Michael's Musings #3 (14.July.2020) - How Basketball Led Me to Medicine
"I score 50. You score zero." First-Gen Student Life, Post-Bacc Programs, How to Improve Your Inputs, Obvious to You and Amazing to Others. A Jamboree of Insights.
Update: I published the piece on student burnout I referenced in last week's newsletter! You can find that article here. Please let me know what you think of it! In one image, the article sums to this:
“If you are serious about medicine, why would you spend your time that way?”
God, I hate that question.
Can't you let me play League of Legends in peace?
Can't I have two seconds to watch a YouTube video on marketing?
Can't I spend my nights refereeing basketball--just because I love it?
The worst premeds are the ones who only do medicine-related things. You can't talk to them without hearing about their research. Oh, and don't you dare have a night out on the town with them. They'll stress incessantly about their exams.
It's not their fault--the admissions system has engineered them to be overly anxious.
We have to change that.
No matter what your League of Legends or basketball is, you have to continue to spend time outside of medicine. Not only is it better for your mental sanity and personality, but it also improves your odds at admissions.
Yeah. Being someone outside of medicine is how to improve your odds to get into medicine.
You may be nodding, thinking: "That's not revolutionary in the slightest. I know that."
To that, I say ask: "The last time you canceled on a friend or on spending time with your hobbies, why did you do it?"
Was it because you had an exam coming up?
Or because you felt unprepared for a meeting?
Actions speak louder than words. Chances are, when push comes to shove, the activities that make us who we are are the first to go. When that happens, we lose a couple of hours each week doing something we love. Those hours add up and the percentage of time you spend on medically-related activities creep up.
You started by only spending time on your coursework. Then you added that community health club. Then you added a research commitment. Then you took on a project with your professor. then you said “yes” to this and that and then that other thing.
Every time you say YES to one thing, you're saying NO to everything else.
I'm working on a piece next week that details why my love for basketball led me to medicine. It makes a strong case for students to further prioritize their lives outside of school. Here's a snippet from my personal statement:
Unfortunately, I lost the privilege to play basketball in my senior year of high school. During a routine practice, I jumped to contest a shot and landed awkwardly. After exhausting all my treatment options, I had foot surgery to remove my accessory navicular bone and advance my posterior tibial tendon; I’d be out for 1.5 years.
During this time, I realized that much of what I loved about the game was the constant cycle of improvement. After games, I spent hours reviewing plays, questioning my decisions and deciding what to alter. Initially, I hated that my injury halted this process. Eventually, I began to feel empty. Basketball and my teammates composed core parts of my identity. I missed making swing passes to my friend in the corner and throwing my fingers up to signal the inevitable “3” that was to swish through the nylon net.
Now, I don’t consider it an injury; the word has a strong pejorative. I may always have a scar on my left foot, but that’s a steal for the perspective I gained. I enlightened my life off the court with the lessons I learned on it. Forced away from basketball, I homed in on what I loved about it—the continual improvement process and the feeling of enabling my teammates—and sought out activities that fueled those same drives.
If you'd like to know when that goes live, the easiest way is to sign up for this newsletter! I'll shoot it your way as soon as it's done. Until then, stop feeling bad about doing the things you love. It's the quickest way to burning out--and I don't want that for you.
🎙️ This Week on Pass the Mike
Pass the Mike is my solution to information asymmetry in the premed space. This podcast demonstrates to aspiring doctors that medical professionals are just like them. Not only have they failed exams and tore their hair out writing late-night essays, but they also enjoy lives outside of medicine—some referee basketball games and others are on quests to engineer the best chocolate chip cookie.
Inspired by Jack Butcher’s “Transparency Time” series and by an unhealthy amount of Tim Ferriss podcasts, I decided to start my own “Tribe Of Mentors” type podcast to interview and explore the stories of other eminent and current medical professionals. Every Tuesday and Friday at 5 AM PST, a new episode will drop! Subscribe to the newsletter and our YouTube Channel to be the first to find out!
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Abu Taha - Navigating California's Central Valley as a first-generation, immigrant scholar to become a UCSF Medical Student (#005)
In this episode, Nicolas interviews Abu Taha, an incoming UCSF Medical Student. They talk about:
Navigating the path to medicine as a student from California's Central Valley
Adjusting to the United States after immigrating at the age of 14
How minoring in Philosophy enhanced his perspective of medicine and life
Abu's path is inspiring and will open up your perspective on your personal journey to medicine.
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Victor Escobedo - Current Med School Applicant Shares Insight on Post-Bacc Programs, Leading Dance Teams and Being Bilingual in Medicine and Insight into Post Bacs (#006)
In this episode, Nicolas interviews Victor Escobedo, fresh off his undergrad and post-bacc programs at UCSD. They talk about:
His undergrad and post-bacc experience at UCSD
His experiences leading various dance teams
How being bilingual can open doors for connecting to patients and improving their health outcomes
How to earn unique mentorship opportunities through a post-bacc program
Victor has a personal monopoly on an unrelenting drive and sky-high ambition. He is a storyteller and this conversation will remind you why you work so hard as a pre-med.
🤔 3 Thoughts
Being Unapologetic About Your Success
I'm not the first to say it, but I'll say it anyway.
I f*cking miss Kobe.
I spent an hour this weekend reading all his writing for the Players' Tribune to remember his views on life.
Here's a gem I found:
"I want MVP. There’s no shame in feeling that way. Why should there be? I want the world to see me dominate the players that are debated by millions of fans as being on my level. Competing with this spirit is fun to me."
- Kobe Bryant
Whatever you want in your life--whether it's to be rich, or to prove others wrong, or to earn your seat in medical school--there's no shame in that.
Some desires are healthier than others and you can determine that for yourself over time. That's a topic for another day.
Today, I want to stress that if you crave something, don't feel any shame.
Be unapologetically you.
That's what Kobe would f*cking want.
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input --> output | INPUT --> OUTPUT
We intuitively understand that better ingredients lead to better food.
Yes, the Chef makes a big difference. There are wonderful videos from Epicurious where pro chefs cook $16 steak dinners and home cooks create $500 steak dinners.
Still, we know that a better cut of beef, a higher-quality knife, and more precise appliances (e.g. a sous vide machine) lead to a better output.
The same is with cars--higher quality fuel leads to more efficient driving.
The same is with construction--higher quality materials lead to a longer-lasting structure.
The same is with nutrition--higher quality food leads to a healthier, stronger body.
Why don't we treat our learning the same way? Here's Josh Waitzkin, a chess prodigy and author of The Art of Learning, on inputs to promote excellence:
The secret is that everything is always on the line. The more present we are at practice, the more present we will be in competition, in the boardroom, at the exam, the operating table, the big stage. If we have any hope of attaining excellence, let alone of showing what we’ve got under pressure, we have to be prepared by a lifestyle of reinforcement. Presence must be like breathing.
If you can't hire the greatest basketball trainer (e.g. DJ Sackmann, Tyler Relph, InTheLab, etc.), then improve your training input by maximizing how present you are.
If you can't hire the greatest tutor (e.g. anyone not me), then improve your studying input by maximizing how present you are.
It sounds simple and not sexy, but often the most life-changing things are mastering the fundamentals.
What can you do to maximize how present you are?
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Obvious to you. Amazing to others.
Derek Sivers is a writer, entrepreneur, and avid student of life. During his life, he realized that everyone had something to share--people think that it's much too obvious to share.
For example, this week I worked with my partner on budgeting and the fundamentals of investing were new to her. Things like "401K," "Roth IRA," "Betterment" or "Vanguard" were obvious to me, but amazing to her.
She walked away with a rough budget breakdown, plans to automate her finances, and a big ol' smile. Money had always been this amorphous monster--she knew the buzzwords, but not much more.
Here's Derek Sivers on this same concept:
"Everybody’s ideas seem obvious to them. I’ll bet even John Coltrane or Richard Feynman felt that everything they were playing or saying was pretty obvious. So maybe what’s obvious to me is amazing to someone else? Hit songwriters often admit that their most successful hit song was one they thought was just stupid, even not worth recording. We’re clearly bad judges of our own creations. We should just put them out there and let the world decide.
Are you keeping something that the world needs to yourself because it's too obvious to you?
💬 2 Quotes
On Never Settling:
"He (Allen Iverson) would publicly say that neither of us could stop the other.
I refused to believe that.
I score 50.
You score zero.
THAT is what I believe.
- Kobe Bryant
Your goal for the MCAT? 528.
Your goal for your GPA? 4.0.
Your goal for 1-on-1 with your friend? 15 - 0.
Niceties are appreciated and all, but sometimes the season is right to be obsessive. To be a hunter. To want to just dominate.
You can be the best and it's not the slightest bit arrogant.
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On The 100 Hour Asset:
Seth Godin is an American author who posts a short blog post every day. Here's one that resonated with me recently on how time is your biggest asset.
If you invest 100 hours in a rare skill, you’re likely to acquire it. If you could learn to sharpen a tool better than your peers, organize a high-performance database, see the nuances in some sector of cryptography, know how to build a pretty-good WordPress site or really understand the arc of a particular writer’s career, you’d have something of value.
Something that anyone who was focused enough to invest 100 hours could have, but few will choose to commit to.
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There’s huge pressure to fit in, and plenty of benefits if you invest the time and stand out instead.
Twenty hours a week for a year and you can know something that puts you in a new category. Access to knowledge isn’t nearly as difficult as the desire to learn."
- Seth Godin
This is what younger students misunderstand about their value.
Yes, you don't know how to run PCRs or Western Blots.
Yes, that Junior knows how to do the mouse surgeries and how to set up the imaging experiments.
But, you have the most valuable asset of all. You have time.
You have four years to learn mouse surgeries, imaging experiments, PCRs--the whole nine yards.
If you highlight this--and bonus points for those who also show genuine curiosity--you are a coveted asset for any lab or organization.
❓ 1 Question For You
Where in your life can you improve the inputs?
🙏 Infinite Gratitude
“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.” – Anonymous
Shoutout to Ed, Kev, Han, NGB, Roney & Steph for the dope birthday present. A public proclamation: this is my Jordan year--bonus points because I share the G.O.A.T's name. If you see me on the road with a duffel bag too cool for your liking, you have them to thank for it.
Here's a picture of Lina. She knows how we've all felt this week.
To all the hoopers: my boy John and I are starting a basketball newsletter! We aren't NBA scouts or analysts, but we are lifelong fans of the game. In all honesty, we’re starting this newsletter because John and I have very different opinions on the game and I want to prove to him that the world knows I’m right.
In my corner of this newsletter, I’ll write about how I see life through the lens of basketball, with special emphasis on how it has contributed to my personal development. If you’re the type of person who watches highlights on your phone before bed or thinks that the charge is the most beautiful play in basketball, we’ve already got major common ground.
Here’s a 22-second video showing you John and I’s relationship. Sorry John, Not Today.
Thanks for reading!
P.S. Be sure to follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube for even more of my thoughts. I encourage you to reach out and ask me anything!