OUR FIRST EPISODE!

Introduce us or what's gonna happen?

I think we should start with some introduction. So, hi, everyone. Welcome to our podcast. This is our first podcast. So who are you? Why are you here?

I am Dr. Sarah Davis Park, CDs personal physician. So I'm a family medicine physician in Dallas, Texas.

My name's Stephanie. I'm her daughter. I am applying to medical school right now. So this is our.

Oh, okay. So.

So here's the first thing that we gotta pitch is we have to decide the name of this podcast.

Oh, we do, yes.

Yeah.

What's it gonna be?

So, essentially, I'm applying to medical school and you are a doctor, correct? Allegedly. So now we have to decide the name of the podcast. So what's the deal? What's our niche? Our niche is like. And I work for her right now. If you see, I'm in scrubbed. She's in a white coat. So clearly.

Right. One is at a more elevated status than the other.

Are you trying to say you're better than me?

I didn't say that's how you interpreted it.

Sounds like you're trying to say that you're better than me. Okay, we'll get into that a little later about who's better than who, but, you know, just generally speaking. So I asked ChatGPT to give us some podcast game ideas.

Oh, fantastic.

I said, my mom and I are making a podcast. She is a doctor, and I'm applying medical school. I currently work as her medical assistant.

Make us a name.

They said. How about Generation md From Aspiring to Practicing?

Oh, I like that. That's better than anything I could have come up with. What else we got?

Okay, we got some of these. I don't want it to sound too nerdy.

I don't want us to seem like nerds. Well, even though it fits. Yeah, exactly.

We know that back in the day, you were a nerd.

Well, you're a nerd now.

You're more of a gunner.

Pew. You're as much of a gunner as I ever was.

I don't think so. Okay, so then we got Healing Conversations, a Doctor Med Student dialogue. I think that sounds lame. Medical Minds Unveiled. Mother Daughter Edition Stethoscope Stories. Some of these are pretty lame.

That's good too.

I like it. Tying in the generations thing, I think.

Generation md. Generations md.

Yeah, Generations md. Okay, that's good.

Okay, Generations md. Welcome to Generations md. We decided on the podcast name From Aspiring Medical Professional to Current Medical Professional. So while we're on the topic of Aspiring to Current Medical Professional, I want you to talk about your medical school journey, your application process. And what was that? That was like.

So, you know, interestingly, it's a little bit different from what goes on today, but not that different. You know, I mean, I guess if you really want to go way back. I was, you know, I went to a high school that was not. Did not have a very elevated curriculum.

And came from the streets.

I came from the streets. That's right. So we didn't have any AP classes or any of that fancy kind of stu that these newfangled generations have.

So anyway, then I arrive at ucla.

I'm a freshman, I'm excited to work hard and take these difficult classes. And then I find out that all my classmates have already had all this material back in high school. And so it was review for them and it was brand new for me. So that was very, very challenging to get good grades in those classes with people who were very smart and already knew the material. But luckily I kind of had a good attitude. I just said, you know what, I'm just gonna persevere. Just kind of keep taking it one step at a time, see what I really want to do and see if I actually want to be a doctor. I never knew anybody who was a doctor other than my own pediatrician. And so I just, I didn't really know if that was going to be something that was in the cards for me or not, but just kept taking class after class. My grades did improve as the material was no longer reviewed for my classmates and, you know, finally kind of got to. Got to the end, decided, well, you know what? I'm just gonna take the mcat. Let's see if I can do well enough on it.

So backing up, what does it entail.

To go to medical school?

Because a lot of people don't know, like what, like what do you have to take? And what's the mcat? What is all that? What do you have to do, like outside or what did you do?

Okay. I mean, the whole thing's a beat down, that's for sure.

You know, I mean, part of the.

So you have to take. You can major in anything you want to be. You want to, to go to medical school. But having said that, you have to take a whole lot of prerequisites, such as two years of chemistry, including a year of organic chemistry, you have to take calculus, you have to take physics, biology, and I don't know, and there's probably some other requirements too, that I don't even know about. So you've got all these and they're really hard classes. I mean, they're just hard. They grade really hard. And you have to do well in those in order to even consider going to medical school. So then you got to study for this big test called the mcat. It is, you know, similar to the SAT for applying to college, except that it's really, really hard. And it takes all the material from all those prerequisite classes that you had, synthesizes it in various ways. And it's a. You know, I don't remember how long the test was. It seems like it was forever.

Eight hours.

Seven or eight hours of just, you know, all in one day. It is just very, very grueling. So you've got to take that and perform well on it. It's not a test that you could take. I mean, you could take it multiple times if you wanted to, but it is just so rigorous and it's expensive, and you really got to study for it. So it's just not a test that you're gonna just keep taking until you get a good score. You've gotta. You gotta really study for it and do well. Otherwise it's probably not gonna be on the cards for you to go to medical school.

So essentially, to go to med school, you got to take all these classes, all of stem, and then you got to take this big test which, like, comprises all of stem, so like, bio, biochem, physics, organic chemistry, psych, soc. And you got to do really well on that test. And then throughout college, you got to do all. You got to get a bunch of, like, clinical hours, right? And you got to do a bunch of extracurriculars. So what did you do in undergrad? That.

So, yeah, I did some volunteering at a few different hospitals, more during the summer than as much during the school year. I think today you have to really be doing all of that stuff all the way through. But I volunteered in the operating room and the emergency room at UC Davis Medical center, which was near where I grew up. Then the other things. It apparently is not quite as big a deal now as it was then, but it used to be very important to do research that was kind of.

It's really important now.

You gotta have some pubs. You gotta have some pubs.

Yeah, so, yeah, I'm kind of. You can keep going, but I'm kind of comparing you to now.

So, yeah, we all felt like we should do research. I volunteered to do research in the School of Public Health at ucla.

So, yeah, so I did this.

Just really, you know, I don't think I was all that helpful to the research team there with the research that I was doing. But, yeah, as a volunteer, one of the main things that were part of my job was weighing these rats. They had hundreds of rats. They were doing an experiment, trying to make these rats diabetic and then inject them with various things to see what happened to them. So one of the things I had to do was go in there, pull each rat out by its tail, put it on the scale, put it back in the cage, and the longer it went on, the more aggravated they would get. And then they'd bite me and, you know, and all of that really helped me to be such a better dog.

Yeah, I had to lay some mice back last summer and.

Oh, a mouse.

That's easy.

That was a mouse big. These were. No, yeah, the rats are better. The rats are like cats.

Like, they'll, like, be, like, they'll, like, get accustomed to you and you can, like, and, like, they'll, like, be your friend. The mice don't care. They only liked me when I was giving them drugs. I had to shoot up all these mice with morphine. And whenever I was coming around with morphine, then they really liked me. But before the drugs, they would just want to bite me.

So were they kind of kissing up to you when you were coming around with the drugs?

Oh, yeah, yeah, they wanted. They wanted it. Then that's when they liked me. They got excited.

My rats did not like me, I'll tell you that much. And some of them were so huge, they couldn't even barely turn around. Well, they're diabetic, right? They were forced to be diabetic. They were force fed, which was kind of sad.

Yeah.

And I suppose sometimes when they're getting taken out of their cages, they were getting taken for experiments, so, you know, understandable that they were a little stressed when a hand was coming in there.

Yeah. So lots of research. So it seems like that's the same thing for med school now. So now I'm in the application process currently. So, yeah, you have to study for the mcat, you have to get A's in all your undergrad classes. You have to do research. You have to, like, get all these clinical hours, too. So you have to work and get clinical hours and do a lot of stuff to be able to essentially prove that you really want to go into this field. Yeah.

Prove that you're really interested and that, you know, somewhat what you're getting into.

So would you agree that it is harder to get into medical school now than when you did it.

Well, I learned pretty hard back in my day.

So what I brought today is your.

Wait, what is School full application. Wait a second. I can't. I can't believe that I still had that.

So again.

Wait, wait, wait. You're gonna share this on the podcast? No wonder you wouldn't let me prep.

For this at all.

So essentially, again, we were just talking about how what the process was like when you went through versus when I'm going through now. You know, we wouldn't go back to who's better than who, but so again, essentially, now you have to get a 4.0 to get medical school.

Are you saying that I didn't have a 4.0?

So let's look at. This is her AMCAS application from.

Oh my God, I can't tell. See if you have.

From ucla. This is your undergraduate transcript. It looks like freshman year.

Freshman year is not good. I already said that.

This is your. It looks like your bio. Biochem. So this is her science classes. She had a 2.84.

No, I got my science GPA. Oh. Because I was able to count my psych classes in there. Because I thought when I calculated in my psychic. My. When I calculated my science GPA, I thought I got a 3.00.

You're telling me. No, you're saying some of those things didn't count? It went up though. I think you ended up with a. Your bio. So your STEM classes, you ended up with a 3.0 GPA.

Okay, see? Yeah, that's it.

And then for your total hours, this is including non science classes, you had a 3.31.

Yeah. Now if you looked at just my non science classes, I think I had almost a 4.0.

You had a 3.78.

Okay. Good Lord. It's awful having a fact checker of your past.

Here's some of the application or some of the schools that you applied to. There's some checks, there's some crossing out. Don't know exactly what that all entails, but, you know, I think it means.

That I chose not to apply to some of those. Right? No.

Okay, sure, we'll go with that. So your MCAT score, it's scored differently now.

Totally different.

Now it was back in the day. So this. Back in the day, it was scored from 3 to 45 and you scored a 27.

That doesn't sound that impressive.

So I looked it up and now. Oh my God, it is scored from a. It's like 475 to 528. And percentile wise, the median percentile. So is a 500, but like the average score to get into medical school now is like a 510.

Yeah.

So that's like you essentially need a 510 to be able to get into medical school now. So this is about equivalent to a 504, which is the 60th percentile.

Better than average.

Better than average. Better than average.

That's my tagline, Dr. Davis. Better than average. Now I got a couple of comments about my MCAT score in that, if you notice, I did get. Didn't I get an 11 in chemistry?

You got. Yes, you did. You got an 11 in chemistry and you got an 11 in science problems.

Okay. I was very proud of that 11 in chemistry because I don't know exactly what the percentile is, but considering I got straight Cs in all my chemistry classes and then to get 11 on the MCAT shows that we were just being graded hard at ucla.

Right.

They didn't have a lot of grade inflation like some of these other schools have.

Totally. Then the 504 really speaks to that.

I can't believe you calculated that.

Okay, then moving on to. We have an application we've looked at before, the Loyola Chicago application.

Okay. I just want to say that we didn't have word processes or I didn't have one anyway. And so you had to type things out on a typewriter. Type, type, type, type, type. You mess up. You had to basically start all over again. So it was hard to type something out. Go on.

So on this supplemental application, you started out strong. A lot of these. This has your Social Security number on it.

So, okay, don't show that.

But you. On a lot of these, you started out pretty strong. You had some long paragraphs going in. So lots of things of like valuable experiences on number. Question number one. Question number two. So these are the supplemental applications. So for each school you have to write a lot of essays after you submit your primary application. I don't know, not really important, blah, blah, blah. Essentially you have to write like college apps. You have to write essays for each school. So.

Once it gets to question number.

Four, looks like she kind of went into give up mode here. It was, the question was, what self education research or independent scholastic work have.

You undertaken and what do you feel.

You have accomplished in this work? For the past two years, I have done research in the school of Public Health at ucla. The second paragraph of my amclass application sums up well what I learned from this experience. So she just said, refer to the Other applications. So imagine on your college applications, they ask you a question, wanting you to write an essay, and you're like, please refer to the other part of my application.

You know, people need to pay attention. I already said this. I mean, why should I have to repeat the whole thing all over again? You know?

And again, these people are supposed to.

Be, like, doctors and scientists.

They ought to be able to go.

Back and read what I already said.

Like, it goes kind of like, again, at the beginning, you were going into this detail about all this stuff, and.

Then I got tired. Okay.

Yeah. And then by the end, it's just like, this is like, give us some more information about your. Some up to date from your AMCAS application that you already submitted. And all you said was, in summer school, I took kinesiology and I received an A.

Okay.

Got an A.

Just saying.

Okay, okay. But. But. But, yes. These undergraduate applications. Again, you said you didn't really.

Oh.

Oh, this is your.

Was this my AMCAS application?

This is your AMCAS application. It looks like you were swing instructor.

Oh, I forgot about that. Yes, I was a swimming instructor.

You were a student assistant.

Yes, that was a very important job. Whoa.

You got paid $14 an hour for being a swimming instructor. That's almost as much as you pay me now.

Well, it was $14 an hour, but I was $14 an hour. But I had to drive there. And then I got paid that $14 while I taught the lesson, and then I had to drive all the way back, which was all over Los Angeles. It was actually, like, up in Beverly Hills. I got to see some really cool houses. But so really, I mean, it was $14, but it probably took me, like, three hours to do that. Plus I had to dry my hair. All that.

So you just had, like, a normal commute and a job?

Yeah, but I'd just go and teach, like, one lesson for an hour, and.

Then I had to go somewhere else to.

To teach another lesson because they were private lessons at people's homes.

Yeah, you talked about you're a student research assistant. You're a hospital volunteer, lifeguard and swimming instructor. You're an ra.

I don't think so.

It says, I was an ra.

Residence hall access monitor.

Oh, yeah. No, that was in Renault. I was an access monitor. That was a very coveted, highly trained position. No, basically, that was the security. Nowadays, of course, you have, like, a badge to get into a building. But we didn't do that. We had people there. And so you walked in and you handed your ID card, and we scanned it and then we handed it back to you, and you walked into the building.

So what were you gonna do if, like, it was, like, somebody that wasn't gonna. Supposed to be in the building, like.

You were there, tell them, like, okay, you can't come in.

So you're like. You're like a bouncer for your.

For the door? Yeah, yeah, it was pretty. It was pretty intense. And then sometimes they would sign in their guests, and you had to give them a guest pass to come into the building, so.

Yeah. Okay, well, I'm making fun of you for this, but then once you got to medical school, this has some stuff in here. You actually did pretty good. It looks like you were in the top of your med school class.

Okay, thank you.

I don't have much information to share.

About that, but is that my. Oh, is that my.

That's my CV for yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

I didn't have a lot of publications or anything else in med school. Med school, you just get there, and you just take classes and keep going.

Yeah. But essentially my point of all this is that the process is pretty different now than how it was back in the day.

I think it's kind of similar. It's just probably more competitive now.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Well.

Yeah. Do you want to try to defend yourself anymore? Say you did well.

I feel I did pretty well with the. You know, with the skills that I had available to me, you know? God, I thought my MCAT was pretty good.

That's what I said online. I mean, maybe we can fact check it out, but.

Yeah, I don't know. I think gonna have to do a little more. Little more research with that, but. Yeah.

Yeah.

All that matters is she got in.

Got in. I got into ku. I was in New York at the time. My mom called me on the phone at my friend's house, told me I got into ku and I was like, all right, I'm done. That's where I'm going.

Yeah. So I can rush you all day for all of that, but at the end of the day, I'm not into to medical school right now, and you're a doctor, so you know that's true.

So.

Thanks, Mom. Okay, moving on. I have. We have some stories from the viewers.

Stories from the viewers.

Well, okay, we have an instance, and I'm gonna present to you this case, and you're gonna tell me what they should do. So essentially, Brad was going out with this girl, and he really liked her, and, you know, I'm not a relationship ex.

I know. I know.

Okay.

Okay. Come on, but.

So he really liked her and it was going well and whatever. Then all of a sudden, she said she told him that she had herpes. Okay, but. So Brad was like, oh, no, what do I do? Like, I don't. Like, should I end things with her? But isn't the thing that, like, doesn't everybody have herpes? Isn't it, like, 95% of the population, like, should he end things with this girl because she has herpes?

Well, I'm certainly not gonna say what he should do for his relationship. I mean, first of all, they're not sexually active. Right. Just kidding.

This is the decision. And we'll get.

And we'll round back to that in a minute, actually. So, like, if in this situation. Like what? Like what?

Okay, so, I mean, if she does have genital herpes, here's the thing. No. So there's two types of herpes. There's HSV1, which are the cold sores that you get on your mouth. There's HSV to be two, which are the type that you get on your genitals. There's a little bit of cross reactivity with both of those, but in general, that's the case. So, I mean, if she had a cold sore or had had cold sores in the past, that is the thing that, like, most everybody has. Even people who say, oh, I've never had a cold sore. If you actually check their antibodies, you'll find that they're positive for HSB1. It's just their immune system has suppressed it enough so that they're no longer getting cold sores. HSP2 is different. I mean, the genital herpes outbreak are, you know, it is a big deal.

It can be very painful.

It depends on your immune system and everything how bad that is. It's technically possible to transmit genital herpes even when you're not having an outbreak. It's pretty unlikely, but it still is possible. Now, if somebody's having an outbreak of general herpes, genital herpes, they should definitely not engage in sexual activity because they certainly could transmit it to the other person. But the, you know, however, the person. If somebody does have genital herpes, they can take suppressive medications, things like Valtrex. And if they're taking that all the time, then it's very, very unlikely that they're going to transmit that disease during sexual activity.

So, you know, so not everybody has HSV2, but everybody has HSV1.

Yeah, the vast majority of people have HSV1.

And so. But HSV1 can't present as genital herpes or can it?

It's possible that it can, but it's unusual.

So HSV1 is cold sores?

Yes. And HSV2 is genital herpes? Yes.

So.

So most people don't have HSV2. I mean, I would have to look up the statistics, but no, I wouldn't say that it's less than the majority of people that have HSV2.

So when someone tells you that they have herpes, then this is like, actually, like, it's a concern. That's a concern. It's a concern.

It's something that, you know, you do need to know about. I mean, like I said, it's not, you know, it's not curable. So that's why it is concerning. And you really need to know about it. And if somebody has it, they really do need to disclose that. But it is very treatable. And like I said, you can take suppression medication. The thing that is even more concerning for women is if they're pregnant and going to give birth, they really want to make sure that they're not having an active HSV to, you know, outbreak, because that can damage them, that can be harmful to the child. So that's why, you know, those are some of the reasons why it's kind of a bigger deal.

But, you know, if Brad really likes.

This girl, I would say, you know, I think with a lot of precautions, you know, it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that he's definitely going to get this from her right now. If he's never had an outbreak, it's probably unlikely. Usually people get sores and so they can tell if they have it. It's not usually asymptomatic, like, where something like chlamydia can be asymptomatic, especially in women. HSB is a little less likely to be asymptomatic.

You should get STD tested because you.

Should get tested, Brad. So should everybody else, too.

Yeah. Okay, well, there's a story with Brad. Sorry. Sorry about that. Brad, Brad, you know who you are.

Man. I do feel, you know, it's a big deal. Like, you know, people get. Who get herpes and, you know, it certainly does happen where people are having an outbreak. They don't disclose it to the other person. They get it and it's, you know, it can be pretty traumatic. So I do want to say, like, it, you know, it's. If you have herpes, it's. It's okay. But just please, please disclose it to your partner and you know, don't have sex during an outbreak.

Okay, that's solid info. I don't have much left. We had a couple questions from the viewers.

Oh, yeah?

Two from Bailey. She wanted your opinion on whether the chicken or the egg came first.

Bailey, I refuse to answer.

She also had another question. Okay, Bailey, let's see what else you got.

She asked your opinion on people who go into a coma and wake up speaking a different language.

I don't think that's a thing, Bailey.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, that's about all I have. Okay.

Okay. Well, you know, I think that was a good start. You know, I don't know what you're gonna kind of surprise me with on the next podcast.

Yeah.

Do you have other files of mine.

That you're gonna go through? Movie recording has been stopped. Alright, well, I guess there's that. Okay, well, I guess we have to wrap up, though.

Okay.

All right, well, bye, guys. Thanks for watching.

Thanks for watching.

And like, comment and let us know what questions that you have and don't be a brat.

Bye, guys.

Bye.