Career Pivot Reality: Medicine in Your 30s and 40s

You are going to be that age anyway, so you might as well be that age with a medical degree. The fear of being the "old" student in the lecture hall stops too many capable people from pursuing a career in medicine, but non-traditional applicants actually have a massive hidden advantage. T.J. Moore and Dakota Roberts, two non-traditional medical students at NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine, share how they pivoted from established careers in public health and the Coast Guard to tackle their first year of med school.

We sit down to break down the actual reality of being an older student in a sea of twenty-somethings. We cover the logistics of relearning how to study after a long gap, dialing in question banks like UWorld and TrueLearn, and balancing standardized patient encounters with real-world military medical experience. The real turning point comes from treating medical school like a standard job, proving that a stable, mature routine often beats raw, anxious energy.

Stepping away from a stable career and salary to become a full-time student again carries real risk and requires serious sacrifice. We look at the grueling reality of eight-hour study days, the challenge of avoiding toxic doom-scrolling on platforms like Student Doctor Network, and the discipline it takes to ignore the noise. You will walk away with a strict framework for building a study system that prioritizes consistency over late-night cramming, plus a needed mindset shift to trust the work you put in.

If you care about pivoting careers, surviving the MCAT application cycle, and optimizing your medical school study routines, you’ll get a lot from this. Make sure to subscribe to the Arkansas State Media Network and share this episode with anyone considering leaping into a second career. What is the biggest mental hurdle stopping you from making a major career change right now?

@arkansasstatemedianetwork.com

0:00 - The Non-Traditional Medical Student
1:40 - From Public Health and the Coast Guard to Med School
5:30 - Overcoming Age Anxiety and Social Dynamics
9:00 - Relearning How to Study After a Gap Year
12:12 - Why Life Experience is Your Biggest Advantage
19:12 - Crucial Advice for Older Applicants

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to the Premed Playbook Podcast on the Arkansas State Media Network. I'm Casey Pierce. I'm the director of external relations and marketing for NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine. We're a medical school that operates in partnership with Arkansas State University on A State's Jonesboro campus. And today we're going to speak to pre-med students to kind of give you some advice and direction about if you're considering applying for medical school. The point of this podcast is to tell those prospective students a little bit about the process and some of the quirks and nuances, but also benefits of medical school. Today we're specifically going to speak to what we're going to refer to as non-traditional applicants. So it's not uncommon for us to get applicants in their 20s, 30s, 40s, even sometimes 50s. Probably the most common situation is students go to an undergrad university and go directly into medical school, or they'll take a gap year or two to get some clinical experience or study or prepare for medical school. It's a little less common, but not completely uncommon for students, as I mentioned, or later in life that have had another career, but have always had a desire to be a physician, to step away from that career, completely change their path, and go into medical school. And I've got two of our current medical students, TJ Moore and Dakota Roberts, just finished their first year of medical school with us, and they would fall into that non-traditional category. So we're going to talk a little bit about their experience and um and just share their story. So why don't you guys start? TJ, start with you. Tell us who you are, where you went to undergrad, where you're from, a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Sure. Um, well, I'm TJ Moore. I went to, I actually did my undergrad in Pensacola, Florida. Um, I'm originally from Arkansas. Uh, grew up on the west side of the state in Fort Smith. We left in 2013 just because we were kind of feeling stuck and ready to go explore a little bit, and we wanted to live on the beach and have that sort of lifestyle. So we were in the middle of undergrad and we moved to Pensacola, Florida. So I finished that at the University of West Florida. Um, kind of fell into public health along the way. And so I just went straight into a master's program out of there, Masters of Public Health, and then worked in that region for eight years or so in HIV and AIDS care, um, doing a lot of like social service work, you know, connection to services, preventive services, things of that nature. A lot of grant writing, a lot of uh people work, a lot of um of uh handshaking and things of that nature, just trying to raise money for a small nonprofit. And then uh bounced up to DC and worked in um medical education for a long time, uh developing things for like CDC, uh District of Columbia, Department of Health, uh, state of Maryland, just a lot of grant-funded work, uh, mainly on the infectious disease side of things. Um, and then decided to go back to medical school. And so full circle back to Arkansas. Awesome. And Dakota, how about you? Tell me a little about your story.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

Um, so my name is Dakota Rowitz. I am originally from Florida. I went to undergrad in Florida. I went to Florida Atlantic University. Um, and then I took originally it's supposed to only be two gap years. Um, I was a medical scribe in the emergency room for two years. And then while I was there, I was listening to all the other doctors that I worked with, and they were saying how they were refinancing their loans and, you know, had all of this debt, and I didn't want to have that debt. So I talked to several of the doctors who did military service. So I joined the Coast Guard. Um, I did the Coast Guard for about four and a half years. And in my last, I kind of timed it to where my military service contract was um gonna be up and uh applied to medical school during that last portion of it.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Awesome. All right. So it's a little faux pas to ask a woman her age, but I'm gonna flat out ask both of to kind of start with you. Do you mind telling us how old you are? Just as that's kind of the the point of this podcast.

SPEAKER_03 4:09

Yeah. Uh so I'm 28 now and I'll be 29 actually in a month or so in August. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

TJ, you had a little bit more experience, right? Isn't that just a nice way of calling me very old? Older, maybe. Yeah. I just celebrated my 40th birthday on June 2nd. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

But like I said, you guys do have classmates too. We have uh a graduate a couple of years ago who I believe was 53 when he uh finished medical school. So I mean, again, like the I I like your opinion on your experience with your classmates and all. Not uh not unusual, but not as common, correct? Correct. Yeah, has that been y'all's experience?

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Yeah, I think I've met one other person who's like right at my age, and the other sort of older students have generally been, I think, in their 30s, are the ones that I've met thus far. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

Yeah. I so that was one of my concerns coming to med school. I thought I was gonna be the oldest, and you know, everyone is gonna be like fresh out of undergrad. And I graduated undergrad at 21. So it's like, man, I'm gonna, you know, have some years on my classmates. Um, but there is a lot of students that are around my age. I have several friends that like were the same age or um, you know, just a couple years apart. And then there are students that are younger than me, but I mean, they're some of my closest friends still, so it really doesn't, you can't tell a difference.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Yeah, you guys are all at the same phase. Uh this is a phase of life that, regardless of your age, you there's a commonality because of what you're experiencing. Yeah. Very much so. Yeah. So uh Dakota, you mentioned you cut timed it up with the end of your military commitment. I was gonna ask specifically what was it a year ago that led you guys to decide this is the time. I guess that kind of answers that question for you.

SPEAKER_03 5:51

Yes. Um, definitely the military service part, because I did try and do the case card, it's weird. It doesn't have its own um physician program like all of the other services does, to where you can just kind of like swoop into that portion of the military and still keep your contract. Um, they are trying to build their own physician program. Um, so I did have to either figure out how to break my contract, which they're not very fond of, or just wait till the end of my contract. So I waited till the end of my contract.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

And that lined up well with what was next. TJ, what about you? Why was a year ago, a year and a half ago now the time to start that process?

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Yeah. Um honestly, it was just kind of vibes. It just felt right. Um, I had been doing, you know, the work I'd been doing for going on, you know, on and off, I would say 10, 12 years, something like that. And I kind of hit this spot where it was just sort of an easy exit from where I was. Um, you know, we were kind of in the market, we were applying for some new grants. The projects that I were on was were running out. We were wrapping those up, you know, putting in the final reports. Um, and it just seemed like a good time if somebody else was going to come into that position to let them roll in while I sort of rolled out. Um, so a long talk with my wife, and then um, you know, we just sort of knew from there it was time to take the MCAT and and put in the applications to see where we went. And everything went well. So um, yeah, pretty relatively straightforward.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Awesome. Yeah. Well, Dakota, you uh uh we hit on this just a little bit a second ago, but um, you know, you had a little bit of, I don't know if it's anxiousness, but would you be able to relate to your classmates if the majority of them were significantly younger than you? And I guess you did hit on that experience, but re-revisit that with me. You haven't had a hard you were anxious about that, correct?

SPEAKER_03 7:43

I was, yes. That was um one of my concerns was yeah, like making me friends, fitting in. Um, but it hasn't been a huge issue. And I do think that like you mentioned earlier, we're we have a commonality. I can tell like differences here and there about like how I react to something versus how my classmates do. And you know, it could be like an age thing or it could be like an experience thing, but overall it hasn't been an issue for me. It's been really great.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Yeah, how about you, TJ? Same same thing to go to hit the nail on the head. Um, there is a difference in the way I see people react to things. And I think for me, it is like an experience thing. Um, and then the anxiousness part of it, I actually went back to undergrad a little bit later. So I was older then, um, if you want to call that older, but I felt the same way, like I was going to be the old person sitting in a college classroom, and it just didn't turn out that way. So I think I had already been through the anxious part of it and kind of knew that it ended up not being a big deal. So, you know, rolling back into this wasn't really troubling at all. If you've uh, you know, I had the the fortune in them going through that. Um, but coming back to it, not really any anxiousness there.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

So the social aspect has been pretty smooth and that's been been good for you. What about academically? You know, uh, I think in some ways medical school is completely different. And I know that the study, the way that you study, the quantity and quality of your study is different. But at the same time, having not studied for several years and trying to get back into routine, was that difficult or was that something you were anxious about too?

SPEAKER_03 9:20

So that was something I was anxious about um in the beginning. So I was like, it's been six years since I've been a full-time student taking a full load of courses and studying hard sciences. So that was a concern of mine. But looking back now that it's been a year of med school, I almost think it is a good thing because the way I studied in undergrad is so different than how I study now. I almost think if I came in thinking this is the way I need to study, it might have messed me up. So, like having a clean slate and um I structured a lot of how I studied from the very beginning based off what our um academic team tells us enrichment. Yeah, how they tell us in orientation what to do. Um, and then some of my second year friends have given me input, but it hasn't affected me at all. I mean, and I think I already had a really good schedule with my job coming in with like having to wake up early and long hours. Uh, so that kind of just translated straight into med school with waking up early and long hours. So it's fine.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Yeah. And TJ, how about you? I wish that I would have had the skill set for studying that I have now that I would have had like in undergrad or through my through my master's program. Um, because it's such a different beast. And so before I actually got to medical school, um, this was after I'd been accepted, I just kind of dove into what do people, how do you approach it? Because it's so much information. Um, and so I kind of built a foundation there just off of, you know, pure internet research, basically, and testimonials. And, you know, like the American Medical Association puts out a lot of help for that. And then I got here and and discovered NYIT has a whole department, you know, ad advocating for us as students that teach you how to study, how to build schedules, what resources you should use. And then after that, it's just down to you. And then what becomes your sort of preference. And I think it took maybe a month for me to streamline that process and find what worked for me. And after that, it was just fine-tuning. So I think, you know, once you fall into the routine of it with the support system that we have, um you get over that pretty quick. You don't have a lot of time to think about um, what am I doing wrong? What am I doing right, and worrying about it. You just have to keep moving. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Once that train leaves the station the first week in August, you better be on it and you better be running. Better have an idea of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Yeah. Well, and that's good to hear you talk, you both talk about the resources. We have a really strong academic affairs support team, our academic uh support specialists that, like you all said, provide one-on-one counseling, but then also do some very general big group um guidance to to help you guys. And it's good to hear you all found that helpful. Yeah. You know, the the flip side of you have this gap and have to learn to study again and get back in a routine. The the other side of that is you've got some life experience and some maturity. Not to say your classmates aren't uh at the same level as you, but just as we live life and have careers and do things, uh, you know, you you guys have both said that you have been able to bank on some of that life experience and and maturity, and that has been helpful to you all.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Yeah, a thousand percent. Um, you know, I'm I'm I consider myself very lucky. I have my routines, you know, I'm married, I go home to my wife and my dogs. Um that being that anxiousness that comes with youth, trying to find like your social circle and trying to find, you know, navigate a new environment. Um, I I feel like I've grown a little bit past that. And so whenever I'm here at the end of the day, I know what's waiting for me whenever I leave. Yeah. So that takes a lot of that stress off of me. And I have a very supportive environment. So whenever I go home, I I treat it like a job. I settle into my office and I study. Um, so I do I'm very thankful for that aspect of coming back to school later. Yeah. Dakota?

SPEAKER_03 13:19

I'm the same way. My experiences have definitely helped me. Um, I'm very fortunate in my I worked in medicine in the military, and I've been under high stressful situations in the military, and um, even having to they use the same phrase like drinking water from a fire hose there. So I think a lot of that has helped me. One I saw patients one-on-one in the military. So our DPR class, uh doctor-patient relationship, and um, when we do our standardized patients, I've done that. So that skill set has helped me immensely because I don't have to focus as much on that part of my academics as and I could put more effort into other parts. So it's almost nicer. I was asked the other day by someone, like, do you think you would have done as well in medical school if you went straight from undergrad? Honestly, I don't think I would have. I think now that I have, like TJ said, a more like stable mindset almost and this experience, like I think it's really impacted how well I'm doing.

unknown 14:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

If you had come 20 22, so I wouldn't have even made it into medical school at that point. You know, undergrad was fine, but I wasn't a a stellar performer by any means. And I'm kind of thankful that like my attention got grabbed. Because like I said, at the time I was working in HIV and then decided to keep pursuing that for a little while. And that put me into my master's program and just maturity came after that. If I would have came into medical school, I don't know how I would have performed. And I mean, you know, hindsight's always 2020. At this point in my life, if I had it all over to do again, I I don't think I would change anything. I wouldn't be the kind of person who's like, oh, I should have gone, you know, I should have just gone from undergrad and then I could have had this long career and be ready to retire in 10 years or something like that. But, you know, life has been fun and it's been a great adventure up to this point. So I'm really happy the way that I I went.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Is there anything you guys miss about your previous life? I mean, you know, on the days that are hard and long, is it uh uh not that you have any regrets about taking this on, but sometimes do you wish, okay, I remember when I didn't have 14 lectures to listen to tonight.

SPEAKER_03 15:34

I do miss my previous life a little bit, but not in the sense that you know the days were long. I just I was fortunate enough. I really did enjoy my time in the military. Um, I worked on a boat for a little bit, so I think that's what I miss most. But I am thinking about going back as a doctor so I could still have the best of both worlds.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Yeah, in the in the military. In the military. Awesome. Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Yeah, for me, um, I I don't know. Again, the benefits of being an having an old man mindset now is very much I'm not I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I don't feel like, you know, some people would describe it as you're you're wasting your youth or or things of that nature. I I definitely don't feel like that. I've I've had a great life up to this point. And so, like I said earlier, now that I've kind of got my routines that I fall into and I've I've lived a life up to this point, you know, four years of school and and then residency after this, is a little bit of a break from all of that that went on before. And it's uh you're at this point now where you've had all this sort of fun, you've had this life experience, you can take a little bit of a break, knock this part of school out, and then go on to the next phase of life um and do even more meaningful things and make even more memories and and build community that way. So it's just uh it's a a little bit of a different path towards it.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

And it flies by. I mean, honestly, this last year is like the fastest year of my life. Like crazy. You it doesn't even feel like a year has gone by.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yeah. Yeah. I hear I I have a couple kids, you know, nine and twelve, and they often say that the days are long and the years are short. And then I've said that around medical students, and they say that is exactly it is long days, and then you wake up and a year later you're beginning your second year. Yep. Yeah, yeah. So um, has there been anything about the transition that's been particularly difficult or challenging?

SPEAKER_03 17:26

No, honestly. I mean, it's it's been kind of good. Like, hasn't been that it definitely wasn't a transition that I expected. Like I did expect it to be bumpier, but it hasn't.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Yeah, that's great. TJ. I think if you believe everything you read about in preparation coming to medical school, it's gonna be one of the hardest things you've ever done in your life. Get ready to suffer. I don't think that's been the case at all. It's it's been, I don't want to say it's been an absolutely smooth transition. It's definitely been easy to fall into because it's just a routine. Once you get in the routine, smooth sailing.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

I I think some too often we probably equate something that's challenging with something that's painful. Exactly. It kind of sounds like you guys are saying, yeah, it's challenging, but it doesn't hurt.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

No, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Yeah, it's and you know, anything worth doing is hard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

And this has been, you know, and it's great. If you're if you're generally a curious person and you genuinely want to make a difference and care later on, coming into this and and just putting in the work, that's the easy part. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:33

Yeah, I always heard that med school should be fun, and it is. Yeah, you have your days that are hard and studying is long, but then there are days and you're like, wow, that was really fun. And then you have your classmates there to support you, and that makes it even more fun.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Yeah. And you guys could also pull again to your previous experiences. Like, I have hard days at work, I love my job. There are some days that are harder than others, and that's probably again a place where you can call back to very similarly. Yeah, this day was more difficult than others, but that but the whole process is really good. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So uh want to speak in in general to um people that are pay at your life phase that have always wanted to go to medical school, maybe they've been hesitant, maybe you know, for whatever reason. Uh, what would you tell them about? You know, I guess the generic advice is it's never too late to pursue your dreams, but uh, is there anything more than that that you would tell people?

SPEAKER_03 19:32

Just do it. I mean, one of the things I was always told is you're gonna be that age anyway. So, like, you know, people are like, well, it's four years, and you know, I'm gonna be this age. Okay, like, well, so I'm gonna graduate at 32, and I could either be just 32 four years from now, or I could be 32 and a doctor, you know, and you're not gonna miss out on like I I think too many people fear that they get into school and life stops. Like you can still have a family and get married, and I mean, everyone in med school is doing it, like that's just a stage of life we're in, and this is you know, just another job.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Yeah. TJ, what about you? I will second everything Dakota just said. The only advice I think I would give for people who are considering it, um, don't put a lot of stock in things that you read on like Reddit, Student Doctor Network. That if you remember getting ready to take your MCAT and then applying or whatever it is, you will you will find yourself believing that you are not fit for this and that there's no chance you're gonna get accepted and you're gonna have to go to like, you know, whatever school. Do not put any stock in that. That is a toxic environment and it will scare you off from doing this. I'm 40 years old and it is doable. It is a hundred percent doable. So take everything that you read online with regards to people who have gone through it and their age and their grades and their MCAT scores and whatever it is, take all of that with a huge grain of salt. Um, best to not even really look at it and just go for it.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Except for good podcasts like this one.

unknown 21:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Listen, listen to listen to us. I'm kidding. No, there is, you know, and and we hear that from students, no matter what life phase you're at. Um, the internet it again, big picture life conversation. There's the good of all this information that's so readily available to us, but there's also some negative in that that you can, you know, are you gonna pick or or choose the the positive voices, the negative voices in that? And I I appreciate TJ you saying that you've got to find those positive voices and you need to listen to us reinforcing the fact that you you can do this.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Absolutely. Yeah. Just put a good filter on. Yeah. Take a lot of stuff with a grain of salt off of that, rely on trusted sources. Yeah. And it it's absolutely doable. It is absolutely doable.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

From a student life standpoint, um, we have a lot of registered student organizations and Things like that again, getting into that social. Am I going to find camaraderie with my classmates because life phases or whatever is different? I know you all both have been involved in activities. You run with the dean, you're involved with student organizations. So tell me about your experiences there.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

So I was hesitant at first to get involved. I took pretty much not the first semester off, um, but I wasn't as involved with like applying for things first semester because I was like, my academics are first. And our school tells us that like you're a med school student before anything else. So once um the semester was over and I was like, cool, I passed. You know, I can do this, kind of like a little bit of reinforcement. Um, then I started getting more involved. Like I love running with the dean. That is my time to socialize with my um classmates and just kind of start the day well. But I am in uh a couple organizations. So I'm on the e-board of emergency medicine and the e board of military medicine.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

The e-board meaning executive. So you're a leader of that student organization.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

Right. I'm on the executive board of those. Um, because I highly enjoy both of those. I would like to go into emergency medicine. So it doesn't like feel like an extra task. It's just more fun that you get to have because then you get to put on these events for your classmates. And um yeah, so I just got more involved because I like doing things with the school and it gives you a chance to like meet new people and make more connections.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Yeah. And I'll specify run with the dean. Our dean uh leads a group every Thursday morning through a walk-run on campus, and there's the element of physicians need to set an example of health and uh and wellness. And then it also is a place for him to get to know our students. So that's kind of a I'm deviating a little bit to give a plug to our dean is great. He provides this social opportunity for our students. And I know that um that's something that you've both been involved in. And TJ, that's something you do as well. What are uh what are some other organizations or involved your involvement?

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Yeah, um, shout out Dean Spites. Um, run with the dean. Having first of all, having the dean just meet with you on Thursdays and run and just fill you in on things that are going on nationally, locally at the school is super beneficial and something I feel a lot of people don't get. Um, I also took the first semester off to make sure, you know, I was going to be able to actually do this. Um, after that, I wasn't really interested in joining sort of like the RSOs. I sort of had this aspiration of um sitting on like our state level boards. And so we have the um state level chapter of the um uh American Academy of Family Physicians, which our other dean is currently the president of. That's right. Um students from the state of Arkansas from each medical school are allowed to sit on that board. Um, so that was sort of one of my interests in getting involved with that. And then we also have what's called the um Delta Population Health Institute. We have a fellowship here, which is more based on advocacy. Um, so we do a lot of like advocacy work in the community. We go out and like uh we take our caravan out, provide free health screenings. We also go to the Capitol. Um, we can work on bills, uh, medical bills, things of that nature. And so that's policy. Yeah, the health policy. And so that was more my speed um than it was getting involved with sort of like the local or our our student-based RSO groups. Um, and those, you know, would take up a lot of time. So you don't spread yourself too thin whenever it comes to like groups. Find a couple of things that you're super interested in and just and go for that.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Yeah, and you guys hit on it. We our the first semester, um, the the student leadership is all from that second year. Right. Our students have to be in good academic standing to lead those registered student organizations. And again, that's very purposeful. Like, focus on your academics this year, and then we'll ramp into um some of those extracurriculars helping you build your CB and all that. So yeah. Um, I know we've spoken specifically into non-traditional applicants, but I want to speak in general. You know, we always uh uh the listeners like to hear from current medical students about their experiences. Is there any piece of advice or piece of wisdom, something you know now that you wish you knew a year ago that you all would like to share with people?

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Consistency is key. You have to have your routine and you have to do it every day. And once you find what works, whether it's Anki, whether it's U World, whether it's true learn, whatever the resources you find that work for you, and you've paired them down to just a few, um, and not trying to try anything new or or or change things up in the middle of anything. Once you find it, stick to it and do it every single day. Because again, the train analogy, once it leaves, if you fall off of it, it is difficult, if not impossible, to get back on. So just know coming into it, this that is where the hard part is. Once you we have that consistency, everything else just sort of falls into place. Then you can work around, join the groups, um, go to conferences. You can work things into it, but the consistency of your routine has to come first. So that's what I anybody coming in, be prepared to kind of switch things around in your life. The, the, the fun and the joining groups and things of that nature, that has to be second at this point. So that'd be my only advice.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

I would say to trust yourself more. Um, I know I was very hesitant, even like through the whole applying to med school cycle, and like, am I gonna get in? And if I get in, am I gonna be able to do it? Um, and I mean, even all through the first semester. I feel like every time I went into a comp, I'm like, man, like just prepared to fail it basically. Um, and every time it was almost like I was surprised, like, oh my gosh, I passed that exam. Almost like every eight-hour day for the past five weeks paid off, you know. So I wish that I just trusted that the work that I put in was gonna be enough. And, you know, I'm preparing for every exam and everything that, you know, every assignment that our school gives us, it would have saved me a lot of stress, a lot of unnecessary stress. And, you know, that affects your sleep cycle and stuff. So just relax a little, you know, trust that the work that you put in is gonna pay off.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

They don't let people into medical school without the confidence that you're a good student, that you're going to do well. There's there's an expectation of that. So you're you're kind of saying play into that and you know, be self-assured of the fact that you were given that seat because you earned it and you're capable of being there. I think that's uh really good advice as well as the the pace and consistency that students need. Well, thank you both for your sharing your wisdom, for your time. We hope you've enjoyed our conversation today. If you'd like to learn more about our medical school, you can visit us online at nyit.edu slash Arkansas. You can visit our social media channels. We are at nyitcom A R on Instagram and X and Facebook as well. Oh, thanks for joining us today. We hope you'll tune in again next time.