 What is up, YouTube? Today I'm coming at you with another video about why I went to med school. The reason I'm doing this video is because, A, you guys asked me a ton of questions about it, and B, I took kind of a circuitous path to get into medicine, so I wanted to kind of share it with you, and maybe if there are other people out there who are in similar shoes as I was, this might be helpful for them. Does that even make sense? Anyways, so let's talk about why I went to med school. Let's go. Okay, so before I start the video, I want to tell you about my friend's platform called MotivateMD. It was created by a fourth year med student, and essentially it's an entire platform devoted to helping pre-med students. They have a ton of different products on their website and their platform, but for right now I wanted to specifically talk about the pre-med app that they offer. It's an app that is completely designed to keep pre-med students on track with getting into med school. My favorite part of the app is something called Focus Timer. It allows you to set a specific goal for a specific amount of time, and it allows you to stay focused on studying or being productive for that certain amount of time. And for those of you applying to med school this year, MotivateMD also provides a personal statement review service and an all-encompassing acceptance package which pre-meds can actually afford. You can use my code chalini20, which I'll put right here. If you use this, you get 20% off everything we just talked about. You can also find the links to all this stuff in my description below, and make sure you use that code chalini20. Now, let's get back to the video. All right, so first and foremost, I want you guys to follow me on Instagram. I will put the link in the description, and also it is just at drchalini, and chalini is how you say my last name, so I'll link that here somewhere, drchalini, follow me on Instagram. All right, so since I told you guys I took a little bit of a circuitous path to get into medicine, I figured we'd go in and touch on that first. So I was actually a economics major in undergraduate university, and I wasn't even interested in medicine. I'd always kind of liked talking about medicine, and my older brother, who is a veterinarian now, he was always interested in medicine. My little brother, who is also a doctor now, was always interested in medicine, but I was actually the athlete of the family. So I was on scholarship, I was a swimmer at my university, and I wasn't really focused on school that much. For me, it was more of focusing on my athletic career, and I wasn't too concerned with schooling. I was pretty much exhausted day in and day out from training, going to multiple practices a day with weightlifting sessions in between, and school was kind of on the back burner for me. And because of that, I kind of like thought I was bad at school, because I never really put forth any effort to it. So fast forward, I ended up graduating undergrad with my degree, and I got a job working for a property manager group or a commercial real estate company where I grew up. So this was kind of my first experience in the corporate world, and let me just tell you, I was miserable. I was, pretty much every day I went to work, I was just like, I have to do something else. For me, I can't focus on meaningless work. It has to have some value or relevance to me. I can't just be doing mundane tasks to benefit a corporation. It just doesn't make sense to me. So after about a year or so working in the corporate world, I decided to take a look at if there are other jobs around my area. I ended up interviewing out a few jobs, and it was like all the same stuff. And what I eventually realized is, this just isn't for me. So I started doing some soul searching, and I knew my older brother and my younger brother were in medicine, and I've always kind of liked it, but I kind of thought, well, I wasn't smart enough to be a doctor. And eventually, I just started to explore those options of medicine. I started doing tons of research about med school and becoming a doctor and becoming a PA and becoming a physical therapist, basically anything in medicine. Ultimately, I sat down with my brother one day. We were actually, I'll never forget this day. My older brother and I were eating lunch, we were having a burrito, and I told him that I was thinking about going into medicine or some sort of medical career, but I didn't know what. And he looked at me, it was the first time he ever said this. He said, you have the ability to be a doctor, so why don't you just become one? And I was like, I guess he's probably right. So ever since that day, my brother told me that. I ended up just doing nonstop research about medical school and how to get into medical school. Eventually, the stars aligned. Eventually, my company wanted to move me to a different place about an hour away, which I was already sick of working there and I was already looking at going back to school to do all my pre-medical prerequisites. They told me this and I said, what's my alternative? And they said, well, we're gonna have to let you go if you don't take the job. And I was like, well, I guess I'm getting let go. So they kind of made my decision for me and it worked out perfectly. So I ended up moving back home with my mom at 22, 23 years old. And I took all of my pre-medical prerequisites in a what, two semesters plus a summer semester. So I had to take both biologies, both physics, both chemistries, both organic chemistries and I take the MCAT on that time period. So I did all those classes and everything in that short period of time, did well on every single class because it was the first time I've ever kind of studied in my life. And once I actually put forth effort, I was like surprised at how it wasn't that hard. Shocking, mind blowing, right? So in that time period, I actually was volunteering pretty significant amount in the ER and I was working at a level on trauma center and I was exposed to so much crazy trauma in a very bad part of town and it was just crazy. And they, I mean, to witness all that stuff as a pre-med student, it kind of like gets you excited and I knew this was a career for me. I also shattered an orthopedic surgeon around that time and a neurosurgeon as well in the OR and the stuff they were doing and watching them be able to just read through MRIs and recognize anatomy was probably, I didn't realize it at the time but that was probably one of the first times I was like, I wanna be able to scroll through an MRI and know exactly what I'm looking at. And here I am now. So I don't know if I said this yet but I took the MCAT in that time. I did pretty decent on it, good enough to land me at Gady and Med School obviously. And I actually applied for a job in New York City because all of my friends lived up in New York City. And in the meantime, I was like, well, I have this degree already and I was already working so I might as well use that in New York City, hang out with my friends until I get into Med School. So I ended up applying for a job up in New York City, moved up to New York City and as soon as I got to New York City, I received an acceptance letter that I got into Med School. And it was kind of awkward because I literally just took that job and then I had to tell my boss like, oh, by the way, I'm gonna have to leave in like nine months to be out of Med School. But luckily, I told her up front and she was cool with it and she let me stay at the job. So it was actually a pretty good experience. I'd have to get a good solid nine or 10 months of a good, you know, decent salary as a corporate person again. But you know, I knew I was going to Med School so it didn't matter that time. So the other question I get all the time is, was it worth it? And for me personally, 100%. I mean, if you had to put me back in that office again, I don't know what I would do. I would just like figure out a way to make YouTube videos every day or like something because that is just not the life for me. Some people can do it and they're fine with it. It's steady every weekend off, which is nice. And you get a solid paycheck and get some pension and get out of there. But I just couldn't do mundane stuff every day, day in and day out. That's just not me. I've never lived back since I got into Med School and now into residency. I've kind of had a unique experience where I've seen both sides of it. I hear a ton of people in medicine say that, oh, I should have done corporate law or oh, I should have been a CEO of some big company. But like the reality is it's not that much better. They still work just as hard. CEOs of major companies are, they're working, okay? They're working a lot more than a doctor does. I personally don't feel that there is another job that's as rewarding as medicine is and that's why I went into Med School to begin with and I have never looked back since that day. Now don't get me wrong, there are tough times in certain days and residency is tough and it's long and you have to put in a ton of work to get where you are. But at the end of the day, as I always say, if you've seen on my previous video, nothing easy is worth a damn. So that's all I got. If you have any questions, leave a comment below. If I liked it, I'll respond to it. Make sure you follow me on Instagram, like I said at the beginning of the video. I post some pretty cool cases throughout the week. Otherwise, I will see you guys on the next video.