A Hike Through Mayo Medical School

I stepped out of the car onto the dry snow, taking one last glance at my girlfriend and my parents as they pulled away from the curb (having dismissed signs demanding “No Parking” and the giant Rochester Bus that could have squished even my Dad’s Chrysler like a peanut shell under a herd of rampaging oliphants (as Samwise Gamgee would say)). The brilliant sun reflected off of the snow and illuminated the Mayo Medical Campus, rising 10 or 15 stories into the luminous sky. Directly in front of me, however, stood a quaint stone building dwarfed by the surrounding skyscrapers.

“Are you looking for the Student Center,” a young lady asked me.

I stirred from my upward gaze and quickly followed the woman into Mayo Medical School.

“…healthcare in Sweden costs only 80 cents on the dollar per capita versus American healthcare while covering 100 percent of their citizens. Twenty percent of Americans are still uninsured…” I repeated to myself.

I was led across a wooden floor to a room with no windows, where the director of admissions was waiting for applicants.

“Welcome,” she stated, extending her hand for a firm handshake. “Welcome to Mayo Medical School,” she said as her other hand offered me a packet and a nametag. A large table sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by a dozen chairs, only one of which was filled. A young man stood up and offered a handshake and a greeting.

“My name is David; how was your trip?”

“…tort reform is an important tool in any industry. It holds GM responsible for the cars it pushes out of its factories, and it holds doctors accountable for the services they provide…” I thought.

“It was great; I’m Kyle,” I uttered.

One by one, ten other students dressed in their finest black suits, shiny shoes, suave ties, and conservative dresses arrived to the seat of their choice; most of them offered a name, a handshake, and talk that was deliberated word by word to limbo beneath the prying ears of any Mayo people.

After a quarter-hour had passed, and every seat had been occupied, a confident woman, the one who had greeted me, rose to speak to the group.

“Welcome to Mayo Medical School. It is a pleasure to have all of you here… And Mayo Medical School offers a state-of-the-art simulation facility equipped…”

“Am I blinking too much,” I asked myself. “I don’t think I can smile any longer; I wonder if my smile is slanted and I look like a generic Ken doll. No…she keeps looking at me…” And so my inward banter continued.

“So please introduce yourselves,” she suggested, looking to her right at a young woman.

“Hello. My name is Stephanie. I am a graduate student at Zurich Konzerv ach Liben Swaziland, studying under the tutelage of Dr. Max Planck. I recently found an error in the original derivitization of Plank’s Constant and have been casually working to revise the laws of General Relativity,” she stated indifferently, pausing for the young man sitting next to her to continue.

“Hi. My name is John Stockton. I am a doctoral student at Cornell University, studying public health and the implications of Lou Gerrick’s Disease on the formation of the prepubescent corpus callosum.”
And so the proverbial hat was passed along the table onto my head.

“Hello. My name is Kyle Blair. I am a biochemistry major at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas,” I stated, waiting for the room’s 24 eyes to find shelter on some other object in the room.

“Now it is time for some of you to tour the campus with some of our first year medical students,” said the admissions director when the final applicant had introduced himself.

We all rose and the designated medical students selected some of us to hike through the underground tunnels of the Medical Mecca on a guided tour. Those that were not selected were left to fend under the burden of a barrage of questions from a practicing physician.

I hurried to keep up with the eager group of travelers as we scrambled from library to anatomy lab to student lounge to the curriculum office.

“How advanced is your curriculum on public health,” two of the young men quizzed a guiltless faculty member who had only happened to be present. “Would it be possible for us to obtain the newest edition of Asparagus, Kiwi, and Bos Taurus Pedialis: Implications of the Spread of Clostridium Botulinum on Public Health so that we may read the book before classes begin?”

After crawling through the underground tunnels and climbing through many building, we were given a munificent lunch in the cafeteria of which I could scarcely eat a morsel. My stomach squeezed and groaned; my large intestines soared and plummeted like a roller coaster in a hurricane.

After our bountiful meal, we hastened back to our table of twelve chairs. It was my turn to begin.

“Kyle Blair,” inquired a middle-aged black man as he entered the room, looking around to find me.

I anxiously rose to my feet, gathering my few belongings and following the man into a nearby office.

The agreeable man shook my hand and introduced himself as a doctor at the hospital. We both sat down at a small table, and my interview began.

“Tell me about yourself and what you have been doing for the last few years,” he inquired.

“Well, I have been involved in dozens of activities including research at my university, volunteering at a clinic, helping raise funds for nonprofit organizations, performing with the Razorback Marching Band…”

And so the inquires continued. For 45 minutes, we talked about my AMCAS application, diversity, research, the future of medicine in America… It was not 15 minutes after we had at last shaken hand, made our concluding remarks, and parted that a very kind woman arrived at the table-chair room, and the inquires began again in a room further down the hall.

“And that is exactly the type of physician that I would like to be,” I declared, emphasizing my words with a strike of my fist in my palm, as I had rehearsed before my practice committee in our hotel room the previous day.

“Is that the second time that I have said the exact same phrase with the same
gesture,” I thought to myself.

When the very kind physician and I had talked for roughly 45 minutes, we walked back towards my designated chair in the room.

With a delightful feeling of accomplishment that I had not absolutely obliterated my chances of attending Mayo CoM, I spent my final hour meandering through the hospital and pondering on the significance of life, my thoughts treading across the interview questions that I had been dealt and the answers I had provided, the cold snow and the long semester I would spend without Sharon, and tabulating my chances of walking through the Mayo Campus every day as a medical student.

Never before had I so longed to attend Mayo Medical School, to meet the 48 brilliant students who are invited to study in Rochester, to introduce myself as a medical student, and to spend time with patients whose only longing is to feel better, to look better, to live better for another day…the day that it is not us but our children who stand before the wooden doors of Mayo Medical School and are invited into the warm and compassionate arms of the Mayo Medical Community.

Until that day comes, may we all glorify God through the lives that we lived and the lives that we touched, for it is not a white coat or health or healing or diplomas or paychecks or even our daily nourishment for which we should strive. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen