My Final Admissions Interview

After returning from the slopes and spending two nights in my own bed, I headed out to the San Francisco area for my final med school admissions interview. This school is in the Vallejo area on a decommissioned naval shipyard. I chose it because the Bay area might be a little easier for Winning Run and me to maintain some sense of normalcy during school. (This is, of course, in contrast to being separated by at least a two-hour drive.)

After a lengthy delay, I finally arrived at SFO, grabbed my rental car, drove up to Vallejo, checked into the hotel, and passed out for the evening.

On the Bay Bridge heading toward Oakland.

The interview day was pretty routine, except for the fact that the interview was conducted by a panel of people in front of other applicants. Supposedly, this is to put you under stress to see if you can maintain your poise in front of your peers like you'd need to do on rounds at the hospital. Sounds like bullshit to me but, if that's the way they do it, so be it. It wasn't really all that bad. I mean, hell, I've had much tougher interactions in any job I've had or on any consulting gig on which I've worked.

When I heard the question "What do you think is harder: doing stand-up comedy or being a physician?" I nearly fell out of my chair. Are you freaking kidding me? The best thing you can come up with from my file is the stand-up comedy that I did in college nearly fifteen years ago? Nothing about fundraising thousands of dollars for cancer and brain tumor research? Nothing about caring for my dying grandfather in the hospital while my dad, who'd just been diagnosed with cancer, was recovering from surgery two floors below? Nothing about completing six marathons? Nothing about the inspiration drawn from my mother, the former emergency room nurse? Nothing about any of the other, more pertinent info in my file? I answered the questions but just couldn't believe that they'd focus almost exclusively on the stand-up thing.

To make matters worse, the person interviewing me vaguely reminded me of Professor Trelawney, Emma Thompson's character in the Harry Potter movies. The resemblance was uncanny enough that I had to really focus on concentrating on what she was saying.

"...neither can live while the other survives..."

Oh yeah, during the campus tour, we stopped into the cadaver lab and the student giving the tour actually showed us her cadaver. So, I got a free lunch and saw someone reach into the chest cavity of a human body and pull out the lungs and the heart. Sweet.

After the interview, I drove down to Santa Clara to visit with my buddy, Deep, and to catch up with C-Dub and his family in nearby Menlo Park. We ended up having dinner and a few beers at the Dutch Goose. A word to wise: avoid the spicy deviled eggs at the Goose; nothing good will come of them.

That night, I crashed at Deep's place. The next morning, I walked with him over to his office at Santa Clara University's Law School and hung out until he had to teach. After I strolled through campus, back to his place, grabbed the car and headed to the airport. One reason that I like California: fruit trees. At Deep's front door, there is this awesome lemon tree. In his back yard, an enormous avocado tree drops fruit all over. Just awesome.

Free lemons at the front door.

Tons of lemons on this tree.

Yep, another lemon.

So, I should know something next week about the school's decision. Personally, I still think that I'll be headed to WA because that school seems a better fit for me but having to choose between the two would certainly make things interesting. More news as I know it.