 Boom, what's up, everyone? Welcome to Simulation. I'm your host, Alan Sakyan. We are on-site in Sioux Falls, South Dakota now. Very excited to be sitting down with Dr. Elizabeth Hague. We are going to be talking about mastering the MCAT. I'm super excited. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, thanks for inviting me. And we have a lot to discuss, and there's so much nuance to this, but then there's also a cool background that we're dealing with, with Elizabeth's. She's an associate professor of biology at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, and also a PhD at Northwestern University in Chicago prior to that in biology and developmental biology and so in the last four years as the project manager at ADAPT-PREP, preparation for the MCAT. And that is extremely important because so many people want to pursue being a doctor, and how do we leverage the right sort of technologies to help people become doctors, make it people that have lower socioeconomic status. How do they enter into becoming a doctor? How do we make it more accessible with the degrees of freedom, enabling people to do what they want with their time in their lives, and then also with the transition in 2015 to the difference with adding psych and so and the cars, critical analysis and reasoning skills. Yeah, I'm impressed. I'm impressed. Good job. Thank you. We've got a lot to talk about. Very excited. So let's start with you. Let's talk about how did you become so fascinated with biology? Who were you when you were younger and how did this sort of come up? Okay, yeah. You know, I think I liked school overall. So I loved my French classes. So growing up in Canada, we learned French. I went to a private school early on and so that's kind of weird that I didn't go into more with that, but I didn't see the practical side of things, which sounds kind of maybe kind of silly, but loved history classes as well. I think in high school, I got the history award. I didn't get the biology award. I got the history award, but there was something achievement based in science that really kind of fed my inner joy, if you will. And so when it came time to choosing a profession someday, you know, I thought, oh, maybe I'll be a doctor or a medical doctor when I'm done with college. So I went into college thinking I would be premed. Yeah. And that kind of spurred me on into a biology track. Took a totally different curve than premed for myself personally. But yeah, now you're get to help thousands of kids around the world. Yeah, that's my goal. Yes. Yes, with becoming doctors. Now, and I and I would like to clarify is the is and we can get more into this later, but then is adapt prep is it also looking to figure out how to help people around the world outside the United States? Good question. So the MCAT varies. Canada, the Canadian MCAT and the American MCAT very similar. But you go to Australia or you go to Europe and you're going to get just a slightly different variety of the MCAT. I think there's one of theirs is called the maybe the GMAT even. But yeah, absolutely would love to help globally and especially individuals who you know, don't have that money to pay for some of the bigger companies. I'll call them the big box stores for MCAT prep materials and being able to afford that and to get the competitive edge that way. For those people who can't afford that, I would love to offer them this tool that, of course, in my opinion, which might be biased, but in my opinion is going to give just as much, if not more quality software to help them prepare for the MCAT. I want to give them access to this tool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I want I'm excited to talk about the the global side of this and the socioeconomic side of this soon and further into the conversation. It's interesting that you you know, when we first met and shout out to Garrett, thanks for introducing us. Yes, you shout out now. Now, what's the when we first met, you said that you were most fascinated with teaching and that you loved when when the students would learn. And we started talking about like the difference between having knowledge just, you know, gained inside of you versus being able to actually teach other people that knowledge in relatable ways and get their perspective augmented. That's like really important intelligence to have. Yeah. So tell us about that because now it's been 12 years for you professing. Yeah. Yeah. You know, even I know before when we were chatting about it, I didn't so much mention this yet, but there's always been this teaching vibe in me. So the way that I afforded to go to college was to be a lifeguard and a swimming lesson teacher. So that's that's how I earned my shackles for that. And so there was always this kind of teaching thread there. And then in graduate school, I mean, I got a 4.0 in graduate school. But my passion wasn't so much in acquiring the knowledge. I mean, I enjoyed that it the achiever in me loved it. But my my joy was most abundant when I was a TA a teaching assistant in graduate school. And so listening to that in me is is really what made me decide, okay, yeah, I could be a research professor. But my joy comes from teaching others. So I'm going to pursue more of a teaching professing role versus a research role. And also this this ability to realize that you can be really, really smart. But if you can't translate that to others, if you can't share your intelligence. Oh, in my opinion, it decreases the value a little bit. If your knowledge isn't transferable. Definitely, it loses some some value. Yeah, not to say that it's not valuable. But for me, the most value in my knowledge comes from sharing it with others. I guess that's one way to put it. Yeah, there's a couple things there. The sort of first thing you touched on was this, the translational like the application of research to the world. Yeah, that's becoming more and more critical through people that we interviewed that are scientists. They're like thirsty to have. And that's awesome. Yeah. Right. And I mean, there's that problem solving sorry to cut you off. I want to hear what you have to say about this. Yeah, that that problem solving and that investigation is fascinating. I'm not saying that I don't value that. But my passion wasn't there. I think my passion I became the most alive when I was teaching others transferring that knowledge. But yeah, research is fascinating. There was I don't know if you saw my Facebook page. There was just a case of a girl who or a young woman who was able to regain sight because of gene therapy. And so there's so many useful science projects going on right now that it's it's pretty fascinating to watch. And so my hope is yeah, I probably won't ever well, I won't create say a research project that will solve someone's, you know, medical issues. But maybe I can play a part by helping people from a from a greater array from a more diverse population to cultivate their passion to pursue medicine. Some of them might even pursue research, maybe MD PhD type students as well, and bring them to the table that normally wouldn't come to the table and help them transfer their knowledge in ways that would be useful to a greater population. Yeah, I love thinking about what different cultures from around the world will bring to the global collective knowledge base once they have the full potential to bring their like their culture and heritage principles to specific fields that are emerging. So yeah, so that translational was super important that you brought up. And then within this whole idea of intelligence, because we've now had this is just such a blessing that we after these billions of years of evolution have this what's a pinnacle potentially of humans now taking stewardship of this planet. Sure. And so now it's become what is that intelligence? Is that intelligence? If it's just baked within you, then okay. But really being able to pass it on in relatable ways to augment other people's perspectives is so valuable to to the next generations to have them be better stewards and whatnot. So I'm really happy that we that we chatted specifically about that as well. I want to know, because this is really important, we like asking this to people that are professing, because when there's so much to gain from your experience over a dozen years of like, what have been some of these key takeaways for you with teaching to students that that you think would be really important to teach about right now. To teach about to other professors or to teach about that's a good question. Yeah, people watching. I would like to hear both. Yeah, to just to normal like audience of like, this is just this is what's been really interesting about about being a professor. But also to potentially like, yeah, what can help other people become better teachers as well? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Great question. And I think not enough people ask that question, you know, as a new when I was a new professor, I tried to do a lot of reading of what does make a great professor. And there's not a ton out there. In fact, one of the first books I I read or one of the first articles I read talked about, well, the really good teachers are so busy teaching that they're not writing articles about being good teachers. Yeah, so it's awesome to have someone like you asking these questions. Now, for for me personally, what I've seen is if you anchor new knowledge to current knowledge, that's the best way you're going to retain it. And and when I'm when I'm saying that it that's more like factual knowledge type of stuff. It's not so much thinking out of the box being a creative, you know, new knowledge developer, it's more okay, how do you learn what's already out there. And with that, with my students anyways, if you anchor it to something they already know, it's going to make it more. I don't know, it's worth more connectable. Yep. The the example that pops into my head every year for microbiology that I teach, we learn about the lack operon. I'm going all science geeky on you. So what is that again? Yeah, yeah. So the the lack operon, it's a series of genes within bacteria that help them process lactose as an energy source. And so in our microbiology class, we look at that lack operon to say, how does a cell something as simple as a bacteria cell know when to turn certain genes on and off. And I equated that to me wanting a Jeep someday. And what the limiting factors are, and what the promoting factors are in me attaining this Jeep someday. And so it would be well, incurring bills would be a limiting factor if I spend money on other things. Yeah, that would limit things like that. You know, this is usually like a 20 30 minute class. So I won't I won't too much. I see where you're going. Okay, so it's in order for the biological process to commence, you need certain certain things present in the environment to make gene transcription happen. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And that would be the same thing with you wanting to get a car, which is a very relatable example for students who are wanting to earn a vehicle or whatever that may be. Yeah. Yeah. Or we can talk about enzymes and dating services. So Oh, that's so cool. See, this is like this is good science communication practices. Yeah, yeah, because they can relate to or they understand. Okay, here are these two people that out in society, they might come together and form this product of a couple. But if there's a dating service, and they both are attracted to that dating service, it's going to be more likely that they find each other. And this and again, this is right up the alley of, you know, 18 to 21 year olds and how does that relate to enzymes? So how that relates to enzymes is that, you know, there's certain substrates or chemicals that can come together and form a different product. But the enzymes presence is going to speed that reaction. It's going to make it more likely that those two substrates come together. It's catalyzing like the app is a catalyzing. Yeah, like the dating app would be a catalyzing agent. And that they're like, Oh, yeah, we get that. We get that. That makes sense. Interesting. Yeah. I love these relatable science communications. They're so good. Yeah, they're so good. There's so many of them. Okay, so that's a huge principle in teaching and professing is making things relatable to like to the generation where they're at currently. Yeah, and that gets tough, right? So when I first started teaching at the college level, I was only 26. And I was more in that timeframe with those students. And now as I approach my 40s, sometimes it's like, Oh, I think this is really cool. And my students are kind of like, yeah, you know, well, you are you because our grade is in your hands. So to stay on top of that as well. Yeah, is kind of a cool thing. So then it's interesting that a professor would then need to be keeping up with the newest technology trends and what the collegiate students are using in order to try and make the science relatable at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like what kind of things intrigue them, you know, right now, I've got a 13 year old son and he loves fortnight. Yeah. And so when he's a college student someday, and I'm hoping my observations of fortnight are gonna, you know, come come to value for me in some kind of connection. Yeah. So let's let's talk about MCAT. Sure. Because, you know, you were you taught me about this earlier, and it was really interesting learning about this from you that in to first of all, there's the AAMC, the Association of American Medical Colleges. Yeah. Yeah. And they make them cat every year. Yeah. Okay. And then that and that's for just the United States and there's one for and for Canada as well. Yeah. And then there's differences for ones in Europe or Australia, China, Asia, Middle East, where people have different medical. That's my understanding. Entrances. Yeah. Yeah. But they kind of follow some similar scientific principles of biology, chemistry, physics. Yeah. Okay. Now, now this is what got interesting is in 2015, there was this additional of cars. Yeah. So then a quarter of the test became cars, which is critical analysis and reasoning skills. Reasoning skills. And then which is really important because that's basically like parsing information and taking key takeaways from it. And then psychology and sociology became a quarter of it. And then the other quarter is the biology, chemistry, physics stuff. The other half is that. Yeah. So so then that gave ADAPT-PREP now, where you're a PM at that gave ADAPT-PREP kind of it's a it's an ability to kind of come in there and say, oh, well, now that there's this new addition, we can come in there and and provide this assisted the software that assists with learning. That is $200 versus like you were pointing at earlier. The $1,500 plus course. Yeah. You got it. Yeah. So now, yeah, tell us about like the this MCAT-PREP. And you know, your tag is, you know, mastering the MCAT, which is, you know, it's beautiful. And it's again, it's a low cost, but you provide more than the high cost. So it's like, it's hard to, you know, how do you give people? Yeah. How do you, well, and trust is such a big thing, I think, too. Like how, how do you get people to believe, hey, this is a quality product, even though it may not have that super big price tag of some of these other big box stores, if you will. And, you know, hopefully with time and students talking to other students to say, hey, this really does work. That's how it's going to propagate among pre-med students. And, you know, I've even seen a couple, there's a couple schools that we have arrangements with. I won't name drop just for, you know, I don't know if it's legality issues or what not. But to, to hear back from them, yeah, our MCAT scores are increasing using this software. And it's pretty cool. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. So it's, it's having an impact. Yeah. And that brings me joy, too, because there's nothing worse than doing something, for me, anyways, than doing something that has no value, right? Yeah, that's no value. Yeah. But so the, the premise of all of this is that students are paying for their undergraduate classes, right? They're taking the physics class. They're taking the chemistry classes, the biochemistry classes. And yet there's this mindset out there. And I don't know if it's like a, you know, a marketing thing that has happened over the years where, oh yeah, you did all these college classes, but now you have to take this other course and relearn everything. And I could see with, with some of my colleagues, they're like, no, we do a good job in the classroom. You shouldn't have to relearn everything. And I would agree with them on that sense to kind of cultivate this idea of you don't have to relearn everything because that's not the best use of your time. Now, what is time? No, just kidding. Yeah. Yeah, no. I love asking that question. I know you don't, we won't go there, but, you know, the best use of their time is having had these college courses or these university courses. And then instead of relearning everything, figure out what you learned well and figure out maybe what you didn't learn well. Maybe, you know, maybe it was because you didn't cover that in some of your classes or maybe you didn't learn it as well as you thought or retained it as well as you thought. And so that's where Adapt Prep comes in. And as a student takes practice exams, they can kind of assess, did I learn things well enough? Where am I weak? Or where did I learn things incorrectly? Right? Yeah. Because you don't, you don't know that you don't know something until you get it wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's, that's where this comes alongside. And then instead of, you know, instead of reading this textbook and that you already know 80% of, you want to focus on that 20% that you don't know so well. And that's where you're going to get the biggest bang for your buck as far as investing time into MCAT preparations is review that 20% or learn that 20% because you already know this. Yeah. Why, why keep going over that? Yeah. But that's where people are comfortable, right? I mean, I do it all the time too. It's, it's, I'm going to teach stuff in my classroom and put stuff on my syllabus that I'm really confident I know things about. And as, as someone prepping for the MCAT, you can't stay in your favorite areas. Totally. Because you're going to get this stuff on the test too. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's a, that's a very valuable principle for life in general is that Pareto principle of that, especially for something like an MCAT that there, you have this sort of like 80% understanding of certain materials and that feels good. And then this other 20% you basically need to focus 80% of your time on the 20% of the material you don't know. And then slowly work your way into having a more well rounded. And so this is like the adaptable MCAT where you're, you're in a certain field of study like biology and you may not know certain things. So you're adapting the questions to become more and more difficult with them over time. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. So yeah, it's part of the basis of the software then you take a, so there's four sections on the MCAT and you could start out just working on one section if you wanted to. You take a full length exam, which is about 90 minutes. The MCAT in total is about a seven and a half hour exam. So it's, it's pretty crazy, but so crazy. Yeah. So you can take, you can take a full length exam and, and we start you off relatively easy. And that's, that's something I, I still kind of question of maybe we need to start people off really difficult. But our scale of earned level, so the scale of difficulty is one to 10. And we give students an exam starting off at level three. And based on how they do on that first exam, the next exam they take will either be more challenging or less difficult. Yeah. That way we can meet the student where they're at and then help them go to where they need to be. Yeah. Yeah. And so that the software is going to adapt according to that level of difficulty for them. Yeah. Yeah, that, that, that process of adapting is a, it's a closed loop feedback system. And that's seems to be a huge aspect of, of the future in terms of technology and adaptability of, of, of information, dissemination and knowledge gaining slowly building up over time. Yeah. So how this, this is a big database. This is like 1200 or so questions. Yeah. The cars, the car section has 1200 questions in it. And then we have about 1200 in the chemistry, biochemistry section or chemistry, physics, biochemistry. And then 1000 each in biology, biochemistry and psych and social. And we're constantly working on. So one of my roles as project, I'm project manager. So trying to coordinate and disseminate that that we exist. But my other role is a content writer. So we're constantly adding content to the question bank, which is kind of fun. It keeps me learning. So yeah, yeah, there's new, new and new and more new, yep, to continue adding and making the questions non biased and non leading and also the kind of stuff. Yeah. And, and there's definitely a language of how AMC writes their questions on the MCAT, that sometimes, you know, someone who's writing for AMC may not take as academic approach as maybe I would. And so that's been great for my own teaching experience to realize there's different ways to get at whether this person has this knowledge. And I might ask a question a certain way because that's been my training, whereas somebody else with slightly different training will ask, you know, it's getting to the same end point, but with a different question. So, so for me, for me, not only am I working on developing this software content, but I'm also learning how to be a better teacher at the same time, which is pretty cool. That was a lot of babbling. I love that. I love that right there. That was so good, because it's so true is that that is a good way to become a better at whatever you're doing in life is to be looking at the tip of the industry and the cutting edge of the industry and then bringing it into the dissemination, the best ways of disseminating. And that is again, that's like storytelling. That's, you know, you have to decide on whether something is going to be a multiple choice or a short answer or a long answer written. That's all very difficult. And that's like life skills, right? So it's it's beyond just the MCAT. It's these are these are skills that these individuals will take into the rest of their life of, okay, I've got this knowledge. But in the classroom setting, I'm, I'm being asked the question in this way. In the medical setting, I'm probably going to be asked in a different way, but still needing that knowledge. So can I decipher the way or can I even anticipate the way I'm being asked or even assess? Hey, you're asking that different than when I was tested on it. Do I still know what you're talking about and get the answer? Yeah, because there's like, there's a big difference between knowing an answer to a question versus seeing the question and answer in a real life scenario, and then needing to add some sort of knowledge from another domain to it, or, you know, that's kind of the critical analysis and reasoning that you have to do to make a decision. Yeah, you know, you see this piece of writing that might not even be, well, probably it won't be from your field of expertise, it'll be from dance or history or what not. And you have to reason within the text and also reason beyond the text. And we want doctors to do that, right? Totally. Because you're not going to have the typical textbook patient every time. Exactly. And if you if if you have that patient, or if I'm the patient and you know, my doctor's like, Oh, well, you don't check all the boxes, like in my textbook for this. I don't want that kind of doctor. I want someone who can, okay, this and this. So maybe this. Yeah. It's it's at times there's a protocol. And then at times it's figuring out how to potentially do things off protocol that are actually much better for the scenario at hand. And you want to be agile, but also be be on protocol as needed as well. So it's kind of like, adaptability, adaptability. We had, we had a Dr. Robert Lustig on our show. And he's a pediatric endocrinologist. And so when we're when we're talking to him, he was he was very upset at how the physicians are now having this, instead of doing eye to eye with patient, it's like eye on computer screen, doing electronic medical record right while, yeah, instead of the bonding. Yeah. And so I'm curious to hear what your perspective is there. And like, what's going on with the MCAT related to electronic medical records and stuff like that? Yeah, that's a good question. So a couple of things there. Fortunately, there's been some problem solving, I think. So there's been entrepreneurs that have come in and developed what's called a medical scribe. So there's several different companies across the US. Yeah, we was what I told him, by the way, I was like, we're we're going to just really quickly be able to enter in the audio into text and fill in the or that too. Yeah, yeah. So one company that will give a shout out to M. Modal, M. Modal is one of the scribe companies. I think there's another one scribe, scribe America or something, where oftentimes there's there's students who will take a year off between undergrad and medical school or a couple years off, and they'll be a medical scribe and what they do is they're the ones at the computer for these physicians. Now, most of the hospitals that have medical scribes are typically the bigger hospitals that you're not probably going to see a scribe at a rural hospital. But I think that's that's starting to solve that issue, because I would agree if you're not looking at that person, you're you're you're losing a ton of communication. Yeah, yeah, emotional relatability. Yeah, non verbal cues, non verbal cues, all this kind of stuff. And then and then it's interesting. So then these companies that you were listening that are doing the scribe, that they're they're they're they're doing audio to text. And then you have to look at the text afterward. Is that what they're doing? No, what they're actually doing is they're training individuals to sit in the hospital or the clinical room with the doctor and parse for the key points and write them down. Oh, they're typing they're doing that. Yes. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Oh, cool. So so then the physician is having the one on one and the scribe is filling in the health record. You got it. Oh, that's that's very interesting. Yeah. So that that that's kind of one of those things where someone had a great idea. That's a good solution. Yeah, that's a good solution. I also think that soon we'll be able to go directly from audio to text and have that text input into the health record. So it'll be like a parser for the for the audio to text, which is basically what the scribe is doing. They're the parser. Yeah. Yeah. And then the doctor can go back and make sure and look at it afterwards to say, Okay, did you really translate what I was saying? And then there's always this other I mean, there's so many facets to to being in a in a clinical setting with a patient because then you wonder what's going to happen with insurance and liability cases, right? It's like, well, we've got your audio right here. You know, is that going to scare people away from the health care profession? I don't know. Oh, yeah. That's that's another that's a whole other tangent, right? Yeah. Oh, man, that's a really interesting point though, is that we're approaching the end of privacy in many ways. And so if I if that that is a HIPAA compliant medical safe zone and if that audio is now being leaked into wherever else. Right. About my yeah, or does it make and so not only HIPAA kind of privacy issues, but does that make the physician even more? What's the word I'm looking for? Cautious in their treatments or in their diagnosis, it's like, oh, my goodness, is this going to come back and haunt me? Whoa. Yeah. So there's a lot of there's a lot of things to think about and worry about becomes on on so much pressure. They're on a lot of pressure and everything becomes described. Everything becomes written down what the so everything's being analyzed on what they're recommending, how they're recommending it and what dosages to what patients to what etc. Like, you know, the which protocols are they following for what? It's like that's starting to be interesting. So you see, sorry, you see a good side to that, right? Because totally as a patient. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's going to make me feel more confident because if this doctor screws up, I've got record of it. That's right. And maybe hopefully, you know, going the more optimistic route, this is going to allow or enable physicians to be more accountable, right? Yeah, because it's like, I better be on my game every time because it's getting recorded. Whereas if it's not, can I, you know, can I become a little less cautious? We're seeing that exact same thing happening with police officers now because the cameras. Yeah, so that's true. You can't, yeah, can't potentially be overly aggressive and hurting people that are not committing crimes and whatnot. And all this different type of stuff. But shout out to all of the good police officers and firefighters and physicians and physicians that are keeping good care of humanity. I want to also follow up on that optimistic route with physicians and AIs because I have a I have a strong feeling as well that potentially where we could go with the end of privacy could be a very good place with transparency that what about your biometrics really needs to be needs to stay hidden from the rest of of humanity? Yeah, because as long as all of these nodes of individuals that have all their biometrics are opened, the data side, no data siloing is great, then we can have the best possible ways of treating each other and making sure we stay in the best health possible. And also with physicians on their side is that them having total transparency with the way that they're prescribing certain remedies and whatnot and making diagnoses can then be more easily data can be analyzed on those things. And then we can see who's doing the best, why they're doing the best, how we can help other people do better. Actually, yeah, there's a lot more data database treatment, like, okay, the data really does show that this is this is happening well. I don't have you watched the movie Gadica? Yeah, yeah. So it's starting to really sound like we're approaching this Gadica totally reality, especially with gene sequencing and things like that. And so while we have these amazing tools that we're developing, I think it's always a good idea. Just take a step back once in a while and say, okay, we're developing this to be used for good. But what's the bad that could be a consequence of this? And just to be careful about that. And then how do we ensure that that bad doesn't come to fruition? That's right. Yeah. And so going back to the MCAT, that's where I'm excited that in 2015, there's now this psychology and sociology aspect to the MCAT, because it's requiring premed students to have some background in psychology and sociology. You know, they didn't necessarily have to have any psych or social going into med school years ago. But really, that's that's a big part of being a physician is being able to understand beyond the physical to be being able to understand the psychology that we maybe, you know, don't necessarily have those litmus tests for. Yeah. That's a huge addition in 2015. Absolutely. I'm so happy that it did happen. Yeah. And then the cars. Yes. Those additions were huge. When you taught me about them, I was like, whoa, that's great. Like that's a huge advancement in the right direction. And we'll see. I mean, I think there may be another one of those advancements that happened into the MCAT in the next couple of years with artificial intelligence. Yeah. I don't know. We don't know. Interesting. Yeah. And then we'll have physicians learning better about how machines learn and how machines can help with the medical processes. Right. Right. Well, and that's kind of what our software does in a way to the AI that's built into our software. It's, you know, the students are hopefully learning from our software, but the software is also learning based on their performance with our questions and adapting the question bank to the user, which is pretty cool. That's one of the most crucial aspects about these closed loop adaptive technology platforms that exist that is, I think, catalyzing much more success in the dissemination of these complex sciences and experiences to people that can go out and become their best in the field. Yeah. Now, let's talk a bit on SES and socioeconomic status because this is so crucial. We were democratizing the cost of these products down, down, down, down, which is enabling more and more people to pursue I hope so, yeah. with economic freedom. Yeah. Yeah. This is great because you're down to 200 now. Yeah. That's the cost. Yeah. So fortunately, so it would be my boss, the owner of Adapt Prep MCAT, he's very on board with this philosophy of, hey, not only are we going to help students do well on the MCAT, we're also going to help students who may be in a lower socioeconomic class be able to afford this competitive edge that some other individuals get. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know where I was going with that, but I'm happy that that is, like that has to be baked into the morals and ethics of the organization in order for other people to actually reap the fruits of, there's like, there's so much research that points to the more and more that investment of financial rewards go into production, into democratization, into making more economic degrees of freedom for other people that the better a society is and that the more that it goes into hoarding and whatnot, the worse the society gets. Yeah. So it's kind of like, it's interesting that it's always been like that. History has always been showing that principle. And so to have it baked into your morals and ethics, that that is such a crucial investing back into the production to make it more available to more people. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, while this is just a microcosm of the big picture, right, we're helping students prep for the MCAT, but maybe, so this is like dreaming big, right, maybe we're also having an impact on healthcare as a whole because if we can help or enable more students from a diverse background show that or demonstrate that they are ready for med school and that they're fully capable for and they've got that high MCAT score now, get them into healthcare, that diversity is going to improve healthcare. Yeah. We were talking about that at the beginning as well as that the more of the cultural and heritage that comes from around the world to solve some of these challenging problems, the more of these different philosophies and techniques that we can explore and pursue to actually come to solutions to the pressing problems. Absolutely. Yeah. And there's some great books out there, the one that comes to mind and I'm kicking myself because I can't remember the author, but it was The Spirit Catches The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down or The Spirit Catches Me and have you, have you heard of that one? I don't think so. It's a fascinating book. I used to have my anatomy and physiology students read it and because it brings in all these different facets from treating an individual. Yeah. And it tells the real the true story of this Hmong refugee family out in California and how they were, they had an epileptic daughter and she went to receive medical treatment for her seizures and the American medical approach was so different than the cultural heritage in treating this individually. You know, culturally in the Hmong population from my understanding anyways is that at the time epileptic individuals were seen or are seen as shaman. You know, very, very wise and something spiritually gifted. And so you don't necessarily want to end the seizures. Whereas from an American medical perspective, it's like, no, you have to be on all these different medications. Let's, you know, this is our goal. And so to see these two, dare I say opposite, kind of polar approaches and how they butted heads. Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah, it's fascinating. Yeah, that's the that's the interdisciplinary understanding of medicine. Yep. Yeah. And then a social worker comes into that picture. And really, you know, she could see, it was an American social worker. So she could see the perspective, the cultural perspective of the American medical professionals. But then she got to know these people themselves. And it ended up being, yeah, it's a fascinating story. I won't ruin the end of it. You should ruin the end of it. Ruin the end of it for you. You should teach us the end because so many people won't read it or watch it. And so that's why I always say it's not even ruining, it's sharing so that people can kind of shortcut if they need it. If they need to, yeah. Well, I mean, so it ended up being that this unfortunate, I shouldn't say fortunately, unfortunately, this woman who was, or this girl who was struggling with seizures had a grand mal seizure. So one that put her into a vegetative state. And so now the medical professionals, there's not much more they can do. And the family's approach was so optimal that this girl lived into, I think she was like 21, 22, maybe even older when she passed away. And the medical professionals were just blown away by that because a typical patient of theirs that had that same experience just lacks in the follow-up care from their family members or from the, you know, maybe the convalescence home that they get put into or I guess it wouldn't be convalescence at that point. But that this woman's life was as long as it was because of the quality of care that her family gave her. And so, and you know, when she was still struggling with seizures, the hospital professionals were like, no, you guys are, excuse my language, idiots, what are you doing? But they were caring for their daughter as best as they knew how. Yeah. And so, yeah, seeing you read this book and at one point you're ticked off at the medical professionals and at the other point you're ticked off at the, you know, the family. And then you're ticked off at the infrastructure that is child protective services because they ended up taking this kid away from her parents. And that's when she had her biggest seizure actually. And so there's, it's just this conglomeration of real life messiness. Yeah. Yeah. The interdisciplinary approach and that's something interesting for physicians as well that are going through the process of aspiring medical students to become doctors because, and even for, yeah, existing doctors, existing professors, existing students across basically any discipline is that having a multidisciplinary approach to whatever we are practicing, it opens our perspective to adding in some of the, oh, well, what is the culture, this culture that is literally present for me? How do they feel about what's going on right now or what does someone of high or low SES or this religion or that religion or this skin color, that skin color? Why do those things matter in building out a complex nuanced perspective on every single issue around us? I'm glad you brought up that interdisciplinary because that's so important to, especially as you go to attempt to master the MCAT, what is so important is, again, that's why you added this psych and social, that's why you're adding critical reasoning and analysis skills. Because you don't want a doctor, well, in my opinion anyways, you don't want a doctor that absolutely, I mean, to some extent, follows the protocol to a T because that protocol isn't going to fit every individual. So we really want to recruit people to the profession who know the protocol but who are, throw out adaptability again, who are adaptable enough that they can adapt to the situation, they can adapt to that person. Going back to the whole medical records and scribing and stuff like that, that doctor really needs to be in tune with who's in front of them in order to fully grasp how to treat them. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Maybe in the future on the, on mastering the MCAT, there will be a portion of like emotional intelligence where they'll have to like look at the different complex facial expressions. Sure. Well, it's funny you say that because in the last two years, and I don't know enough about this realm to speak maybe adequately about it, but there's a new test that health profession schools are requiring as part of their admittance test. I think it's called CASPA. First time I heard of it, I thought CASPA. No, maybe it is CASPA actually. CASPA might be the the centralized application service for physicians assistant. So all these acronyms in my head, but yeah, yeah. So CASPA is this kind of this moral and ethical type test for individuals who are applying to PA school or a couple med schools that I know my students have applied to have used it as well. They already are getting into that of are you ethical? And again, what does ethical mean, right? Yeah. Because there's no protocol for that. There's a lot of different opinions on what is an ethical decision. But our society's trying to create tests that will measure that. And again, that's where diversity is going to be so critical because you need that diverse input of what is ethical. Yeah. Yeah. Whoa. We may be entering like more like emotional intelligence and ethical intelligences in the decision making. I love hearing that because that's that creeping into our political and economic and scientific infrastructures is critical. Absolutely. To prosperity. But again, it all depends on who's defining what's ethical. Yeah. Yeah. I think on a very a strong collective intelligence there is super important. So what else closing out? What else should we know about mastering the MCAT that maybe that you've learned that a DAP prep is providing? Like what else is really important that we may not have touched on? You know, I've talked about it so much in so many different situations. I always forget what I've shared and what I haven't. But earlier when I mentioned the 80 percent versus 20 percent. So really learning about yourself to say where do I need to put the effort in? Yeah. Kind of a side note tangent. When I first started with a DAP prep MCAT I was I was still wearing my professor hat a lot more. I actually wasn't even employed by a DAP prep MCAT. I did a survey of my students and also several hundred students throughout the United States and asked them different questions like when do you know you're ready for the MCAT? And it blew me away because here are these people that are supposedly being trained as scientists and their answer was the majority of them. I know I'm ready for the MCAT when I feel ready. And like that just blew me away because I'm like you guys are supposed you know you've got some scientific training here and you're assessing whether you're ready for the MCAT based on a feeling. And so in that sense this mastering the MCAT with a DAP prep with the software we're developing and continue to develop I'm hoping it's a confidence booster and it's kind of a data collector. It's I'm ready for the MCAT when I score this high on the practices. Exactly that's a good scientific reasoning and that's like that's like if you come in really hot like you know a lot about the subjects then great you may only need to study a hundred hours and you'll be ready but if you don't and you need more practice you may study four hundred hours but then you're going to get the same level of readiness as the person that only studied a hundred hours. And it doesn't mean you're any going to be any less of a doctor. Totally. It's just you need to invest some more resources before you're ready for that next step. Exactly. Very interesting. And now that for me that does kind of segue into what some of these other companies are doing that I've seen. From my perspective you'll take one of their practice exams and your result will score really low. Because they're trying to recruit you to buy their software and their prep materials right. It's like oh yeah you suck you really need to buy this. Oh damn. It's kind of convincing you that you have acne when you have clear compulsion. So there's all this working. It's non ethical. It's not. Yeah. And so with the with the software that we're running our goal is to be ethical as far as based on how you're performing with our software this is where we've seen students end up scoring with the MCAT. Now my software or I shouldn't say my software it's it's Dr. Huffman software mostly. Aside from my software you know I work with students all the time and they're if they don't want to use a DAP prep my biggest piece of advice to them is go use AAMC resources. Totally not sponsored by AAMC but I'm giving them a plug because they're the ones writing the MCAT and they don't really have any incentive to give you a lower score than you're going to be getting. Now sometimes there are years where students will say hey those practice exams were a lot easier than the real thing. Yeah yeah. But you hear that less than what you hear from these private for-profit companies. Yeah. So yeah. Very very interesting. We're all all the way to the in beginning of this last segment when you said that the having this like self-awareness of your own abilities right and having a Did I say that? Dang you make me sound good. That's what we do here. Help people unleash themselves fully. You know you nailed it that having that self-awareness of where we need the most developmental practice and then being able to leverage software to help us both analyze ourselves effectively to know where the where we need to study and then helping us actually do that study to get there. They're so critical. I'm like my mind's going so many places about like you know being able to even leverage tools like this for our ability to learn about whatever subject we want is that you know closed-loop feedback adaptive learning for three-year-olds, 10-year-olds, 20-year-olds wherever you're at. Oh absolutely. Well you know different language apps. I mean now we're going into the field of creating apps which maybe we should stay away from but. You're right though. But it's all there to you know to maximize our potential. You know there's a lot of different angles we could take you know there's philosophies out there to say know your strengths and work with your strengths and in other situations yeah work with your strengths but also know where your weaknesses are because you don't want to be blind to that. No blind spots. Yeah no blind spots and at the very least you can say hey I'm not good at that. Exactly. I'm going to bring someone on my team who is good at that. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah and the another interesting thing that you said was that you pointed at is like this the super duper importance with having an ethical groundedness in the product. Yeah absolutely. You're not purposely trying to mislead people and to thinking that they're scoring less in order to buy your product like that sounds you know those days are over. Those days of this maximizing shareholder value in this business as usual with politicians that shit's over we're so over that stuff we're totally moving forth with more ethical inclusive equality of opportunity for all people economic freedoms across the world maximizing individual collective potential. We care about that so much we talk about that a lot so. But there's and there's I was going to say there's a there's a such a hurdle that we still have to overcome right because in order I mean even I'm not a business person by training I kind of wish I took more business classes and marketing classes but alas nope your instagram accounts pretty good the yeah that's that's our yeah our intern kudos sharp you weren't running it though I was I was good yeah yeah and it's been fun to see how our intern Felipe has has really taken the baton there yeah yeah shout out to Felipe good work because the links in the bio over the that is really strong it's a really strong account we got some powerful quotes there it's like yeah yeah but and to go back to your other point of yeah we to to market ethically at a price you know exactly but to to keep living as a company and sustain growing yourself and growing yeah and and getting out there and being known to people that's what we and not so that you can last I think we face that same thing that's the industry challenge artists and entrepreneurs that are starting up face that same thing it's a huge challenge yeah and doing it ethically even though having tremendous patience because it's better to be super patient and do things ethically yeah then exploiting and trying to run really fast and then you'll just your soul be corrupted yeah yeah we're you know the the expression used to say nice guys we should gender neutralize it right nice people finish last yeah and my my hope with this is that nice people or maybe we'll switch it a little bit ethical people won't finish last that yeah we've we're hitting this point in culture and society where ethical nice people if you will be like they're gonna come to the forefront yeah yeah they'll be the people that um help they're there are in many ways the ones that are opening this overton window to the possibilities of the most ethical grounds possible and moving other people to say look at how cool this is if we progress completely ethically together yeah as one yeah and together's together's point yeah there's like a transition from survival of the fittest to survival of the friendliest oh i like that yeah that would be good yeah yeah i'm glad you dig that one that's a good one that we learned as well okay couple quick power round thoughts on the way out um we like to ask these questions to our guests on the show okay uh-oh uh-oh do you think we're alone in the cosmos oh man you know that is a great question we won't know until we know right i mean if you're if you're in a room by yourself are you alone in that room yeah what do you what do you think if you well i mean unless there's you're alone as far as being alone as a human being uh-huh but what else is then there is there is there an energy force around us what do you think i i'll see this is where i'm going to get in trouble with with the people in my community and maybe even my family but i think there is this energy force around us that we haven't been able to measure yeah um yeah i i think that's a legit thing yeah you know and it's it's weird things like when my dad passed away a couple years ago we started seeing heart shapes and i i never would have like keyed into these kind of things and so this is going to get like really weird and maybe too sci-fi for you not at all we talk about stuff all the time good deal good deal and that stuff's like yeah um and so i was on a hike at one point i was volunteering with my son's boy scout troop and and taking these kids on a hike and i'm like oh this is something my dad would love you know being out in nature he would always take the dog for a walk out in the trails where i grew up so it really made me think of my dad and no joke within seconds i look down on the ground and there's this heart shape what was an acorn split in half and it left that heart shape um yeah yeah so it's it's there's there's something going on where maybe there's some messaging my kids use it against me though because we went to the the humane society um to look at potentially getting a cat and there was this oh it's the ugliest cat but it had hearts in its fur and they're like grandpa says we have to get this cat yeah what but sure enough there's hearts in the cat so i've got another cat you ended up adopting that cat yeah we did adopt that cat even though you know i couldn't bring myself to pet it for like the first three weeks because you could feel every vertebrae in its back it was nasty yeah whoa yes i'm glad that you think that communication that energy force kind of there's there's something out there the the when when when we limit our our our i guess what we when we collectively believe to just what the perceptions of this physical vehicle are yeah that is limiting in so many ways that we're not enabling ourselves to see what exists beyond the perception of this vehicle and there are people that have been training the muscles of perceiving past the three-dimensional reality that are really good at that yeah and whatever exists out there is exciting i'm glad that you have had experiences in that and so yeah that's why we ask yeah do you think this is a simulation oh like that what is that one show that movie where it's like cameras and everybody's just true it is the Truman show right is that the kind of simulation you're asking about but there's a lot of different ways to take this question i was gonna say is this where like the behind the scenes people come out that have been following my life and say surprise this has been all just oh you jerks you know who wrote the script during this year to this year because that oh man have you ever watched Battlestar Galactica yeah yeah so that kind of that things are on repeat sometimes like i would buy into that yeah are we going to be on repeat until we actually do a good job of what we're supposed to do yeah as a human race yeah totally totally yeah that that's that's an option that you know this between the spark of life and the spark of death that what exists on the other side of that is maybe just the cycle of potentially reincarnation into different planets orbiting stars are the same one or recycling back into the same one there's a lot of people that would get mad at me for saying that but we're saying potentials potentially yeah i mean you look at laws of thermodynamics right energy can neither be created nor destroyed and i'd like to think i have energy more so on some days than others but if my energy can either be created nor destroyed when my physical body dies what happens to my energy yeah potentially just buried into the i don't know the dirt potentially and then you grow trees that have fruit and etc in that sense my energy transfers into a different form true and then it may not need to be like a soul that transfers but a tree is transferred yeah um and last question is what do you think is the most beautiful thing in the world oh hmm visually or energy wise you get to i get i get to choose oh there's some my mind's like buzzing on that one my my first my first thing that i went to is more maybe it was because i watched that empathy video that shout out to david savash yeah yeah yeah was it 131 or something yeah anyways we've had it twice on the show yeah okay yeah but in my life i would say empathy has been huge yeah and so there's a beauty in beautiful empathy yeah you know and and maybe it goes back to the m cat stuff too yeah of empathizing with individuals i promise you i didn't plan this this isn't scripted but this is where my mind's going um empathy with individuals who want to become medical professionals and and having that empathy for them and maybe you know being able to connect with those people i think that's that's pretty beautiful yeah like seeing people where they're at yeah and what they're feeling and coming alongside with them so it's not really a visual beauty thing it's it's more of a an emotional i agree with you totally agree with you on that one that's such a powerful one knowing how to get behind the eyes of another completely in a genuine loving caring way yeah and then it also doesn't surprise me that you picked that because you yourself are professing all the time so you're trying to help students gain you're trying to empathize with them at their level to help them gain the augmentation of perception and then also with the physicians it's not only about meeting them where they're at so they can learn to become a physician but also it's learning for them to empathize with their patients them to learn empathy too that would be a good m cat section are you empathetic that's what we were saying earlier i think we may be moving to potentially moving to that yeah this has been such a pleasure was but thank you for coming out this was not as scary as i thought it would be because see see boom there we go yeah this was fun actually i was kind of nervous about this i'm not going to lie um but no this was good thank you for asking great questions may we may we ask you like what was like what was the thing that was like making him nervous and then what ended up being this experience that made it not nervous mm yeah you know oh man people watching it might think wow she's just insecure i think there's there's always this humble insecurity in me of do i have anything worth saying like or is there going to be value in what i'm transferring um so i think the fear is always there of i want there to be value in what i'm transferring did that make sense yeah totally yeah yeah so what made it okay i you know it's kind of some mental speak you know that inner coach in my head of you can do this let's go you want you just be yourself um go with what you know yeah and yeah good so it was it was good good good i'm glad that yeah good i'm and that's a really important moment for for others to hopefully take from this experience is that you gain this sort of you know everyone sort of has that that that feeling yeah what's imposter syndrome right yeah yeah that and then and then being able to go through the process of of of learning how to crush it like learning how to be confident in your own shoes and disseminate your wisdoms to to other people in the world and then just making it really clear for you know on my end as well for for those interested is that you know we're talking about empathy being so important is that you know when you're always trying to relate to the person that is nervous that is that is you know showing them that you love them and care about them that you generally want them to succeed and that i'm here to to help you unleash your soul to the fullest to the world and that is my role and so you know when that from even messaging to first meeting to talking to everything until now that that is that is the that's the flow of things from my end to the individuals that we get the pleasure to sit down with so that's awesome and it was real yeah you know because sometimes you have people that they've got an agenda and they check off the list yeah but this this was it yeah thank you it was real thank you i appreciate you're real you're awesome i try there's nothing else i can be this is yeah this has been such a pleasure thank you for coming on the show thanks for teaching us about mastering the MCAT there's so much nuance here go check out the links below everyone um check out the depth prep link below and go explore share it with other people for 200 bucks get a really robust way to to train yourself to for the on the MCAT and share it with other people around the U.S. and Canada and even around the world so that people around the world can learn about what it's actually potentially like to do an adaptive MCAT training process and bring that to other places and shout out to all you for tuning in we really appreciate it give us your thoughts in the comments below we'd love to hear from you also go and build the future manifest your destiny into the world everyone we love you let's rebirth the public intellectual together inspire the next generation to build the future much love we will see you soon peace awesome yay yay that was cool that's it yay