I feel like we have a long list of things to teach him before he leaves!! But he will also learn as he goes along. Feel like we have a life lessons exam to cram for!!
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Day camp day 3 highlights:
- lunch was burgers, which D24 said were “meh,” but the sides were good so that made up for it.
- mostly lectures today. She fell asleep during the PT one.
- also a lecture from a psychiatrist. She said that was “eh, ok.”
- her favorite of today was the ER medicine presentation. They got to practice intubating a patient using medical dummies. She said, “It’s a lot harder than it looks. You have to get the angle of the mouth just right so you don’t put it down their esophagus.”
She very much prefers all the hands on stuff.
DH is quietly disappointed that she doesn’t want to pursue med school. But she has some well thought out reasons for not wanting to do that.
I think the LACs on the list which all have pretty great internship opportunities in health sciences will be a big plus.
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Lots to report on this evening. Holy cow. Here goes:
College List:
UNM & NMSU are in the spots at the bottom of the list just above ASU. UNM is 1 spot above dead last (ASU is dead last) because she said that the streets in Albuquerque just outside of campus, but surrounding campus are really dark and scary at night and she’d be too afraid to walk there even with a friend or buddy.
Dang it. I understand why. But those were cheap schools! My general impression is that NMSU is a safer community than Albuquerque. However, closest metro area to NMSU is El Paso (1 hr away) and El Paso looks like an ugly arm pit when you drive through it. The area around Las Cruces is pretty though.
Gonna have her look up info about Texas Tech and Guilford College.
On a different note, today was Day 4 of the summer scrubs day camp. Here’s today’s highlights from that (there’s a lot):
- She was only kid to volunteer to be the guinea pig for internal medicine doc doing ultrasound demos. She said everybody else was scared.
- As a result, she got to see her aorta, lungs, diaphragm, kidneys, and spleen.
- Lots of time in sim lab. Was taught how to draw blood from a patient and had to practice on a dummy. Said this was “cool” and “you could feel the vein under the dummy’s fake skin, it felt like a little tube and rolled a little bit.”
- Had to do CPR w/a lab partner on a dummy patient having a heart attack. The dummy talked and made noise, even vomiting sounds. Her lab partner did the chest compressions while she did the bag squeezy thing over the dummy’s nose & mouth.
- Got to dissect a cow’s eyeball. Said this was cool. Had to put on full protective gear from the waist up…arm coverings, an apron, goggles, mask, gloves. Also said, “It was cool when we cut into the eyeball and all the goo squished out.”
- Liked how the scrub pants have 8 pockets.
- lots of 2nd yr med students helping today. Lots of med students & doctors discussed what the whole going through med school, residency, fellowship is life. Lots of talk about total lack of work-life balance, how it’s hard seeing all of your non-med student friends get married, have kids, etc., while you’re still in school.
- Med students said they picked U of A because of 2 general reasons. The in-state students picked it because of the in-state tuition. The OOS students tended to be from CA, 1 of whom did get into a CA in-state med school, but picked U of A because the vibe was a lot better, not so cut throat, much more collaborative since U of A med school doesn’t rank anybody. (having lived in AZ for a long time now, I’d say that that general vibe description is pretty accurate…very libertarian, relaxed, you live your life how you want and I’ll live mine).
- D24 talked a lot this evening about wanting to get married in her 20s, not wanting to wait until she’s 35 to have kids, how she wants to be done w/grad school after a couple of yr.
And the whole time, my mom brain emotionally was doing this, “OMG WHAT THE HECK? SHE’S TALKING ABOUT GETTING MARRIED SOME DAY! I’M NOT READY FOR ALL OF THIS!” …while outwardly, I’m saying stuff like, “yeah, those are good points to consider!”
And then last night, she talked about how if she ends up marrying a Jewish or Muslim guy, she’s totally willing to give up pork.
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Love your summaries! Impressed by how much your daughter shares with you!
We thought about Guilford College since we are in NC and it is one of the colleges that change lives. They have had some financial issues in the past but may be beyond this. Probably good idea to double-check financial health. My son toured but wasn’t for him. Plus I think he wants to go out of state.
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I LOVE the flexibility of being a nurse. I worked as a RN right after I graduated college, then went back for my MSN to be a pediatric nurse practitioner. I was able to work as a PNP and nurse manager at a hospital. I was easily able to jump back into the workforce when I was ready after several years off to raise my littles. I went back to working as a RN in schools which I love. Then worked in case management the past four years. I am now starting a new gig in August back to school nursing at a small private school. There are so may paths in nursing. I have friends who work remotely and do telemedicine and insurance reviews, friends in hospitals, clinics, travel nurses, etc. It really is such a great field. My DH is a MD and D26 keeps talking about medicine and I am trying to steer her towards nursing over MD because of the flexibility, shorter time to start your career, and overall quality of life. We will see what she chooses.
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Where do the OOS students stay? I feel like my D26 would love a program like this. Do you have a link to the program website? It would be a trek as we are in MA but thinking she would really enjoy it next summer.
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Info about it at Summer Scrubs | The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix.
There’s a day camp and then a separate residential camp that’s during a different week. If you get a spot in the residential camp, then the kid lives in a dorm the whole week. If you get a spot in the day camp, then you provide your own lodging and housing and meals outside of the M-F 9 am-4 pm program each day.
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This program sounds amazing! How did you find it? My D27 would love something like this in a few years. She knows she wants to do something in the medical field.
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Thanks. I am realizing that the dates are way too early as in MA they do not get out until end of June 
I should have finished reading the thread…as I just asked the same question. I would love to find something like this in Boston! Although D27 wouldn’t mind going away for a program like this.
Our school counselor sent an email out in the January time frame of a bunch of different competitive summer programs for various disciplines and there were several on the list for medicine. She applied to some other ones but got turned down for those. For example, Tgen has a big building right next to the U of A College of Medicine building in downtown Phoenix and they have a competitive summer camp thing, too, going on this week. They also have a summer-long student biomed research assistant thing also (also a competitive application).
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I just found a program at Georgetown University. It sounds great, although $$$. But hopefully scholarships/financial aid.
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I think I was writing my last post when you answered Coastal, which answered my question. 
Also FYI for anybody’s younger kids who are interested in Pharmacy, Ole Miss has a week long residential camp during a couple of weeks during the summer and getting a spot there is not a competitive application. You just sign up and pay the fee. I think Samford University has something similar but theirs requires a competitive application.
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Thank you! That looks like a great program also and a bit closer. I’m going to keep it in my back pocket. D27 is a camp kid so will have to see how that pans out…as we certainly couldn’t do both. We have a few more years though.
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So get it! My son gets married in 2 months and 4 days! He and his fiancée are 24. He is in his 4th year of veterinary school and she will be between her first and second year of PA school! When she changed her mind on medical school and the plan to get married got sooner it was a bit of a shock! They are ready and have good plans so whatever way your daughter goes it will be okay!
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Well, SAT scores are out. He got 1150. Better than first time but not great. He will submit his ACT scores instead which are better based on the SAT/ACT concordance chart. His ACT superscore is 30 and the schools on his list that require test scores at least superscore. Glad to have standardized testing behind us with him.
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Best wishes to your son @momocarly.
It’s an exciting time!
@coastal2024 I wish I could convince S24 to take the ACT. He’s taking finals now so I am anxiously awaiting his score. Aiming for a certain score but from what I have read and have heard from other parents is that this seating was harder than March. We have decided he won’t take SAT again either way. We did an online 6 week course and if that didn’t help, it’s not worth the anxiety. I think all his schools are TO anyway.
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Mine did a 10 week 1:1 90 minutes/session and it barely helped him. One score went up but another went down so they cancelled each other out.
Our S24 didn’t get the score he was hoping for. May not take it again. His favorites are all test optional. He declined doing any prep work and was hoping SAT would look better based on PSAT scores. He had said he wanted to take it again if not score he wanted but not sure if it will be worth it if he doesn’t do any prep. The schools he is looking at have very low rates of test submission- as low as 15% for one of his favorites. Want positive mental health to be at forefront.
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