Mujeres in Medicine
The road to a career in medicine in not always a straight-forward path. Check out these tips for navigating through each stage in life to make things easier along the way!
High School
This is where your success can start. A few tips and things that I did...
1. This is where you can start showing yourself as a well-rounded student. Of course, everyone says do well in your classes, take AP or advanced placement courses and take classes that can prepare you for college. But besides that, do what you can do to make you stand out! Be an athlete, join the dance team or student council. All these things will not only make you well-rounded, but being a part of these groups will teach you things about yourself and life.
2. If you can volunteer at a hospital do it! It's easy. Go to your local hospital, fill out a volunteer application and be available. This will get you exposed to the medical field without anything to lose!
3. See if you can shadow a physician, nurse, PA or a professional in the field you are considering. My mom worked in the volunteer department at a hospital and she knew an OB/GYN that allowed me to join him in his clinic and even go to deliveries! This, of course, was luck, but nowadays we have amazing organizations such as @mimentor which if you don't know they are an organization that mentors future healthcare leaders! Check them on Instagram or www.mimentor.org!
College/Pre-med
Now, this is where it gets real! It is easy to go sideways during these years in life. Success here was partly smarts, but definitely luck. While I was changing my major from pre-nursing to pre-med, a lot of my other friends were changing from pre-med to other majors like business, engineering, etc. This was a scary time because I didn't know if this was ultimately going to be the right move for me. But my tia said, "you can do it mija" and I did!
1. Try to somehow meet upper-class students or students that have taken the classes you will take in the future. I was in the position to meet these students because of a scholarship I got from my university and so as I continued to keep in touch with them, I basically got the 411 on everything! So this was my hustle...I naturally ask a lot of questions and that has served me well as a physician! So, I asked which professors do I take especially for those major science classes that you want to ACE, what's the best way to study for this or that, and some of them may have given me old tests to review. Hey, that's just using your resources wisely and there is nothing wrong with that! 😉
2. Join an organization that can keep you well rounded. I know studying is important, but you still need to be a human and not live at the library! (Even though I felt like it was my second dorm room sometimes!) My Latina sorority was about fun, but also about community service. I was able to get involved in the community and not get caught up in just studying as we know gunners do! (I don't know if students still say that word! LOL)
3. I know some of you are better test takers and probably won't need this, but I do recommend enrolling in an MCAT prep course. It definitely helped me. It forced me to study and learn the test. I did ok. Not amazing, but not horrible. Just do it though. I think you can benefit from this. Yes, the MCAT is important, but the numbers from your entrance exam and your GPA are not the only things that matter for your application. You as a human being and your story matter more! Don't ever forget that when you are stressing over that B.
4. Just live simply. This may be the only time in your life where your main responsibility is being a student. I know this isn't the reality for a non-traditional student, but you can still find ways to make your life easier. During my first semester, I realized that making things easy on myself would save me time, make life less stressful, make me more efficient and allow me to enjoy these years. So the things I did which may not be for everyone was: I lived in the dorm for three years! Yes, I was that dorm junkie! Living in the dorm allowed me to sleep more and roll out of bed to walk to class. It also allowed me not to spend extra time making food. Hehe I'm not a cook, but I love to eat so because my dorm called Jester had decent food, I was able to eat healthily and save time. Living on campus also gives you access to the gym which we all need to relieve stress. Just live simply and it will help in the long run when you have so much going on!
5. To stand out in as an applicant to medical school, stop trying to figure out what they want and just be yourself! You are unique and up to this point in your life, you have a story that follows you. Don't compare yourself to others, just be you and if you are genuine about why you want to be a doctor, it will shine through on your application and in the interview.
6. And yes, you may not get into medical school the first time around. That doesn't mean you will never be what you want to be. Everything in life is revolving, ever-changing, most of the time your path to medicine is not straight and that's ok. Sometimes you have to do research for a year or do something else in the medical field such as work as an EMT, MA or even scribe. Whatever it is you will learn and it can make you a better professional in whichever program you choose.
Med School/Higher Education
I want to be a doctor (PA, RN, NP, CRNA, PT, etc.) because...
This is what I asked my self every day, especially when the going got tough. Congratulate yourself, you got in! It may not have been the school you wanted, but everyone still graduates with those letters at the end of their name because you deserve it! The school, after all, does not make you an excellent physician, you do!
1. Learn your basic science for a strong foundation. Study the material and know it. This is after all the knowledge you need to save someone's life one day. Don't cut your study time short or just blow that topic off. I remember some of the basic science knowledge that has nothing to do with OB/GYN, and it has helped me diagnose my patients with rare diseases a few times!
2. Study with friends. I remember studying with my friends and talking about a topic out loud and getting a different perspective. This can help you remember it in a better way or understand it better. Shout out to my med school study buddies!
3. Be organized. As a profession student I realized I needed to stay on top of things and be efficient with my time. I also kept good notes and found that writing out certain concepts helped me to memorize and understand them. Also organizing concepts in graphs or groups helped as well. This is really where my handwriting got bad!! It isn’t just a myth that doctors have bad handwriting, now I know why! It was because I would write so much that things got sloppy, but since it worked I just kept it up.
4. Do an away rotation at one of your top choice programs! This can help them see how you could fit into their program and prove to them how amazing you are. It also affords you the opportunity to see if it is what you are looking for. Remember, it is four years and even though it may be a big name program you want to test out the waters and so do they before either one makes a commitment!
5. Work hard, play hard. I love this saying because I know I told myself this many times in med school. You are a professional student, but you are still a human being. Don't let school consume your life, you are someone and did things that you loved before your acceptance, so continue to do those. You can only regret it if you don't.
Residency/Post-graduate training
You have those initials at the end of your name so you have to live up to it.
1. If you don't know, say "I don't know". It is important to be confident, but if it can compromise your career or a patient's safety, ask questions because you won't regret it.
2. This is the best time to practice your communication skills. You go from studying and getting cozy with books to actually caring for and interacting with people on a daily. It is a change, but make it a point to be a good communicator. It will make you a better doctor for your patients if they understand their disease process and know how and why they are taking a certain medication. It will also help the patient have a better outcome which is one of the main reasons we chose medicine as a career. Last but not least, good communication will also make you a better resident because you will be a bad-ass at checkout!
3. Perfect your skills. Go to the stimulation lab even though you're tired or do that extra case because you might just learn something new and seek out cases or patients. This is probably more for surgical specialties, but the more you SEE ONE, DO ONE, TEACH ONE, the better you will become. Practice makes perfect!
4. Help your co-residents. Yes, there is some competition in residency because everyone strives to be the best resident, but these are your future colleagues. These may be your future partners, community leaders, etc. Don't piss people off. Plain and simple.
5. These years will shape your future so take it seriously and stay late! This is the only time you will have your attending right by your side to give you advice or help you perfect that skill. I remember the first time I did forceps in private practice and I pretended some of my favorite OB attendings were in the room watching me. Or when I did my first hysterectomy in private practice and I felt as though my favorite Gyn attending was sitting in the corner knowing what I was doing just by the movement of my hands! You have to realize that this is your time to ask as many questions as you can, do as many surgeries as you can and do what you have to do to be the best you can be! These years are amazing and will be over in the blink of an eye!
6. Take the lower levels under your wing. Helping and teaching the younger residents and med students makes you a better doctor. We are teachers, we are leaders. We might as well start getting on that role early on! (And if you can teach them that means you know your stuff!)
Career and Family Life
No matter what career path you take after residency or training, your family life and health are more important than everything else. These are your people, your gente, your tribe, your foundation. If your family life is a mess, then it can really effect your work and/or career. We all need a balance between our careers and our family, but if you go into it knowing that you have to make sacrifices for both aspects of your life you will make it work! If you focus more on work at times that doesn't make you a bad spouse or parent, and if you focus more on your family at times that doesn't make you a bad physician.
1. Ask for help from your partners. They are there to help make your life easier, just like you are there to help make their lives easier. They will be more than happy to do what they can do, you just have to A.S.K to G.E.T!
2. Seek mentors who have been there, done that. They can give you tips on how to handle certain situations and after all, if they have been through a certain situation or scenario, they can help you navigate the issue.
3. Take time away for yourself. This will keep you grounded. Work out, read, write, do yoga or just sleep. We can all use that every now and then!
4. Keep learning and realize it never ends! Keep up to date on technology and the latest evidence-based data for your specialty. Being a professional makes you a life-long learner, and we are in the time of technology where medicine just keeps getting better and better! How exciting and lucky we are to be in medicine today!
Scholarships
Education is expensive. I basically spent many weekends my Senior year in high school applying for scholarships. I probably applied to more than 100!
Well guess what?!!!
I paid for my whole undergraduate education, put a down payment on a car, paid for my braces LOL and paid for part of my med school. Wow!
There are a lot of local community organizations that offer scholarships and of course, there are the big ones. I think there aren't that many students that know about, let alone apply to the smaller scholarships, but this is where I racked up the money. $200 here and $1000 there, it adds up and fast!
One tip is to get as many letters of recommendation from your teachers and professors and provide them with a copy of your personal statement and resume that way they can reference your achievements in the letters. Also, once you start applying, a lot of the essays they want become repetitive, so making little changes here and there can create a new personal statement for your application with not much work.
Here is a list of some of the scholarships I applied for. I even had a spreadsheet with how much I earned, but it is on a floppy disk in my closet somewhere. It would be awesome to see that right about now!
-The University of Texas at Austin Freshman Scholarships
-Dallas Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Foundation
-Target All-Around Scholarship
-Latina Girl Scholarship
-LULAC National Scholarship Fund
-Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF)
-American Business Women's Association Scholarship
-Hispanic Heritage Awards Foundation
-Dallas Rotary Club Scholarship
-American Legion Auxillary
-Dallas Superintendent's Scholarship
-Local Sorority Scholarships
-YMCA Community Service Scholarship
-www.scholarshipsforwomen.net looks like a great resource for scholarships and filters out scholarships based on race, education level, major, family, religion, etc. Check it out. I didn’t have this resource when I was applying. It was all on paper!
Also, you can google “scholarships” and a whole list come up. This is real money mujeres! Don't let it pass you by! Just take the time and effort and you will reap the benefits. I know I did and so can you! Si se puede!