Re-run: WE ARE TIKTOK VIRAL!

Hey, guys, it's Stephanie. So I'm a med student now and I'm a little bit more busy. So unfortunately this week we're not having a new episode, but we're actually going to rerun an episode that Originally aired on November 8, 2023. So almost a year ago, a little less than a year ago. And this was actually our second episode ever. And I think it's interesting to listen back to it because we kind of talked about that original tick tock clip that went viral. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it was our first tick tock clip that we posted about me going through my mom's medical school stats and saying that she couldn't get into medical school. That time it had about 1.5 million views and now it's up to about 4 million views. So kind of funny. We also just kind of talked about, like, my path towards med school and, like, what my stats were. And we talked about student debt and the average amount of student debt now versus when my mom went through. We also talked about how you should be able to, like, shadow a doctor for 24 hours to decide your specialty. And then we talked about, like, planning to bring guests on to, like, hear about their lifestyle. And, like, we've done that in the past year. So kind of cool to listen back to see, like, what we wanted this podcast to look like and, like, what we've made happen. So, yeah, I'm sorry that we don't have a new episode this week. I'm still trying to figure out the balance of everything. And we have our first block exam next week, so wish me luck. But we do have some really exciting guests coming up, so stay tuned for that. One thing that I did want to mention is we now have an email. So for any business inquiries or if you have any podcast topic ideas or if you're interested in coming on the podcast, you can email us atask generations mdmail.com that's ask like a S K and then generations mdmail.com. so, yeah, thanks guys for listening and enjoy this throwback episode.

Okay.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Generations md, our podcast. My name is Stephanie Davis. I'm an aspiring medical professional, and this is my colleague, also known as your mom. So my mom. So how do you feel now being a TikTok celebrity?

Wow. I tell you, my life has changed. You know, when I, like when I'm going out, I feel like I need to wear glasses. You know, dark glasses, a hat, because people are starting to recognize me on the streets. Okay. That's not actually true, but it is kind of strange going viral. This has never happened to me before.

Yeah, this is your first time. You kind of were freaked out. You said, well, it was.

I mean, like, our TikTok has so far been viewed by 1.4 million people. 1.4 million people saw me, you know, on the camera.

So if you don't know what we're talking about, we posted a TikTok clip and look us up on TikTok if you want to find it. Look up Generations MD on TikTok to find that clip. And the clip was just talking about MCAT scores and.

Well, the clip is her ambushing me. But, yes, that's just talking about how she sets me up, saying that do I think that I would get into medical school today? Which of course I think that I would. And then she basically just proves me wrong.

Yeah. So I just brought out her medical school application. If you want to look more into that, then listen to last week's episode. People got excited about it. Right. We had 1.4 million views still going up. Over 100,000 people liked it. And lots of comments about people just talking about what it is like now versus what it was like back then. I don't think people are necessarily angry. They're just kind of. They feel validated because it is such a trend that older people are just like, I did it. So, like, you can too, and all this stuff.

I think that's. I think that's very true. I mean, I think that it's like that in medicine. It's like that in other fields as well, where, you know, it's very ultra competitive for all of these things. And so I think that, yeah, the younger generation does feel validated to, you know, say, like, it's just. It's really, really hard.

But people were talking about. They did say, they're like, that doesn't mean that she's a bad doctor now. But I'm just saying they understood that it does get harder and harder. But just your MCAT scores and GPA 30 plus years ago. How many years ago?

Something like that.

Hundred years ago does not. Is not a good reflection about the type of person or the type of doctor that you are today.

What? Well, I think that's true. I think it's also true that medical school slots have not kept up with population growth. And so we now are facing a tremendous doctor shortage. And it's kind of crazy because we are turning away all of these highly, highly qualified applicants because we just don't seem to have enough spots, whether that's residency spots or spots in medical school, I don't really know. I'm not in that. I don't know what all the different problems are. But certainly, I mean you can look at like so KU where I went to medical school at that time there were 175 people in my med school class. And now how many spots are there at KU?

Like 211, I think.

So, like 211. I mean you'd figure like the population has grown a lot more than that, but the number of spots have not kept up. So it's really, it's, you know, it's a shame. We really do need, we need more great doctors and we don't need to be turning away all these really qualified young people.

I think some people from an outside perspective don't understand. To get all the way to the point where you're actually submitting applications to medical school. You have done so much work. A lot of people do do well on all these tests and are like very amicable people and able to communicate and have all these skills and still don't get it.

I want to bring up the fact that I said in that TikTok clip that you have to get a 510 on the MCAT to get into medical school. That's not true. Many people get a lower MCAT score and still get in. A 510 is just the average score.

For people who matriculate into medical school. I think there's so much neuroticism in.

The pre med culture when you're constantly told that you're not good enough and that you're not going to get in. I don't want to contribute to that conversation. I want to emphasize that there's so much more to being a doctor rather than just your MCAT score and your gpa.

There's so many other skills that can.

Contribute to you being a good physician. But so if you're going through this process, please don't be discouraged by this.

I want to encourage people to apply. We need more doctors. We need more good people who really.

Want to do this.

Career path. Do you think since now it is, we've established it is more competitive to.

Get into medical school.

Do you think better doctors are being made?

No. You think you'd be better than me? I mean, he ain't better than me.

Okay. Okay. I guess we'll have to see. Well, wait.

How do you decide who's a better doctor? Okay, true.

That's a good point. How do you decide what do you think then are qualities that people should look for then in a doctor?

Oh, as a patient?

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think that it is. It's important to realize that. Yes. I mean, even people that are my age, you know, because it's not just getting into medical school. Then you have the whole process of getting through medical school and residency and all of that. You know, all of what that entails. And basically. And you've got to pass, you know, multiple sets of the boards and all of that. And so really, you know, any doctor in the US that you go to is going to be highly, highly qualified. So you really don't have to worry like, oh, is my doctor dumb? Your doctor's not dumb. They're going to. They're going to know all these things. So then it just depends. More of a good personality match. So as a patient, you just want to go to somebody who feels like kind of understands you a little bit more and is a better match for your personality. I think that's really what it comes down to now. That's. Exceptions are made for things like, you know, surgeons, you know, same thing. They're not gonna. They didn't get there by, you know, not knowing what they're doing. They had years and years and years of training in surgery, but sometimes some of them are not necessarily warm and fuzzy. That's okay, as long as they're good. When you're under the knife, that's all you really care about.

Yeah, that's true. I guess some people have to have more personalities than others. So now it's more competitive to get into medical school than it was back in your day. But do you think since med schools are now, like, past five fail. Step one is pass fail. Do you think that it was easier to get in, but actually a harder med school and residency versus now when it's harder to get in and maybe it's easier.

No, I don't think that. I don't think it's easier. I can't speak that much about residency. I doubt it's changed all that much. But I think having med school be pass fail is fantastic. I think there's no reason to have grades in medical school by then. You know, everybody knows how to get an A. Like, and it ends up that people are trying to separate themselves out by learning tiny little details that don't really matter. I much rather have them pass fail. I want them to focus on the material and mastering the material and not worrying about, like, trying to be, you know, trying to get trick Questions correct or any of that stuff. And you know, the boards, the USMLE is being pass fail I think is fantastic. The whole purpose of that test is to make sure that you have a general, broad based knowledge of all of the different things. Not that you can just get, you know, every tiny, tiny little detail, something that you could just look up. I mean that's just, that's just dumb.

Yeah, that makes sense. I guess People are a lot more interested in the med school application process than I anticipated that they were going to be. People were kind of talking about that and just kind of. I mean many applicants going in just kind of felt justified from that tick tock with just, just talking about how.

Tough the process was.

And some people just really don't understand. So you talked about your med school process. Yeah, I guess I'm.

Yeah. You talk about your med school process.

Yeah. So I went to Clemson in South Carolina.

Go Tigers.

Go Tigers. Just be your name this weekend. So are we back in it? I don't know. We'll see. But I went to Clemson as a psych major. I wasn't for sure what I wanted to do, but I went ahead and took all the prereqs for med school. Just kind of had it in the back of my head of okay, if I keep doing well in these classes, then maybe this is something I'm going to pursue. I did well in undergrad.

I got 4.0.

I did, Mom. I did not. I got, I graduated Clemson. I'm just going to say all my stats because I think it's weird when people are super not transparent about their stats and stuff. I understand not trying to be flexi, but sometimes people are just like. I like the transparency of just like, okay, here are my stats. And this is what happened. This was my story. So I'm just going to be straight up about it. So I graduated Clemson with a 3.98 overall GPA. But I also had some dual enrollment credits from high school. So my actual GPA applying my science GPA I think was like a 3.94. My overall was somewhere around a 3.95. I'd have to check exactly.

I'll just call that. Let's just round it up to 4.9.

Thanks, Mom. My mother is a lot more kind than the admissions committees are. Throughout undergrad I did various research stuff. I did a summer in Charleston at MUSC working with rats. We talked about that last week a little bit.

Really interesting research.

I did various other research stuff at Clemson that I thought was really cool. And interesting. But yeah, I did shadowing and I realized that I wanted to go into the field. I was able to. My spring semester of college, I only took one class, a statistics class. And then that's the semester that I studied for the mcat. So I took three months. Essentially I studied from January, end of January to early April is when I took my mcat. So I pretty much treated it like a full time job, which I can talk a little bit more about that at some point if anyone's interested. Just taking my last semester to study for the mcat. It was my last semester of college, so that was kind of a bummer. But I don't know, I'm pretty good at balancing time, so I was able to, to balance everything. But so yeah, I took the MCAT. I got a 512. I just took it one and done. So I was really content with that. I was happy.

And then, which is definitely above average. I just here as your cheerleader. Thanks Mom.

Not like the 504 that you got.

I still need to fact check that.

But anyway, graduated, got that 512 MCAT and then I am now working for her as the medical assistant in her office. So this is where I'm getting my clinical hours. But I, I kind of, I applied all around. So you submit your primaries, which is your first round of application that goes to all the schools. And then you fill out individual essays for each of those schools. And then now is kind of the interview season. So interviewing is throughout the fall. And then you figure out in the spring if you got admitted. That's kind of. Generally, there's some other stuff you can figure out earlier. But I am currently in the waiting period. So I've had some interviews and now.

I am just waiting, waiting, waiting and waiting.

And I will say the timeline, I feel like I've had to explain the timeline to so many different people. You will start your applications in May and you wouldn't start med school until the following July. So it's a year long application process. And that's kind of essentially one of the reasons why I decided to take this quote, gap year is because I want to be able to finish all my classes, take the mcat, do well and then have this year to just focus on my application, focus on my interviews, get some more clinical hours and yeah, enjoy myself a little bit.

People can do the whole thing without doing a gap year. But you know, you just, you would be all of that would be what? So you take it, you'd be taking the mcat. During your junior year of college, which would be. I mean, people do it, but it just would be very challenging.

Yeah, it is tough. The only downside of doing this gap year is that if I don't get in, then that just pushes everything back more and more. Which kind of brings me to my next topic, which is just loans. So, yeah, people in the comments were just talking about that. And since you go into med school, you're going to end up going into a lot of debt. So the longer you wait, the more years you have to apply, kind of that gets pushed back later in your life and later in your life where you have to pay back all this money. And so currently, the average student loan debt for a med student is $200,000.

Which is just crazy.

And the average time it takes to pay that off is about 13 years.

And I would say that is something that has definitely changed from my time to her time. There were always some expensive private schools, and so those were always there. But the state schools, a lot of them used to be very affordable, and some of them still are. But a lot of those that were very affordable there, much as the private schools now, which is just so they're not getting as much funding from their state legislature. And so, so that part is like, it's just really different, especially if, you know, there's some medical specialties that pay a lot more than others, those require more years of training. But still it's, you know, it gets to be where it's. It's pretty challenging. You said wait how many years? Thirteen years.

So how. So how much debt did you have coming out of med school and how long did it take you to pay off?

At that time, I went to KU med school. I was an out of state applicant, and I remember the first year I had to borrow like $23,000, which seemed like a lot. Now against that, what year that would have been in 1991. But then Ku did allow you, if you did certain things, to become a Kansas resident. And then that cut my tuition in half. So then those next years, I borrowed, you know, less money than that. Maybe like $13,000 or something like that each year. So try to do the math. I mean, basically, you know, I came and then got married to my husband, who had been a Kansas resident the whole time. And so together it was maybe like $150,000 of debt combined. Oh, okay. So then, so you finish medical school, then you're in residency. Well, residency, you're only making enough money, really, to live. You' making enough money to pay back your loans. But what happens is that the interest does start accruing on those loans during that time, but you're not making payments because you don't have enough money to make payments. So that's a little bit stressful. And if you're doing longer training, you have all that time where that interest is accruing on those loans anyway. But what we did was we finished. We started working, and we just kind of kept our lifestyle pretty much the same as we did during residency. And every time we made more money, we just paid off a chunk of loans, and we were actually able to pay back everything within, like, two years.

Wow.

Which is really pretty great.

Yeah. Backing up to your husband, AKA Dad. Yes. We didn't touch on this. So y' all met in med school?

Yes.

So the discussion now is whether we have dad on the podcast.

Well, I think he's gonna have to really prove his usefulness. I mean, he's got lots of suggestions of content.

He does have so many suggestions on what we need to be doing for the podcast. I think he feels a little left out.

I think he does feel left out.

Us too, and he wants to be involved. So we said maybe we can have him on the pod.

Well, maybe we could just kind of have record an episode with him. We don't even have to air it. He's not gonna listen. He just wants to say he's on there.

Well, he wants to put it on his cv.

Yeah. Like, he really needs that on his.

Well, let us know in the comments if you think that the other Dr. Davis should be on the podcast. We'll think about it.

I've got a lot of ideas for guests. Okay, so what happens in medical school in the third and fourth year of medical school? I don't know. Maybe you actually do a little bit of that in the first years now, too. But you rotate through these different specialties. So, like, you're on surgery for three months, and so you rotate and you see all. You see different surgeries, and you help out and you work with the residents and all that. But what you don't really get a sense of is, like, what those surgeons do all the rest of the time. This has a lot of practical disadvantages, but what would be great is if you could shadow somebody for, like, 24 hours straight. So you want.

If I was a med student, then.

I would just follow you around, just.

Go to your yoga class with you.

And just come home, maybe help me make dinner. Like, what do you expect? Okay. Well, I realize it won't really work, but it would just. It would be nice for.

If it was dad, then you'd go to, like, to the shop and help.

Him work on his race card. And, of course, you got to play a few holes of golf. Golf at the end of the day. But I do think it's kind of crazy is people, like, you know, people choose these specialties thinking, like, well, I really love, you know, what they were doing. Well, there's a big difference. Sometimes some of those specialties, that person is working for, like, 18 hours, you know, all the time. And then you have other specialties where it's like, okay, maybe it wasn't quite as exciting while they were at work, but then they went home and they were with their kids, and they did something else fun and went to yoga, and they have just a better. A better life. So, I mean, people.

That is kind of more in the conversation of, okay, the lifestyle that you want to have. From my perspective, I'm like, I don't know. I feel like I can't even be like, oh, I want to have a life because I want to go and be a physician.

See, and that's what's just so tragic, because, again, like, when you're a patient and you're seeing a doctor, you don't want to see a doctor that doesn't have a life. Like, they're, you know, if they've never. If all they do is just see patients all day, every day. I don't know. I think that would be. They wouldn't be a very interesting person.

Yeah, that's true. That's true.

All right, so you don't actually have to follow the doctor for 24 hours, but I do have lots of friends who are doctors. And, you know, it'd be nice to get, like, the real story, because I don't know, every time, like, if when you shadow other doctors, like, I feel like for some reason, everybody always feels like they were trying to, like, sell you on their specialty.

Like, oh, yeah. And people. I feel like. I don't know if it was like that in your rotations when you're in med school, but I feel like people are like, oh, yeah, like, peds is the way to go. Or like, surgery is the way. Like, people are really trying to sell you on it.

Yeah.

And it's kind of like, okay, but why?

But why? I mean, it doesn't make any difference to them, but, yeah, it's. But for some reason, you just. You take it as a compliment. Like, if somebody wants to do. If they rotate with you, and then they want to do your same space specialty. You just. You're just like, oh, yay, I'm so great. I don't know. So. But it would be nice if you could just have more real, like, you know, if I had some of my other friends that are different specialties. Well, why did you choose this? And why. How did it end up being different from what you saw when you were rotating as a med student? And, you know, and what do you do today? And, you know, if you had all of this information, would you have still chosen this specialty?

If you had all the information, would you choose the specialty that you're in?

You know, I would because I have my own practice and I love my practice and I love my patients, and I have. I have just a great situation. Family medicine in general is, you know, it's one of the lower paying specialties. And so, you know, that certain when I see some of my other colleagues, they've really, you know, they do have a lot of burnout. Because the reason we do family medicine is because we like people. And so then when you have a lot of administrative tasks and other things that bog you down, that can make it seem a lot less fun. So I don't know. I mean, I'm happy with my life. Look what I got.

Do you think dad would go the same specialty?

I don't know. Dad probably be a little unhappy no matter what he did, but just in.

General because that was the one he.

Liked the least or he disliked the least.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. What do you know about hair loss? Now we really gotta have dad on if we're gonna talk about hair loss.

Oh, that's mean. So are you talking about male pattern baldness?

Yeah.

So specifically for just, you know, like, it's in your family, you go bald with time.

Well, that's kind of the discussion. And so I had a friend, we'll call him Jared, he was like, my whole family is fine with their hair. They haven't had any issues whatsoever on his mom's side, on his dad's side, but he always wears a hat all the time. He's never not worn a hat. Pretty much 24 7. He always has a hat.

24 7. You mean he sleeps in a hat? Like a stocking cap? Or maybe he does sleeping cap. Like a Christmas Carol. Anyway, go on. But like your hat.

I don't know.

He wears a ball cap.

He wears a ball cap all the time. And he has this receding hairline. And now since he has a receding hairline, Then he keeps wearing a hat. But is the. Somebody told him one time, is the hat leading to the baldness?

I have not read reports of the hat leading to the baldness. I do think it's a little weird that he wears the hat all the time. I mean, I don't mean to be judging you. Okay. It's funny because. So that is sort of a chicken and the egg thing, just like Bailey's question last time, but because you do see people who are going bald, and they start wearing hats all the time, and so. But that's generally because they're going bald, and so that's why they wear it. Usually people who have a full head of hair want to show off their hair. I don't, but I find it hard to believe that a hat would really make your hair fall out.

Well, Thomas is my boyfriend, and he has this one hat that I really don't like him wearing, so I was really hoping that that would be the case. Oh, wait.

Thomas is Jared. No, Thomas isn't Jared.

Thomas. Okay, okay. Thomas is not Jared. But I was just trying to discourage the hat wearing.

Okay, well, I'm not about to put misinformation out there just so you can. Just so your boyfriend doesn't wear that ugly hat. The. The good news, though, about hair loss is there are some treatments that are.

That's what I was gonna ask about. I'm on toupee talk, and I always see these toupees.

Why are you on toupee talk? It's pretty good.

I don't know. If I find the person, I'll drop it in the description, but she's really good at doing these toupees. And it's a transition. It's this guy who has, like, a bald spa on his head, and then all of a sudden, she puts the toupee on, and then he looks 20 years younger.

That's true. That's. Yeah. So.

But besides toupees. Cause that's just a temporary fix. Right.

Well, I mean, it's just like wearing a wig, you know?

Right. Okay. But isn't there hair replacement therapy stuff?

Yeah, there are different options. I mean, there are things where, you know, basically they do plastic surgery, and because your hair growth is good back here, they kind of take off a piece of that and then put it.

Across here for the listeners, she means.

Oh, sorry. Yeah. Then we're on audio from the back.

Of your head to the.

The front of your head to the front of your head. So it's kind of a hair transplant, but it's transplanting your own, you know, your own hair. But there's also some other medications, and some of those really can be kind of helpful, and you can use. There's a couple of different ones that can be used together. So it's. At least. There are some treatments. The thing with a lot of those, though, is that some of them don't necessarily regrow so much hair, but they can prevent loss. So you do have to start on them earlier rather than later.

There's all these different sort of multivitamins that people say helps with.

Nah, that's not gonna work. Okay. I mean, unless you're vitamin deficient. If you're vitamin deficient, obviously. But just if you have enough of those vitamins, extra vitamins aren't gonna just grow a bunch of your hair.

Okay. Yeah. It's a whole other conversation.

Yes.

You said your new thing is being nice. How is that working out?

Yeah. Wait, when did I say that? She likes to say that she's gonna.

Do these new things. She said she was gonna be a hugger.

I was a hugger for a while there, but then Covid happened. So then I stopped hugging, and it actually was kind of good because I was kind of getting tired of it anyway. I think people can either be natural huggers or.

Or they're not natural huggers. And if you're not a natural hugger, I think it feels forced.

Yeah. But I think you could get used to it, and then everybody would expect the hug. I think the awkward thing that happens is when you see somebody and you don't know what you're gonna do. Are you gonna hug? Are you gonna shake hands? You're just gonna kind of say hi. But if you're a hugger or if you see one of those people who's a hugger, you know you're gonna hug, and then that takes away the awkward thing. Cause you know what's gonna happen. I was gonna be one of those people, and I did it for a while, and then it just got to be kind of a lot of work. So. Yeah.

So don't hug, Dr. Davis.

Nope. If you're a hugger, that's fine. Hug me. But then I was gonna be a tea drinker. I started that just a couple weeks ago, and I don't know. That's kind of fallen. I sort of forgot about that. But the being nice. Yes, I am gonna be nice. And it's. And it. It is nice. I have found that if, you know, if you're nice to people, other people are nice to you. Too.

Yeah.

That's kind of outside this golden rule.

Wow.

It's not just being nice. I mean, of course I'm always nice to the people I know and everything, but just sort of like being nice to people that you pass by on the street and holding the door open for people.

And you lived in Texas for, like, 30 years.

Like, 25. Yeah.

And you still haven't picked up on the whole Southern hospitality thing.

It's just not really. It just seemed a little unnatural to me. No. But I'm starting to.

I'm starting to get into it 25 years later. Okay.

But I'm going to New York this weekend, so I will definitely not make eye contact with anybody because, you know, you're not supposed to do that in New York.

I wanted to bring up that. So you got a lot of comments on TikTok of various people calling you a boomer and all this stuff. Then you got one comment of somebody saying, she's not actually a boomer, she's Gen X and she looks really good for her age. And it was your sister.

It was my sister, who's two years older than me. I just thought, that's funny. It was nice. I appreciate her coming to my defense. She's not a boomer. But then it was like. But she. And she looks really good for her age. I mean, I was kind of like, okay, but, yeah. So we want to know what other. What other content, what other questions that you have. Anything that we can, you know, answer for you. We're happy to do that.

Thanks for watching or listening, everybody. You can find us on TikTok. Look up Generations MG D. You can find Dr. Davis's Instagram @ParkCities PersonalPhysicians. And if you're in the Dallas area looking to become a patient with Dr. Davis, then look up pcpp.net on the interwebs and you can give us a call and we can talk about it. So thanks again for listening and watching. Let us know what you think in the comments below, and we'll see you next week. Bye, guys.

All right, bye.