For this edition of Seven Days, I had the pleasure of interviewing an undergraduate pre-medicine student currently in his junior year, who, in the interest of giving honest answers, asked only to be identified as B.J.
At the start of the interview, I admit I had quite a few negative expectations of what life as an undergraduate pre-med student would be: long nights, early mornings, studying material far beyond what I could comprehend and solitude from the rest of the world. It was not the best attitude to go in with, but I honestly couldn’t understand the appeal of the field. Sure, practice of medicine is essential for the survival and advancement of human life, but in my head, I couldn’t seem to grasp what appeal sticking needles into flesh and smelling sterile at all hours of the day could hold.
It was these preconceptions I was so firmly holding on to that led to my first (of many) faux pas of the week. As I waited for B.J. to arrive at our interview location, I considered how I would phrase my questions.
Would he think of me as stupid if I wasn’t familiar with the advanced medical terms I’d already assumed he’d use? Would he be professionally dressed and offended by my sweatshirt and jeans ensemble? As these concerns began to grow, I was approached by an athletic figure in sweats.
Assuming I’d taken his table, I gathered my books up, explained I was waiting for an interviewee and asked that if he saw a pre-med student, could he direct him to me. Looking a bit confused, athletic-stranger introduced himself as B.J., a pre-med student waiting to be interviewed. With overwhelming embarrassment, I apologized profusely, to which he laughed good-naturedly, remarking that most people assumed he lived in scrubs.
With the awkward introduction behind us, I first asked B.J. what had drawn him into such an intensive program. He answered, “Well, I know there’s the obvious draw of a good salary, but that’s not really what drives me. What kills me is to see people eating junk food and slowly killing themselves. It’s just so backwards, you know? You’re taking food that you need to live and abusing it, like a drug. It’s really sad when you see it happen to little kids too. That’s what I’m in it for: to be able to be a dietitian and show people how to cure themselves just by eating good stuff.”
Taken a bit aback by the insightful answer, (my misguided preconceptions had expected an answer more in the realm of developing new drugs or surgery), I then asked if he’d had any personal experience with how diets affect health. He told me, “Yeah, I guess for me it kind of hits home. My mom had cancer, and after two rounds of chemo[therapy], her body was spent. The doctors at the time said there wasn’t anything they could do, but she decided to try eating only plants, and in six months, she was healthy enough for another round [of chemo] that was able to kill off all the cancer. It’s stuff like that that really gets me going.”
As he recalled the events, I couldn’t help but be surprised by his reaction; rather than expressing sadness as he spoke of what his mom had been through, B.J.’s eyes lit up with excitement. To him, the story wasn’t one of hardship, but of opportunity to advance understanding of nutritional medicine being used to fight the devastating disease. It was a truly unique and humbling experience.
I asked him to describe a typical week in the pre-med program. “It’s tough,” he admitted. “There are nights I’ll stay up all night and still not understand the material, and I’m seriously never done with anything [schoolwork related]. But in the end, it’s kind of worth it ... There are days I just want to say ‘to hell with it all’ … but you [have] to remember that that one class you miss might be the class they [the professors] teach you … how blood glucose works or something. To me, it’s just a class, but a few years out [of college], that information might save the life of my diabetic patient. You really have to keep it in perspective.” Needless to say, after just an hour with B.J., I couldn’t agree more.
Going into the interview, I’d expected a well-dressed, somewhat pretentious individual to lecture me with elevated vocabulary on the necessity of annual checkups and the latest drug developments.
In contrast, I met an incredibly driven, down to earth college student who just wants to see people be able to live happy, healthy lives, one who’d made sacrifices in his own life (notably his sleeping patterns) to do so. He’d seen opportunity in adversity and is working as hard as he can to ensure others have a better experience than his family had endured.
Dr. B.J., thank you for proving me so wrong.
