Path to Medicine: Pit Stops on the Way to Medical School

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In this episode of the UMich Med Mosaic podcast, M3 host Mohika Nagpal leads a conversation about the evolving role of gap years on the path to medical school. Mohika shares her own experiences working in a sleep medicine private practice and teaching at her high school. Eliyas Asfaw describes his consulting work during his gap year, and Siddhi Deshpande reflects on her Fulbright research fellowship in India. Together, they discuss how stepping away from an academic path offered new perspectives, practical skills and personal growth. They also offer advice on finding meaningful opportunities for listeners who are weighing a gap year or just curious about different routes to medicine.

Transcript

Mohika Nagpal:

Hi, everyone, and welcome to UMich Med Mosaic, a medical student run podcast we've created to shine a light on the diverse backgrounds and experiences of our students here in Ann Arbor. I'm Mohika Nagpal, a third year student here at the University of Michigan Medical School. As one of the social media interns, I'm on this podcast team to help highlight the stories and experiences of my peers to life. I hope this podcast helps bring our voices together as a student body so that wherever our journeys take us, we're still connected. So, whether you've got us on your walk home from clinic, or while you're catching up on the weekend, we're delighted you're here.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to episode six of UMich Med Mosaic, titled Pit Stops. In today's episode, we're going to talk to students who made a quick pit stop on their way to medical school. Taking one or multiple gap years or growth years, as our admissions teams likes to call them, between undergrad and medical school has become increasingly common. And, the best part about it is that there are no right answers on what to do with those gap years. Our guests today have done it all, from teaching to finance, research and travel. We've all made different pit stops on our journey here. It is my great pleasure to have Eliyas Asfaw and Siddhi Deshpande on today's episode. Hey, guys.

Siddhi Deshpande:

Hello.

Eliyas Asfaw:

Hi.

Mohika Nagpal:

So, Siddhi and Eliyas, you guys have had so many cool experiences during your gap years. For our listeners, I wanted to ask, could you both tell us how many gap or growth years did you take and what did you do during them?

Eliyas Asfaw:

So, I took one gap year and I was a consultant in the finance banking space and manufacturing space.

Siddhi Deshpande:

I also took one gap year and I did a Fulbright student research fellowship in India and that was for about nine months.

Mohika Nagpal:

That's awesome. I took two gap years during which I was working for a little private practice in the sleep medicine industry and then, on the side, I actually went back to teach at my old high school. So, got to do a lot of really cool things. Why did you both decide to take your gap years? I know everyone has a different reason, but what were some of yours?

Siddhi Deshpande:

Yeah. I think I went into college always thinking I'd take a gap year. I had just seen older pre-meds and older med students I guess, who had taken gap years and they always seemed to be doing really fun things. And, I think just amidst the grind of college and the constant studying and working, I really looked forward to the idea of taking a break as well and being able to do things outside of school.

Mohika Nagpal:

That's awesome. Yeah. Eliyas, what about you?

Eliyas Asfaw:

I had initially planned to go straight through but COVID came and the MCAT schedule at that time was wrecked pretty much but, I also wanted to try to see if I liked the financial aspect of things. My brain works a little bit in that way so I wanted to explore that a little bit before I made a final decision to go to medical school.

Mohika Nagpal:

Totally. So, wanting to take a break, wanting to try something new, wanting to travel. These are some of the many reasons that people decide to take gap years. When I was thinking about taking my own gap years, like Eliyas, I wasn't planning on taking them. Plan A was to just apply straight through but then COVID hit and it just... I didn't feel like I had all the time that I wanted to put together the strongest application.

And, like Siddhi said, there were so many people at my program that were taking gap years and so it kind of felt like this was becoming more of the norm. And so then, my plan was, "Okay. I'll take one and then I'll apply and then we'll see what happens." This is something I get to talk a lot about too. I was a re-applicant. I didn't get in on my first attempt when applying to medical school so one year off became two years off and that's how I ended up taking about two and it wasn't part of the plan, but I do think overall it was the best decision.

So, all of us have done different things, consulting, Fulbright, I was working in the clinical space and teaching. How did you guys find your respective gap year opportunities?

Siddhi Deshpande:

So, my Twitter was big at that time. I think there were a few people around that I would see and, one of them had done a Fulbright in India and I didn't know that was an option or a thing you could do but then, I kind of looked into what she did and I was like, "Wait, I want to do that." So, it was an idea I'd had in the back of my mind and then, when it came time to apply, I learned a little bit more. I went to Penn State for undergrad and so, you have to apply in your junior year summer through the Penn State fellowships office. So, kind of just started that process pretty early by telling the office I was interested in applying and then also just letting professors know and seeing if they had any thoughts for how to put together my application.

Mohika Nagpal:

So well-prepared, Siddhi. I love it. What about you, Eliyas? How did you come across your consulting opportunities?

Eliyas Asfaw:

When COVID hit, lockdown, and a lot of time to yourself. So, I went and I was like, "What else can I learn?" I had done all this pre-med biology chemistry so I kind of started reading about business and that's how I started and took some classes online as well. So, I was subconsciously preparing myself. I didn't know I would actually go into a job or there wasn't that much foresight, I have to be honest. But, the opportunities came through a platform called Handshake and every school, I'm assuming, especially big schools like these, have that platform and people post employment opportunities over there. And, I knew, to be honest, I wanted a good paying job and whatever that means for the person who's listening and that was one of my priorities. So, I applied to a bunch of jobs that were in consulting.

Mohika Nagpal:

For my main job, when I was working in sleep medicine, I also just found that through primary job hosting platforms like Indeed. My undergrad institution, I went to Johns Hopkins and I feel like a lot of the gap year opportunities that they were helping connect students to were very research focused and very academic focused. I'd already gotten to do quite a bit of research and I didn't feel like I wanted to spend another year just doing research. I wanted to try something different and I recognized that I had little to no exposure to what medicine looks like in the private practice space, especially even right now, we're going through med school at a really awesome academic institution, but we really only see academic medicine. Sometimes we see community medicine. It is harder to find private practice spaces just to kind of compare and contrast some of those things.

So, I found my medicine job through Indeed, I think, and it ended up being in my hometown of Boulder, Colorado. So, I think it was when I was home for Thanksgiving break, I did it the old fashioned way where I had applied and then I went into the practice one day just to introduce myself and just be like, "Hey. I've applied. Looking for a job."

Siddhi Deshpande:

I love that, that you did that. I feel like parents tell us to do that and I'm like, "Okay, boomer," but, I'm glad you-

Mohika Nagpal:

Did you just call me a boomer on this podcast?

Siddhi Deshpande:

No, not you, my parents. But, you took the boomer advice and it worked.

Mohika Nagpal:

I did. Yeah. I did. Boomer by proxy, if you will, but it worked out. And then, my high school teaching job, because I was in my hometown again, I was still in touch with a lot of my friends, some of my teachers from high school, and I was that person who would still meet up with some of my teachers for coffee and lunch and stuff. And, my first year back, they had told me that they needed someone to fill that spot and they were like, "Oh, you should apply. You'd be so good at it." And, I was like, "Should I actually?" And, they were like, "Yeah. Go for it. Why don't you just go talk to the principal? You literally have his phone number." And, I was like, "Oh, yeah. I can do that now. I'm not in high school anymore." So, that was fully just word of mouth.

And, to clarify what I was doing, I was teaching and coaching my high school speech and debate team because I was on my high school speech and debate team so I didn't actually need a teaching license to do this. I could just go teach the elective, coach the team afterwards and then we would compete all over the state. So, that's what I got to do and it was through word of mouth and then through some of the more traditional opportunity search engines as well.

Siddhi, you got to spend an entire year or nine months at least in India. Would you tell us a little bit about where you got to live and what that was like?

Siddhi Deshpande:

So, I lived in the city of Pune, which is about three hours inland of Mumbai, one of the major cities in India. And, I was actually born in Pune and a lot of my family's from there. Both sets of my grandparents live there. I have aunts and uncles and cousins who live there. So, I already had a connection with the city and had spent a lot of summers growing up going there, but had never lived there for an extended period of time but had always wanted to. And so, when I was looking at where I would want to do my Fulbright, I saw that Pune had some great universities, one of them being Pune University, and I looked for a mentor there and luckily that's where I found one.

I also spent a month doing field work in one of the more rural regions of my state, Maharashtra. And, this was a month of field work and the city was kind of an inland city called Latur. And, during this time is when we were interviewing farmers and such. And so, at that time, we luckily had a NGO there who was helping us and then, also the help of my mentor's PhD student whose family was originally from there.

Mohika Nagpal:

Oh, nice.

Siddhi Deshpande:

And so, honestly, I think that experience was really beautiful because so many people came together to make that field work happen. This PhD student who let us stay in his house for a couple of days, they worked with us to try to find us a place to live for a month. My parents pulled in favors and connections that they had in that area and all of this put together... I think we actually rented a room above an OB-GYN hospital in the city and it was just on the terrace and it was this isolated room and the beds were patient cots but I was like, "Okay. This is a little dusty, but it'll work."

Mohika Nagpal:

Did you get any sleep sleeping on top of an OB-GYN hospital?

Siddhi Deshpande:

Well, I couldn't hear anything.

Mohika Nagpal:

Okay, that's good.

Siddhi Deshpande:

Because, the good thing about India is all the buildings are concrete and so they're pretty soundproofing. Yeah. And, I was there with someone else as well from Pune University and so we were there together. And, honestly, I look back on those days, I'm like, "Okay. What happened?" But, at the same time, it was so much fun. She had brought her little kettle and we would make Maggi in the kettle. Maggi is a type of Indian ramen if you don't know. So, anyway, a crazy time but a good time. We also had people who let us stay in their homes in the villages a couple of nights as well so kind of got to see a spectrum of everything.

Mohika Nagpal:

You really came back with, I think, an entire suitcase of stories of all these different places that you got to live and experience and these avocados that you got to eat apparently too.

Siddhi Deshpande:

Yeah. I mean, India is so beautiful because there's just every walk of life there and every way of living, I guess. And so, if you want to, you can experience all of it if you just talk to people and are willing to immerse yourself in that.

Mohika Nagpal:

That's really special. What about you, Eliyas? Where were you living during your gap year?

Eliyas Asfaw:

I was living in Michigan but I had to go to clients' sites so I was working in a small city called Oxbridge, Massachusetts every other week. Went to New York, went to Florida. I think it kind of expanded my vision of what the United States looks like. I mean, I've been around the Midwest but, when you're traveling with family, you have a secluded point of view of what the area looks like. When you're actually on your own over there, you get to see the spaces on your own. I think it was a good experience for me to do that.

Mohika Nagpal:

Nice. So guys, another thing that I think back to a lot is how all of our gap year experiences might have integrated themselves into our interview conversations that we were having with their respective med schools. What did you guys run into? How did these things come up in conversation? Did they help? Did they feel awkward to talk about? What was that like?

Eliyas Asfaw:

So, I applied to multiple positions and I'm not ashamed to say I submitted more than a hundred applications and I interviewed quite a lot. And, in the position that I finally accepted, there was three rounds of interviews. So, by the time med school applications and interviewing came by, I had a very good list of things I knew I can talk about. And, the other thing is that, when you go through interviews, there's always going to be a question that trips you up but when you've interviewed so much, it became so much easier.

Mohika Nagpal:

So, sounds like the interviews that you had done for your jobs and all the meetings that you had taken during your professional experiences, they helped you in your med school interview process by teaching you how to interview, how to have candid conversations, and it also helped you do your homework a little bit. Siddhi, what about you? How did your experiences in India and with Fulbright come up in your med school interviews?

Siddhi Deshpande:

Yeah. I think it was a really nice conversation starter and it was a good icebreaker. I think people would be mildly impressed that I was up at 2:00 A.M. to talk to them. So, I think it was just a good way to talk about things. Usually the initial questions are, "What time is it there?" I remember my Michigan week specifically, almost everyone I spoke to was like, "What time is it there?" And, honestly, the conversation flowed beautifully from there. So, yeah. I think I was only three months into my experience at that time so I didn't have much to say in terms of what I was doing or my professional accomplishments but it was just, I think people's ears perked up and they were interested to know what I was doing in India and such. So, yeah.

Mohika Nagpal:

That's awesome. I remember feeling really excited to be able to actually tell people what I was doing because I had done it for over a year at that point when I was interviewing. It was nice to be able to tell that story. It was nice to be able to tell them exactly why I am doing something, what I was doing and what the intended impact of that was. And then, even in a professional setting, you're talking to so many different types of people every single day that, by the time interview season came around, I just felt a lot more prepared to talk to whoever was going to be on the other side of the screen and I felt more confident and it felt really natural.

Siddhi Deshpande:

I'll just add that also the stuff I was learning while I was in India and the cultural immersion aspect of it, was also brought something new to the table to talk about. I remember I was trying to read more and buy books while I was in India to learn more about the history. And, I had also learned about Anandibai Joshi, who was India's first female doctor who originally went to medical school at what is now Drexel Medical School. And so, full disclosure, when I was interviewing there, I remember I talked about that and the interviewer thought that was the coolest thing and we had a really nice conversation about that. So, it was just a nice cultural basis on which I feel like a lot of the conversations could stem from.

Mohika Nagpal:

So, now that we're kind of in the reflection phase of what we got out of our gap years, if you guys can think back to what your original goals were, looking back, do you feel like you achieved what you wanted to achieve from your gap year? I know, Eliyas, you said that you never perceived your gap year as just being a step stone but, it sounded like you wanted to learn more about the financial side of your brain and see if you'd be happy elsewhere. And then, Siddhi, you wanted to take a break and go try something new, live somewhere else. For me, I don't really know what my goals were. I guess, just do something different so that I could prepare myself best for med school and see what life has to offer, I guess. Do you guys think that we all have met our goals?

Eliyas Asfaw:

I think it was a pivotal moment for me to a gap year, mainly because I had done jobs, I had done part-time positions. I was a tutor. I used to do research in a cohort study. I was a study coordinator. But, taking this job, what it did for me is I learned professionalism in a whole new light. I learned what it means to take loads off work from your team members when wrenches come to their lives. I learned, this might seem very simple but, to dress in a professional setting as well. Nobody's coaching you for these very fundamental things that you're going to have to carry on through your life.

And, I learned financial management and I learned how to operate in a professional setting 24/7. If it means that the work needs to be done, if you have to take time off out of your day to help... I come back to this point because, one time I was in a team and we had to get something done by Monday and one team member, their family passed away and he was devastated and he's like, "I have to be there. I'm sorry." And, the other person was like, "Due to religious reasons, I really can't work on these days." And, me and my other team member, she and I looked at each other and we're like, "Okay. It's time. It's time to get our hands dirty and just get this done by Monday." And, that's in medicine as well. Patients need something, it needs to be done within a certain timeframe. Somebody might come in and tell you, "My wedding," or, "My son's wedding," or, "My granddaughter wedding is on the 31st."

Mohika Nagpal:

Lots of weddings on the 31st.

Eliyas Asfaw:

"I have something that's important to me. Can we, in a time-based manner, get my care plan in order?" And, it teaches you to be nimble, to be resourceful. So, I think it meant with the world to me, especially when I look back, the things that I got from it. If I had went straight through, I think there would be some deficits that would be very detrimental for me at least.

Mohika Nagpal:

I completely agree. I think for me too, the gap years that I had ended up taking, even though they were not plan A or plan B, it was the best plan that could have happened to me between undergrad and med school. I really look at those years as an investment more than anything and the ROI has been awesome.

I think I grew up in ways that I didn't expect to be able to. I got a break from undergrad that I didn't realize that I needed at the time and grew in ways of professionalism and teamwork and actually got a nice breather and figured out how the real world works. To be in an undergrad institution where you're constantly around people of your own age group, you do end up putting on a set of blinders and you kind of forget that in the real world, you have to interact with and you get to work with people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds to make things happen.

New skills that I get from my place of work, that was really different. I never thought that in my early twenties I would be in a managerial role for a private practice and yet, here I was and I was learning things that I think are going to help me in the future when I'm thinking about healthcare delivery systems.

And then, it also taught me that sometimes the best type of investment that you can make in yourself is conscientiously choosing happiness. I really got to a point during my gap years where I was not doing something for the resume or doing something for my med school apps. Especially after I had applied, I was fully taking ownership of my time and doing the things that genuinely made me happy. And, now I have the best stories from them and they felt worthwhile and they added to my overall persona in a great way.

And, I feel like now that I'm here in med school, because I took those gap years, I was very fundamentally clear on what I wanted to achieve in medical school, beyond just the degree. I was very clear about the goals that I had, the type of person I wanted to be, the type of social spaces I wanted to exist in, what my boundaries are, how I study, how I don't study. And, it just helps me, I think, maximize my med school experience that much more. What about you, Siddhi?

Siddhi Deshpande:

Yeah. That sounds awesome. I think there were a couple main things I really got out of this experience, one of them being that I think the experience made me so much more adaptable, just the nature of being this nomadic person sometimes and just constantly traveling. I also spent the latter half of my experience traveling throughout a lot of India and doing a few different experiences. And so, it just made me really adaptable to almost survive in any environment and be able to adapt to any level of comfort and eat almost any food and these sorts of things. And, that's a skill I really wanted to have. It's something that I think I'd had growing up and I feel like you just grow up and you forget it a little bit. And so, I wanted to come back to that and know that, if I was dropped in any situation or anywhere, I'd be fine and I'd be able to survive.

And, the other thing I really got out of this experience was just a newfound appreciation for education. I, like most of us, had spent most of my life in school up until the senior year of college and didn't know what life was like outside of being a student. And so, when I took my gap year, the first three or four months, I was like, "This is awesome. No school, this is great. I'm so happy to be a real person out in the real world." And, I remember it got to be January, February, March of that year and I was like, "Man, I kind of miss school."

I realized that I missed the fact that education is a place where people invest their time and money and expertise to come teach you and that doesn't always exist out in the real world. And so, really made me crave that. And, I remember once I started medical school and M1 as well, even though it was a lot of work, I was also just really happy to be getting an education again and having this structure to learn again.

Mohika Nagpal:

I love that. So, it sounds like for the most part, we all recommend our gap years and like that we got to do them. Let's wrap it up with a little advice section. What advice do you guys have for current pre-med students who are considering gap years? And, if they would like to take one or more, where do you recommend they might find these opportunities?

Siddhi Deshpande:

My advice would be to think big and really just think as creatively as possible and really indulge your creativity. I think, when we're in those years of 18 to 22, our brains are growing, solidifying, all those things. And so, that's a time when we can be really creative and I think as we sort of grow up, we get locked into the rhythms of daily life and jobs and work and everything.

So, use this time to... What is it that you want to do? What is it that you want to do to, I guess, impact people. And, what do you think you might not be able to do as you continue in your path to medicine otherwise? And so, yeah, indulge your creativity and that doesn't just mean travel or move to another country. I think, even if you have creative pursuits you've really been wanting to do, I think this is the perfect time to do them. And, yeah, just think big, I guess.

Eliyas Asfaw:

I think it takes a little bit of soul-searching. What I did was very specific to me and that's what I appreciated about it. There was something I wanted to explore. Medical school, residency, fellowship, eight plus years, so I wanted to see if there's other things and I wanted to grow.

Mohika Nagpal:

That is such good advice. Not a whole lot to add on my end. I would just say that I hope anyone who is listening to this podcast today hears that there is no one size fits all answer to doing your gap years. Everyone has a different story, everyone has a different journey. And, it's all about owning your own story and owning your experiences. And, it's about what you want to be able to talk about. If something excites you, even if it scares you a little bit at first, that is what you want to go towards.

And, I think I will make a caveat that some folks do take gap years because they might have a very identifiable need in their application that they want to stitch together, whether that's research experience, clinical experience, academic experience, whatever that looks like. And, of course, that's a pretty straightforward motivation for taking a gap year.

But, for folks who are just wanting more, I think talk to as many people as you can who have already gone through this experience and see what they've loved about their stories and see what you can come up with on your own. Would strongly, strongly recommend taking a gap year.

And, with that, I want to sincerely thank both of our guests today for taking the time out of their very busy lives to tell you all a little bit about their past lives before medical school. Eliyas and Siddhi, thank you so much. You both continue to inspire me very, very much every time I talk to you both, seriously. And, to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next time.

If you loved today's conversation, share it with a friend. If you are a Michigan medical student and are interested in being a future guest, check out the class pages on Slack for open calls for episodes. UMich Med Mosaic is produced by the Michigan Medicine Department of Communication, in partnership with the University of Michigan Medical School. Find us and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening, and we will see you soon.