you "don't just wait until the midterm or exam and procrastinate
and then cram if you want to do well."
that's totally true, so one thing I had to always doing my whole life, I was a procrastinator
in high school and early college, but now I started studying every single day.
I'd come home, review those lectures and I wasn't studying very efficiently by any means.
If you guys watch the very first video I made, it goes into what I wish I knew back in undergrad
because I would have been so much more efficient.
But I worked hard, I put in the time and I got straight A's.
From that moment on, I did not get anything lower than an A in college.
So yeah, when my friends were going out Friday, actually you know, it was college so, Thursday,
Friday and Saturday.
I said "you know what, I'm good I'm gonna pass.
I need to wake up early tomorrow, I got a lot of things to do.
I gotta make things happen".
And I don't regret that one bit because I'm here today and it taught me a lot about discipline,
about going after what you want, prioritizing what's important to you and managing your
time.
You know, a lot of people are premed early on, but a lot of people fall off and I think
the main reason is because it's tough and their desire to do medicine is less than their
desire to do other things.
Whether that means they're not - they don't want to put in the long time or they don't
want to study as hard, they won't have more fun in college.
Whatever it may be, if you want it bad enough, you'll make it happen.
So I urge you to determine the same.
If you do want to do medicine and if you do want to go to medical school and become a
doctor one day, ask yourself "do you really want it?
Do you want it bad?" because you know, you're gonna have friends who're doing business or
engineering and they're gonna be making you know, 80, 90, 100K straight out of college
at some jobs.
And if money is what's motivating you, you're not gonna be happy in medicine, because it's
a long long road until you actually start getting paid anything decent.
If you do it for the money, you won't be happy.
So, figure out what's the reason you want to do medicine.
If you want it bad enough like I did, you'll make it happen, no doubt in my mind.
And when I was applying to med school, I had my choice; I had multiple acceptances, I got
some scholarship and you can do the same, trust me, you can't do the same if you want
it bad enough.
That was my experience in college.
Now, even going into med school, it wasn't all you know roses and rainbows and happy
smiles.
I was struggling at the beginning.
At the beginning of medical school, it was a wake-up call in that coming out of undergrad,
I was cocky.
I thought you know, "I'm so good, I'm getting straight A's, setting curves, I did well on
the MCAT.
Med school will be the same thing, I just need to work a little bit harder, it's a little
bit more information" but you know what, I already have this studying thing down.
But oh my god, was I wrong!
Because again, I would study inefficiently.
I just read my lecture slides, I wasn't studying well, I wasn't managing my time efficiently.
And I remember there was so many Friday nights at the beginning, me my friends still love
that until this day because we spent so many Friday nights at the Medical School studying
because we were just - we weren't being efficient and we didn't really know what we were doing.
But now in hindsight, that was not necessarily one bit.
Once you know how to study, once you know your strengths, your weaknesses and you learn
what works best for you, then you should be able to have a balanced life.
As great as it sounds that "oh I want to work hard, I don't need to take breaks.
It means so much to me."
it's not sustainable, you have to take breaks.
Your mind just does not work that way.
As bad as I wanted it, I was not able to sustain, I needed to take breaks as well and you see
if that what works for you.
So, once you start getting the hang of things, once you start learning how to study and different
studies strategies, how to manage time better - yeah, we were able to enjoy our weekends
and relax because you can't maintain constant studying non-stop, constant productivity.
You will burn out!
You know, if this is not - this is not working for me, I need to figure it out.
This was a challenge and again, any challenge that presents itself is not a moment for you
to feel sorry, it's a moment for you to redefine yourself and use it as an opportunity for
growth.
So, I started looking up how to study, how to study better and once I started implementing
these principles, I mean, it took a lot of discipline too.
I remember at the very beginning doing flashcards, doing Anki cards every day which is so difficult.
I missed so many days at the beginning.
But eventually, once you realize that starting is the hardest part but doing it is actually
easy, it's just the starting that's hard, the rest just crumbled away.
I mean, after that it was just - it was just so much easier and med school became so much
more digestible by just learning how to study, learning about myself, what works for me and
my study style and I recommend you do the same.
So you know, I struggled a little bit in college and I struggled a little bit at the beginning
of med school but I think those opportunities for growth were paramount in me ultimately
being successful.
Again, I put a lot of those study strategies that I learned in that very first video of
mine, so check that out and after that, things were just so much easier.
So again, the main purpose of this story is that I'm trying to tell you guys, if you want
it, you can do it.
You don't have to be a genius, you don't have to be a bunk and do nothing but study.
You can have fun, you can study and be productive, it's all possible.
You just need to want it bad enough and you need to try to work towards it and always
improve yourself.
All right guys, that's the end of this video.
If you liked it, make sure you press the Like button, hit subscribe if you haven't already,
leave a comment below and I will see you guys in that next video!