The Alina Edit
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Welcome to the Alina Edit. This is your go-to guide to optimize your life for beauty, balance, and becoming your best self. This show touches on topics covering the betterment of your relationships, wellness, habits, and personal style to lead you in actively creating the best version of you, on your terms.
The Alina Edit
studying holistic medicine w/ Alex Kharalampiev
I’m talking with Alex about finding & stay true to your life path. For her, that’s holistic medicine! We’ll dive into the process of getting into medical school & holistic medical school and tips for those interested in this process.
She can be found on instagram @alex.kharalampiev
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Welcome to stellar cycles, a podcast dedicated to showing each woman her intrinsic power to guide her life, her cycle, her relationships and her dreams. I cover feminine energy, reproductive health, and all things related to being a potent and magical being that is woman. I'm your host Alina and today, our topic is the journey of becoming a holistic doctor. I'm super excited for this episode with my friend, Alex, because this interview with Alex today is really going to shed some light on how to find and stay true to your life path, understanding the process of getting into medical school and holistic medical school, what all of that entails. And also just some pointers for anyone who is interested in taking the same route with their career. But first, a few updates with me. So Happy Thanksgiving week this Thursday is going to be Thanksgiving. So I hope that everyone has something fun lined up. I hope that you guys no matter what your situation is that you end up having some tasty food and some good vibes. And we have some gloomy weather here going on in San Diego, which I kind of love, at least that makes it feel like fall, we actually are having a Friendsgiving for book club that I'm getting ready for today. And this month's meeting is just the Friendsgiving theme. We're all bringing dishes. I am currently in the process of making some mashed potatoes, which I love mashed potatoes, just potatoes in any form is one of my favorite types of foods. So I'm very excited to be making that for Friendsgiving. This month, we are reading 100 million dollar offers by Alex for mosey in Book Club. And if I'm being honest, I have not read the book. I have been quite busy. So actually, we just came back from a weekend in Portland. It was amazing. You guys have heard me talking about this for a minute now. And we got to hang out with my brothers. And truly when I was in Portland, it really showed me just how much I miss having four seasons in the year because here in California, we'll get a few changing of the leaves and you know, leaves falling off the trees here and there, but not much. So it was so beautiful being in Portland and we stayed at the Ritz and downtown. So you could just look at the hillside and see the beautiful trees and gorgeous colors of fall covering the hillside. And the hotel that we stayed at was really really nice. It was newly renovated I think because everything there was seemed very new. And it was such a vibe. So beautiful. So the couple days that we spent Portland we're amazing food was great vibes were awesome. It was really, really nice, truly felt like the holidays. And the interesting thing too that happened on this trip was I actually started my period early. So my menstrual phase, probably the earliest start I've ever had, it came at about 2627 days, which is crazy. I've never had anything lower than like 28 however, it was very manageable. I really didn't feel great the first day. But nothing too crazy. Just felt a little bit like not as energetic as everyone else was everyone was like, Yeah, let's vibe Let's hang out. But I was just kind of like I need a nap before we go to this concert. But yeah, couldn't have foreseen that that caught me off guard for sure. But it's fine. It kind of aligned with the new moon and I was talking a few episodes back that when your menstrual phase comes at the new moon or the full moon that means you're the most aligned so hopefully that that's that's what it means. But those are just my updates for the time being. And right now we're gonna get into the interview with my friend Alex, she has moved to San Diego to pursue her passion of becoming a doctor and even more specifically a holistic naturopathic doctor, which is really really cool to have her on because I don't know any person who is actively in this process right now I have looked into functional medical schools myself just to see if that's something I wanted to get into. But actually meeting and making a friend in Alex has been so interesting just to hear everything that she's been learning about what holistic Medical School consists of. So I think this is going to be a really good interview. So Alex, do we want to get into how we met and became friends? Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. We became friends. And I think like the most natural, amazing way. We met through another friend actually. And she introduced us and we just immediately clicked on so many things. Yeah, I felt like I was talking to my twin at time. Yeah, it was one of those things where you sit down you kind of start talking about things in your life and I'm like, Wait, that happened to you what you went through the same thing. It was almost eerie how similar our lives have been. Yeah, it's been crazy. And also, I remember when I moved to San Diego, which was just two months ago, and I was thinking about how I really want to make a friend who's into women's health. And he's really passionate about that. And I met Alina, and it was just amazing. Yeah, it was really cool to talk to someone who gets it too. And who's just as into it as you are, because there aren't like, I think there's more girls getting into it now. But there's also kind of, you know, some people that if you bring up this topic, they're just kind of resistant to talking about it, and then finding out that you moved here to San Diego for holistic Medical School, which was really, really interesting thing to learn about you. And we'll get into that a little bit later. But another thing that was really pivotal, I would say about us meeting is it was actually the night before I got my dog. So I was just sitting there and I was kind of talking about how potentially I would want an Italian Greyhound, but that they're very clingy. And you're like, Oh, well, I have a friendship. And he's very clingy. Yeah, that was so funny. Yeah. And I was just like, Oh, that's cute. You know, she has a friendship. I didn't think much of it. And the next day I was at the farmers market. And that's when I got Nova. And I was like, texting you like crazy. I was like, dude, guess what, guess what just happened. And now you know just how crazy and amazing being a friendship Mama's. Yeah, it's incredible. So we love to get the two of them together. They go absolutely bonkers. And it's a really good time. So do you want to talk about kind of like, who is Alex? How would you describe yourself to people? Yeah, I guess if I had to do an introduction for all of the listeners, my name is Alexandra and I grew up in New Orleans, actually. And I have always been so interested in health, especially Holistic Health ever since I was a little girl. And I guess, going back in time, I grew up in New Orleans. And then I actually went to Tulane, I studied neuroscience there, I was pre med there. And I knew I wanted to go to medical school my entire life really. And over time, that passion just got stronger and stronger. Do you remember the beginnings of that when you were little? Was it always that you wanted to be a doctor? Was that your dream career? Or when did it really become clear that that's what you want it to be? Yes. So my parents immigrated actually from Bulgaria to the US a few years before I was born. So I was born here. And the way that a lot of Bulgarian and European families, the dynamic of that is that the parents work and then the grandparents take care of the children. So my grandparents took care of me and my grandma essentially raised me and she's the most amazing person you'll ever meet. I love her more than any one on planet. And I would not be the person I am without her. And she actually had scoliosis when she was about my age, mid 20s. And she went to go have that corrected, it really was just a cosmetic thing, but she wanted to, but she was in a communist Bulgaria at the time. So when she went had her initial surgery, the surgeon messed her up so badly that she ended up having to have seven corrective surgeries to fix her back. And that's really scary, and it never fixed her back. And now she is basically disabled, and has been for her whole life. But despite all of that, I've never seen anyone take care of other people the way that she has. She's the most caring, loving person. And I just saw how much I wanted to help her. And I wish I had the education, the knowledge to be able to help people like that. So I actually wanted to be a surgeon for a really long time. And we can get into it later why I switched career paths from that. But so essentially, from what I was like six years old, until I could comprehend that that's really when I started to want to be a doctor, a surgeon. And over time I realized how much I loved science how much I loved learning how curious I was and as I got older, I just that passion never went away and it kept getting stronger and stronger. Wow, that's That's really incredible that it was that you know, seeing like a family member struggle with their health like that. That really spurred us so So yeah, you grew up in New Orleans and then for the last little bit you were in Southern California, but first in undergrad What was that like doing neuroscience as a major was that because you kind of four headed in the surgeon pathway, um, switched and not really I got to undergrad and I knew I wanted to be a doctor. So I had to be pre med. There's a lot of prerequisites that you have to take in order to get into medical school Biology, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Physics. So you have to Take those regardless of your major. And I actually started off as a public health major, because I was just interested and helping heal the community as a whole. And then I took a neuroscience class, the way that I fell in love with neuroscience after that one class, I knew it was what I had to devote my entire major to. So I immediately switched my major to neuroscience, and I did a public health minor actually, okay. And I took so many neuroscience classes, it was absolutely amazing. I actually studied abroad and Sydney first semester as well. Oh, wow, I didn't know that about you. I'm learning right now. That's so cool. It was, Oh, my God, it was amazing. I went to the University of Sydney, it is an amazing university, top tier education, better education than you can find in the States, honestly. And I took some neuroscience classes there. And I just kept learning about how vast opportunities are with neuroscience. So I really, really just absolutely loved everything about it. And then I started to get into manifestation that way, the psychology, the neurobiology, there's just some physics of it all the quantum physics and neuroscience is fascinating. So there's just so many fields within it as well. And obviously, I had to take all of my pre med classes, which were not fun at times. But it's just something that you have to go to, to get to medical school. And obviously, I had to take the MCAT as well and to get into medical school, which was yeah, I wanted to ask about that. How was the how's that like, to everyone listening to this or wanting to go to medical school, the MCAT is not a fun experience. But I promise once you get to medical school, and you actually start to learn how to be a doctor and more relevant things. It's it's worth it. But it's a lot of studying I probably studied for a year and a half for it. It was a lot. And I actually took the MCAT during COVID. So when did you graduate college? I graduated in 2020. Okay, so that spring was really when COVID hit. And so it was like my final semester. So I didn't really have the classic graduation that we were all hoping for, but neither Yeah, we just graduated in 2020. And then our, our university was like, no graduations are allowed, the faculty can't even go to your graduation. So we just had like a random meetup at a park. Just like all wore caps and gowns and one of our instructors ran by and like a hiking cost. costume, like a hiking outfit with a hat or full on disguise just so that they wouldn't get in trouble with the school for actually coming to our graduates hilarious. It was crazy. Because people pay all this money to go through a program they studied, they're graduating, it should be a big deal. You know, I think if anything should be celebrated that hard. It shouldn't be a college graduation. I clearly agree. But so you didn't have a graduation? And then did you just use the law and solitude of COVID to study for the MCAT? Yeah, so I think COVID hit in like March, I ended up taking my MCAT. And I think June Okay, so I really use that time to really grind and take a million practice tests. You know, I had some tutoring sessions to strengthen. You know, I think with the MCAT. It's not even so much as like what you know, and the knowledge, it's how to take the test actually picking out them correct answer. That's how boards were to just the practice tests. That's what helped me the most was just going over and over and over those questions and just memorizing basically what the right answer was like. And then even though they're slightly different on the test, at least your brain just knows which one to pick out faster. And you're right, it's like, people will sit there and spend hours and hours and hours trying to like understand the content of the questions. But it's like, no, it's really just all about how good you are at taking a test. Going back in time, I really wish that I didn't spend a year and a half studying the content, but rather I spent half a year just taking practice tests and learning how to actually take the exam because it's really more about that. And then once you get to medical school, you're actually taking exams that are relevant on how to actually be a doctor. But the MCAT I think is I think it's really a weed out method, frankly, going into it has to be it has to be Yeah, yeah, totally. So did you pass it on your first try? I did. I did. I actually have a really funny experience with the MCAT because I really was aiming for like the 98th percentile, being the overachiever that I am. And I ended up getting, I think like the 80th percentile or the 75th or something the way that I cry had for like three days? Well, that's right. Worse. Yeah, it's a really, really tough exam, and you just didn't meet the mark that you've set for yourself to exactly. So, yeah, overall, you know, it all worked out. I mean, I'm so happy where I am today. So I think for everyone listening, it's it's really the journey. And even if one little thing doesn't go as planned down the line, everything works out really the way that it's meant to be. So, you know, it worked out, I think you need around a 510. In order to get into most medical schools. That's kind of the standard. Maybe that's changed in the past two years. But that's what it was when I applied two years ago. And I think the average that everyone gets kind of on the MCAT is a 500. Okay, so I think a 510 is like the 75th percentile or something around their 80th. And that's kind of the score that you need to get to get into med school. But I think a lot of people put so much pressure on how that exam defines themselves, which it really, really doesn't. So you passed it. And then what happens next? Do you start applying to medical schools? How did you pick the ones that you applied to? And how did you get into the one where you started off that? Yes, the so applying to medical school is such a crazy process, but you are kind of expected to apply to like 2030 schools. And if you get into one, you were incredibly lucky. That's kind of how it is in the States. So growing up in New Orleans, all of the doctors that I knew all had MDs, which stands for medical doctor, and that was all that I knew going into the application process. So as I started applying, I applied to probably 20 MD schools. And then I discovered D O schools, which stands for Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine. It is a more holistic version, supposedly, of a traditional medical school. So I actually ended up applying to probably 10. So like 30 schools total. And I actually decided that I would rather go to a do school because it was kind of marketed as a middle ground between very dry Western medicine and then a little bit more holistic medicine. So I got really excited about the idea of osteopathic medical school. And I knew that I wanted to go to medical school in California. And that was what I had set out for such a long time. I knew I wanted to live here and be a doctor here. And so I narrowed that down to the six schools over here. And I set my eyes on this one particular school that I went to last year that I was convinced was like the perfect medical school for me, it was in California. It was holistic. And they talked so much about how much they cared for us. And it was a D O school, not an MD school. Yeah. Okay. So it was a do program in California in Southern California. And they talked so much about how much they cared about us and how they wanted us to be healthy and happy and how holistic they were. And yeah, so I went there last year for a year. And I realized that that was not the case. Okay. Is that just their tactic to get you in there? Yeah, I think yes, I think it was for sure. Because when I got there, that was not my experience whatsoever. Yeah. Tell us about the trials and tribulations of your first year at this. He was at a university. Yes. So it's, you know, classic do program. And so it's a four year medical program, that you take all of the same medical classes that you would take at an MD program, pretty much the exact same except on top of it, you're taking osteopathic classes which you are basically learning how to manipulate the spine and the joints and all the bones in the body. So your entire musculoskeletal system. And that is what is the more holistic thing, okay, that they do at osteopathic medical school. And I went to this program last year. And I think starting medical school is very difficult. It was a huge change of pace from anything that you were coming from. There was the volume of how much of the study and it's like a very serious graduate program. Exactly. And I hadn't I had been out of school for two years. So I took two gap years and I was So nervous because I was like, I'm going to be studying all this time I haven't studied in two years, what if I forgotten how to study. And it was just such a huge learning curve we had, I would say on average about. So you're in about 30 credits per semester in medical school, comparative to like the 12 to 15, that you are an undergrad. So you are in class all day, every day. And then you're studying the entire weekend, your whole life is basically studying and the first year of medical school. So just to lay out how medical school is set up in the US, it's four years, the first two years, you're basically learning the foundations of anatomy, physiology, how the body works, when it's healthy. And then the second year you are learning all of the diseases and the bodies, the pathology the labs, you have to run, how to treat them. And then the third and fourth years, you're actually in the hospital on rotations going through all the different specialties. You have an OB GYN specialty, you have a neurology, you have internal medicine, and you're going through everything. And then at the end of the four years, you take an exam to be able to go into residency, you have residency a few years depending on your specialty. And that is kind of how it looks. And so the first year, you're basically learning all of the nitty gritty biochemistry, physiology, anatomy, a lot of things that you have to learn to just get a foundation of health. And it is a lot of information. They talk about how it's drinking from a firehose, and it really, really is like that. And my biggest problem with this program last year was that I felt like we were learning this insane amount of information. But I didn't really feel like I was getting anything out of it on how to actually be a doctor, rather, I was taking all of these exams to take a test, and then move on. So I felt like I was devoting my entire life and I didn't feel like I had anything to show for it at the end of the day. And that is really disheartening. When you are sacrificing, seeing your loved one seeing your family, not seeing your friend, you're studying 24/7 You're missing birthdays, you're missing weddings. And then you're like, what did I even learn in this process? So it was just like it was this huge volume of information. You're basically swallowing it all, you're not savoring it, or like really understanding like, how is this actually going to help people write in the future? Or how am I going to tie the two together? Yes. And another big problem was that, I would think that in medical school, all of the professors that are teaching, you should be doctors, but a lot of the professors that we had actually just had PhDs. So that's very different than treating people in the field and seeing them on a daily basis. Yep. So I see a lot of these professors who had PhDs, they would do research. And when you are doing research in neurology that is incredibly different to what you are applying in the field as a neurologist. So I think that was a really big problem. And I felt like I wasn't learning the material from the right approach from the right perspective. That was another problem. And then I think the way that the school had everything set up in terms of just scheduling and all the administrative administrative things, and the location of the school, there was just a lot of issues that kind of added up. But I would say really, the turning point for me was realizing that we were never going to take things like nutrition, we were never going to learn about diet and how important that is and health. So nowhere in this absolute onslaught of information that they're hurling at you was anything that's actually has to do with the day to day of what people can do and the choices that they can make to prevent things from happening in their health. Right. So I was actually told that we were going to take nutrition, and then I get there and there is no nutrition anywhere in our curriculum. Wow, for two years. And I also learned that we even though it was a holistic program, supposedly, there was no other healing modality taught to us except for pharmacology. And so pills literally so pills was the only thing I mean, if you have a stomachache, here's a pill if you have a headache, here's a pill. I'm sorry, but that sounds like the pipeline that most western medicine medical students go through. They just go through all this Studying, yes, you do have to learn a lot about the human body to be able to treat it. But I feel like this overload and the takeover of your time that happens is actually meant to keep you focused on this pathway that's laid out for you like medical school residency, and then boom, just paying off your loans for half of your life and pushing pills, you know what I mean? But then they don't have time to focus on other things. Or maybe they have to go through additional schooling to then become functional, if they truly want to become a functional doctor, you know, they have to do that on top of their MD already. So when did you decide, okay, I'm not coming back to this school, I need to find something else. I think it was really around the time that I truly realized that we were not going to be taught anything other than pharmacology as a healing method. That was the only healing method that we were taught. And of course, I had a few of my omm manipulation classes. But I think I really felt like something was really off in my body really, from the very beginning. Yeah, as you know, women's intuition knows. But I think I just really attributed that to Oh, it's medical school. Yeah, because it's hard to you've never been through it before. You're just like, this is just what it's like, this is what everyone was talking about, you know. So I think I really was just thinking about how this is just something I have to go through, oh, it's really hard. And I had a really hard time distinguishing between, oh, this is hard, but it's for my betterment and my development, or this is really hard, and I'm on the wrong path. And so I think really kind of towards like February, so you know, a little bit over a semester, and I was trying to be so positive the entire year. And I really just thought this was something I had to go through, and then it wouldn't be better next year, it'd be better next year, it'd be better next block. And it never was. And even my friends and family, my boyfriend, my mom would tell me how they didn't see me happy, they saw that I wasn't myself anymore. And I was kind of losing myself in the process. And I tried to stay really positive throughout the whole thing. And I developed coping methods like laughing at everything and stuff to just try to, you know, raise my spirits. But I realized that I wanted to be a holistic doctor. And I felt like I was wasting my time and my years, just going down this path that was laid out for me. But I wasn't actually learning anything towards being a holistic doctor. So I actually started to look around and see what choices I had, I was thinking about transferring to another school, maybe it was just the school. And so that opened up the box of oh, I can go elsewhere. And in this process of thinking about transferring, I actually discovered naturopathic medicine, which is a form of medicine in the states where you'd be going on a four year program same as an MD or a do program, you would get an MD at the end of it, you were a doctor, a naturopathic doctor. And it was just exactly what I had been looking for my entire life, but I had just discovered it. So it is a form of medicine, where you were looking at the root cause of illness. And you are treating the patient from the most conservative to the most aggressive method and that order. And you're also using a lot of natural healing when possible, a lot of alternative medicine when possible. And you're using a lot of different therapies instead of just pharmaceuticals. So I discovered this through a friend actually had a really long conversation with her. And she told me that she was currently in a naturopathic medical program. We had an hour long conversation, I was just absolutely floored by. I felt like I was talking with myself, Wow, the whole entire time. And she had actually gone through this same exact process that I had gone through, where she thought that she was going to go to an MD school and that's what her parents had done. And she thought that was the only path set in front of her. And when she discovered naturopathic medicine, she realized that that was the path for her. And she did the same thing that I'm doing. And so I looked into it. I looked into this school that she went to, which is called Basseterre. University in San Diego. So I've already Oh, good recommended schools. Someone. Yes, the program. Yes. So I talked to her about it, and she said that she was really impressed with the quality of education. She had learned so much from all of her professors, and she was actually graduating in a few months when I spoke to her And she just had nothing but good things to say. I immediately ran to their website called a counselor. And I was like, I need to speak with someone about this. To see how I can transfer my credits if that's possible. I didn't tell anyone about this when I was doing this just to see if this was even a possibility. Because no way in my mind was I losing that year of medical school I had just gone through with my blood, sweat and tears. And everything really just it really fell into place. That's amazing what it's supposed to be. I know sounds so corny. But when you've experienced it truly, when something is supposed to be you just click into it. So yeah, that's, that's amazing. So you moved down to San Diego. Let's talk about that to kind of leave things off with so tell us now the difference between that first year of medical school and just how it is now for you. I mean, you live at the cutest little spot by the beach. I love coming over and taking the dog to the beach. So yeah, I mean, you literally love your life here. It really just seems like a lot of doors have opened up for you. Since you got here. You've been making a ton of really great friends. And you have said, Just tell us about the school aspect. Yeah, I mean, I think as corny as it sounds for what you are saying, but really, when you are living your life, in alignment with your values and your intuition, things really, really just fall in place around you with very minimal effort. So once I decided that I wanted to go to bass steer, somehow all my credits got transferred. That was amazing. And I was just going to start as a second year with all of the other second years at Bass steer. And I have to make up like one class from the first year curriculum. I got so lucky and finding my apartment by the beach that was so lucky, it fell into my lap. And I came here I met all these amazing friends, all of these amazing people. And I cannot tell you how much I love my life with my school with my friends with where I live with absolutely everything now, so the curriculum is just as heavy. But it's taught in a completely different, logical cohesive way. And it's taught by all doctors. So that's a big difference from last year. Yeah. And all of the professors who are teaching me they are practicing. We have a clinic actually at last year, and they are working in that clinic with students. And they're practicing doctors every single day. This is not some side teaching thing. This is they're not retired, they are still practicing doctors. And they are teaching us everything that is relevant to being a great holistic doctor. So I actually show up to school early now I go and talk to my professors after class. They really encourage discussion asking questions, if we're not clear on something. We discuss it because they're teaching us how to be good doctors. And they're like actually implanting knowledge into you guys, rather than just shuffling you through tests, right? That's amazing. And I remember on my first day, the Dean talked about how we are here to learn how to be great holistic doctors who heal people. And she didn't want us to focus on just taking exams just to pass them. That was our focus at the end of the day. So that in itself was a 180 difference. Now, so since I'm on my second year, now I'm learning about all the diseases in the body. I'm also starting to learn therapeutics, so I'm actually taking classes in herbal medicine. I love that. And we're learning about how to make all of our different tinctures and teas and sounds and bombs. It's so amazing. It's, I mean, it's so much fun, we just show up to class and we can come up with a say we want to come up with a PMS tea and we go up to the professor and we're like, Hey, what are a few really good herbs if we haven't learned them yet. And we just come up with these concoctions in class and then we can take them home and actually use them and see firsthand just how much they help us. And I'm just taking so many classes that are so interesting. I'm also taking Behavioral Medicine classes so essentially how to be a good psychiatrist how to be a good counselor how to get to that, you know, mind part of the mind, body spirit and people. I love that it really teaches you how to see the patient as a whole and be able to approach them on every level not just when it comes to the body or the physical manifestations, but also whatever's going on with their soul and their spirit and their mind because it's an entire package. That's what I love about holistic medicine is it just looks at the person as a whole you know Yeah, it can be a lot of different problems, but it's usually all just one problem, right? It's all one root cause. Yeah, that's a really core value of naturopathic medicine is that you are looking at the whole person, you were looking at Mind Body Spirit, the entire picture, you don't leave anything out. So if you go to a naturopathic doctor for a visit, to establish care, your first visit with that naturopathic doctor is an hour and a half, on average goes over your entire life from when you were little every condition. I love that that's what I really liked about the parsley health that I do online. But I do want to ask you, what are your future aspirations as a doctor do you have a dream that you're hoping to accomplish? What I really love about naturopathic medicine is that I really feel like it opens up more doors for you, because you can really do anything with this degree, and you're not on such a narrow path that you are with a traditional medical program. So a lot of naturopathic doctors, they kind of specialize in one area, but then they can really, you're still treating the entire person, so anyone can really come to them. I personally am really interested in mental health and neurology, but I also really love dermatology. So I have to see over time, what I'd really like to narrow down on but I really like so many fields, I really like woman's health as well, there's psycho dermatology, that's a new emerging field where they actually marry in psychology and mental health with dermatology, because a lot of skin conditions come from people's mental disorders like OCD or things like that. I mean, you could definitely do something with the both of them. Yeah, I have really loved the idea of a holistic dermatologist, because now if you go to a dermatologist with acne, they, nine times out of 10 will prescribe you either Accutane or an anti biotic, they don't look at anything else in your life. And I want if someone comes to me with acne for me to look at their entire life, their hormones, their sleep, their diet, their sensitivities, absolutely everything and be able to get to the root cause to heal it forever, instead of just giving an antibiotic and never seeing them again. So there's so many places I could go. And I'm just really excited to see where I go and how I develop in terms of just going to medical school and like learning so many different things. I think so many professors have multiple degrees. And I learned so much more every single day. So I think really the world's my oyster at this point. Yeah, 100%. And you literally run into things over time that keep you on your true path, you know, like this, you didn't know about this medical school from the beginning. And there had to be a reason for that, you know, so you had to go through that experience. So you could appreciate this new experience even more. So just to leave off what kind of tips which You have for the listeners, let's say if they're interested in doing this, should they just look into medical schools in their area? Should they come to California, how should they go through this, if they are going through a really tough time at medical school, just any sort of advice you want to leave? I think that if you are passionate about health, and you don't see yourself doing anything else, and that is your one true love, I think that you should 100% do it and put your all into it. I think that you specifically like Holistic Health, and you want to be a holistic doctor, I would 100% recommend looking into naturopathic medical schools in the US. And there's a few in Canada as well. Because that is just going to be the most fulfilling path for you. And I would recommend my school last year, it's absolutely amazing. I've had such a great time since I've been there. And I think that it's a hard long road. But I think that if you're passionate and that's really what you see yourself doing, then you should really trust yourself and have the confidence that you can do it because we need more passionate, holistic doctors that are really here to take care of everyone in the community. Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks for telling us about that and sharing all those experiences. I think a lot of the listeners will find that a very interesting story and you know, if they're interested in going through the same process, you know, at least has shed some light on how big the difference can be. And I'm just so happy for you that now you just feel so at home where you are and everything you're doing not just your school life, but also your social life and it's just a really great feeling after a few turbulent years, you know, so thank you for coming on Alex, I really appreciated you doing this interview. And just for being in my life in general tell so much. Thank you so much for having me. I love talking about this and for anyone listening if you'd like to reach out and Talk to me personally about this. I'm all ears. I'm here for you guys. And yeah, thanks so much for having me. Alright guys, don't forget to follow us stellar cycles on Instagram will be at stellar cycles pod. And you can follow Alex at Alexandra K KHARALAMPIEV, Hara lambier. And then don't forget to follow the link in our bio, they don't give you the free grocery guide based on the phase that you're in at your cycle. So whenever you're going to the grocery store, you can just glance at this, copy it to your reminders, your grocery list, and have a starting point for what you should be eating during that phase in your cycle. So don't forget to grab that for free please give us a five star rating if you enjoy this podcast and if you're feeling extra generous, I really love to read the reviews that you guys leave for me so please write us a little note there and until then spread the good word about stellar cycles to your fellow woman and let's all elevate our lives, cycles and dreams together till next time stellar cycles out
