I met with Dr. Rodriguez on Wednesday, October 5 to discuss my pre-med track. This was my second meeting with Dr. Rodriguez ever, and my first in-person. Since I only was able to meet with her for half an hour, we did not have much time to discuss everything I had hoped to, but I hope to meet with her again over the semester to discuss further what a career in health would look like for me.
We began the meeting by talking about my science classes from last year and the my classes this year. As a pre-med student, I have been keeping up with my requirements, and we were able to get through this quickly. We then discussed my career interests. We talked about how I’m interested in research surrounding development and learning and how I’m also interested in training to become a headache specialist to help other migraine patients. However, I expressed how I’m having a difficult time trying to figure out which I’m most interested in and that I should focus my time at Wesleyan on preparing for. Dr. Rodriguez suggested that as I am getting involved in research this year, I’m setting myself up nicely to figure out if that is what I want to do. She also pointed me toward resources where I can find clinical research opportunities over the summer so that I can experience a bit more of what I could expect as a doctor/researcher.
I also asked her advice on how I should approach the health professions as a student with chronic migraine. As someone who is almost constantly in a state of pain and who needs a rigid schedule to stay on top of her symptoms, the training and life of a doctor is a bit intimidating to me. Although I have watched interviews and even talked to a few headache specialists who also have migraine and manage to be full-time professionals, I know that my condition is quite severe. I do have hope that I can get my attacks under control, but at times, like now, when they feel completely out of my control, I sometimes don’t know if it’s really worth it for me to sink so much time and money into something as daunting as med school if it’s not physically feasible for me. After listening to my concerns, Dr. Rodriguez advised me to look into PA programs. Although she said she supports me in whichever path I choose, she knows that PA programs are less rigorous and their work-life balances are much better than those of medical students and doctors. I aim to do a bit more research on how I could still have the impact that I wish to as a headache specialist if I were to go the PA route.
Our meeting was cut at 30 minutes since Dr. Rodriguez had another advising meeting after me, but I think that I learned quite a lot from our brief time talking. I aim to look more into summer clinical opportunities and PA programs, and I look forward to meeting with her again later in the semester.
