It's Their Decision Now

On Wednesday, I returned from my interview at Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon. The interview was Tuesday, the 11th. Afterwards, I caught up with an old counselor buddy of mine, hung out with him and his family, and spent the night at their place. In all, it was a pretty fun but tiring trip.

The Interviews
I arrived on campus at the School of Medicine at about 8:30 a.m. and met the eight other applicants in the interview group. Most were younger men and women who would be graduating in the spring. Some had worked for a couple of years but I was, by far, the oldest person in the room.

The Associate Dean gave us some of his time to allow us to ask questions and to explain the curriculum, the learning approach, the school's mission and so on. Essentially, Mercer's goal is to train physicians who will practice primary care in rural or other under-served areas of Georgia. The curriculum utilizes an approach that gets students used to a clinical approach very early in the school career. Students also begin interacting with patients much earlier than traditional schools.

Next, the Financial Aid lady scared the shit out of us all by telling us how much debt we'd incur. Hell, I'm not really comfortable with the debt I presently have. Put an exponent behind it and I'm even less comfortable. Par for the course, I suppose. According to a recent survey, 41% of recent med school graduates have an educational debt of $100,000 or greater. In some cases, $100K is getting off easy.

First Interview: The Older Male Pathologist
We chatted for a while in his office about my motivations to enter medicine, about running marathons, about the volatility of start-up software companies, and many other things. Generally, I felt things were going well. Honestly, it was less of an interview and more of a pleasant conversation with someone you've just met. I felt especially good when, in response to something I said, he stopped me, went to his desk, and returned with an unused ashtray that was a picture of Elvis and Nixon shaking hands. Paydirt, I thought.

This image could be the key to my admittance into med school.

Lunch Interview: 4th Year Med Students
I left campus and headed over to the hospital to meet some 4th year students for a tour and lunch. Although not publicized, these students are evaluating you based on their interaction with you. Seems like the younger kids didn't get this memo. You know, it was a lighter version of the tragic story where someone thinks an interview is over just because you're having lunch or drinks with the interviewer and cuts loose into some inappropriate stuff. Nothing that bad happened but I thought some of them seemed to act a little bit too loose.

Anyway, I had a nice time talking with all of the students and finding out more about their experiences and such. We talked about where they were doing their away rotations and where they were thinking of applying for residencies. Thanks to my dating history, I managed to find something in common with each of them. One guy was from Douglas, GA, home of a famous ex-girlfriend of mine. Another guy was from near Nashville, GA, home of an ex-girlfriend with whom I attended her senior prom in 1989 when I was a sophomore. Another guy was from Albany, GA and knew the father of a girl that I briefly dated in college. The Albany guy may be my undoing if he mentions my name to the girl's dad. I can't accurately describe how quickly I backpedaled from knowing her really well to simply being an acquaintance. Without going into too much detail, let's just say that my friend Jeff and I wrecked a perfectly civilized debutante society ball with our drunken antics. More on it here.

Second Interview: The Younger Female Pediatrician
After lunch, I met with another faculty member, a pediatrician. We talked for about an hour about a wide variety of things. She'd really done her homework with my application. Aside from me confusing the dates when I graduated college, everything went really smoothly. She finished the conversation with a description of how the selection process works and offered me some friendly advice of what to do in the event that I don't get accepted this year. She made sure to reiterate that she wasn't suggesting that I would be rejected but just wanted to address the possibility. She finished by confiding to me that she thought my application was great, that I'd made a great addition to the student body, and that she'd strongly recommend me to the committee. So, we'll see how it goes.

The Inner Workings
So, here's what happens now. Periodically, the 10 members of the admissions committee meets to discuss the applicants and rule on them. They meet either weekly or bi-weekly, I can't recall. Anywho, during the meetings the committee reviews the candidate's applications and considers evaluations of the candidates written by the interviewers. Then, the committee members work together to assign a score to each candidate. Candidates with the highest scores, I suppose, are offered admittance. Lower score candidates roll into a pool and are reconsidered at the next meeting. At any given meeting, however, the committee may decide to admit several candidates or none; they're not bound to any quota. So, this process continues until all seats for the incoming class have been filled. Typically, a class has 60 seats. This year, however, Mercer will fill a class of 110 to account for 50 seats that will matriculate at a new 4-year campus in Savannah. So, my odds are more favorable this year.

Good Just to Interview
It turns out that among all of the applicants, only about 800 were asked to completed secondary applications. Out of those 800, only about 200 were interviewed. So, I suppose that I should feel pretty good about making it this far.

Wish me luck.


The Albany Incident -- The Backstory
During my senior year of college, I briefly dated a Jewish woman from one of my Spanish classes. Apparently, her sister was joining a debutante society and was honored at the debutante society ball. I'm not sure, but she could've been one of the first Jewish members. In retrospect, it was very much a big deal. Turns out that one of my 4-H counselor friends, Jeff, was a close friend of this girl's family. He was in town for the weekend and would be going with us to the ball.

Mistake #1: Jeff meets me at her house. When he walks up, we notice that we are wearing identical suits. We have different ties but our suits are absolutely stinking identical. We find this hilarious.

Mistake #2: My date has to go take family photos with her parents and sister and the location of the ball. She suggests that Jeff and I hang out for a few hours until they're done. She drops us off at a bar. We proceed to drink several beers and multiple shots of Jagermeister. By the time they get us, we're pretty well hammered. We proceed to the ball to mingle with the upper crust of Albany society.

Mistake #3: After we drank a few bottles of champagne at the ball, my date suggests that we all get some food from the buffet. Jeff and I decide that using plates is a little too pedestrian. We take food with our hands and eat it on the spot while in line. At one point, my date recalls some of the gross-out antics that Jeff and I described from our tenure as camp counselors. She dares us to repeat them right then and there. Although the kids at camp loved to see us eat food out of each others' mouths, the stuffy folks at the debutante ball are not amused. Really, think of a mama bird feeding a chick. Now, imagine two drunken adult males in matching suits reenacting this type of feeding in civilized society. Fifteen minutes later, as we're claiming our coats, the coat-check girls ask Jeff how long he'd been gay after witnessing our antics.

We're not. Why do you ask?

The next morning, no shit, my date's family wouldn't even acknowledge me. Seriously, they didn't even speak to me. To this day, I don't even drive near Albany. Back.