Who ya Gonna Call?

DR. CARR!!!!??? Jordan, thats who.

It actually happened, after WAY TOO much money and time invested in applying to medical schools, Jordan was ACCEPTED to his number one choice school of Medicine.

We are soooo excited!!! We have been waiting and dreaming of the day we were finally accepted and now its here. And even better is that it is exactly the school he wants to go to. After interviewing there he fell in love with the school and knew that was where he wanted to go. And he is sooo pumped to be studying the body in great detail, he loves anatomy and that is also my favorite subject of all time, and I am looking forward to learning what he learns, we plan on studying together as much as possible. Out of all the careers we have looked into and all the jobs he has done being a Doctor has always been his number one goal, he has always wanted the skills to help people when they are physically ill, and even more the ability to help his family and has always hated depending on other Doctors to diagnose/help his family. And if any of you really know Jordan you will also know that he is a "prepare for the end of the world" addict and has always had the goal of being completely self reliant, and that includes being a Doctor. Its soooo exciting to actually be accomplishing your number one choice path, instead of number 2. Hooray!!

So the school........is
Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences, located in.........drum roll..........the next place of habitation on the Carrs journey all over the country :)..........our future home for the next 4 years*.............yes yes, you didnt guess it, good ol (and ugly) YAKIMA WA. I am so excited that its in WA, but it is quite the bummer that its on the ugly side, altho it is very close to the pretty side. BUT it is only 2 hours from my (loni's) family. YAY And my sister lives in Boise which is only 6 hours away and we will be only 13 hours from Jordans family,which is the same as we are right now and is definately close enough to drive!! HURRAY!! Its a very small school, infact it only has 2 buildings and the class size is 75. Jordan starts september of 2011, so one year away. We probably wont move until next august, late july. Until then its ENJOY paradise.

We still can't believe it, it seems so unreal. I have gotten so used to waiting to hear from the schools that feel like we still have work to do regarding applications. In fact we are still recieved secondary applications from other schools and its SOO nice to be able to throw them away and not waste another dime, or spend the time writing essays.

But the greatest part of all, is.....thats it. We feel like this has been the last great unknown, the last choice, the last curtain over the future. Its been lifted and we can now see which direction we are headed in. When your 15 you wonder what its like to be 16, when your 17 you wonder about graduating high school and how you cant wait......and what the future will hold for you, then you wait some more and speculate about what colleges you are going to be accepted to, where you want to go and what you want to do. Then freshmen year of college you wonder what major would be best for your future. You wonder about whether you will go on a mission (at least I did) and for boys you wonder about where you will be sent on your mission. Then you wonder when you will get married and to whom, and how you will meet them.......wonder wonder wonder.....and then its still I wonder what we should do with our lives, what career? what path? What area? What jobs are out there? Which career would allow me to stay home and still have security? Will I as the wife be able to stay home with the kids? Always I wonder what the future will hold?!

So whereas the question is never completely answered, I at least will always be asking and obssessing about the future, we both feel that this is like right after our engagement when we realized that the question of WHO?, was actually answered and we knew who we would be spending all of eternity with, the wondering was over. Well thats how we feel right now, the wondering is over. Sure theres more questions to be answered, what area of medicine, what residency, where to live, own a practice?, etc, but it is no longer a great big IF, the big fat door of medicine has relinquished and swung wide open, and we are free to walk through.

We have been doing much studying, talking and praying, along with trips to the temple to decide if we should indeed walk through that huge gate....and luckily and thankfully we both have decided and agree to "marry" medicine. And unlike when we were married to each other blissfully, this "marriage" to medicine is much more of a Selfish partner and not always the easiest partner to live with. But its right for us. So here we go....

Subject to change, Jordan would like to go in family medicine, or PCP, something where he can open his own practice in a small town....he calls it the "village doctor". It has more flexible hours, especially if he joins or creates a shared practice where he only has to work half the week, and it has less exposure to crap, as in the atmosphere he would be working in all day. Albeit family medicine is rather boring as compared to surgery.

For those unfamiliar witht the process of becoming a dr: so just like any path farther than graduate degrees you have to take a standerdized test called the MCAT, its all chemistry, physics, math, biology, an essay section, and a reading section. It officially has 3 section and then the writing portion. It takes about 4 hours to complete and costs around 200 to take. It scores from 0-38 plus a letter of the alphabet for the writing. A score of 22 is considered pretty low, you would have to have a sweet GPA to get into a school with that score, and a score of 34 and up is considered "genius status", a ten in each section (so a 30 )is basically a gauruntee into any school as far as the MCAT goes. Jordan scored a 10, 10, 9, Q, so a 29Q. We were of course pretty downed that we didnt hit the 30 bench mark but it is still considered to be a very good score, the average score is 25.

Medical school is all about waiting, and Loni is never about waiting. It was close to murder to make me wait for all the slow secretaries out there to get results and answers back. Once you take the test it takes about 2 months for the scores to be released. Then once you have gotten 4 or more letters of recommendation and shadowed several doctors and recieved there letters of recommendation you send your scores, GPA, MCAT and letters to your schools board for review and their cumulative letter or status of recommendation to any schools reviewing your application and that of course costs 200. Once they recieve that you have to fill out all your info: transcripts, essays, service hours and logs, personal info, personal essay, professional resume etc onto a medical school internet Portal, called the ACOMAS. Once that is done, which usually takes about a month you get your results back from the board and then pay An ABSURD amount of money to apply.....the first year we spend about 4,000 to apply to about 14 schools. ( and now that is all over we have spent around 6,000 total!! eek) And this is not mentioning all the head ache dealing with tons of unqualified secretaries to do their job which caused me soooo much stress! and of course add into that mix, school, graduating, pregnancy, first baby, moving, new job, now place amongst all this essay writing.

THEN about 3 months later, cuz you have to wait for Acomas to get and process all your transcipts, the schools send out letters for Secondary applications. Which means you passed the first screen of just number qualifications. then you have to fill out all the SAME information as the first ones, lame, and write about 5 essays per school. So times 14 thats 70 questions!!! And of course pay the schools more money, each seconday costs about 60 dollars. Infact the school he was accepted to we almost didnt apply to because the secondary fee was 175!!!! so thats another 1200 down the hole. then you wait wait wait....................

And about 4 months later hear back and are invited for an Interview, so you spend more money on plane tickets and rental cars and places to stay. Money money money...... At the interview you get a tour of the school, some students talk to you, Jordan even got to spend the night the night before with a student family (who happened to be LDS) and then the interview is a series of questions about current events, theoretical scenarios, what if questions, medical related questions and general test of character, it lasts about an hour. After the interview luckily you only have to wait 1-2 weeks for the results of the interview. However on our first year applying to this school, PNWU, they lost some info and so were not invited to interview till later in the year and so were put on the waiting list......more waiting and loni is almost out of hair!!!

So then we talked to the admissions lady, who also interviewed Jordan, and she told us we were basically garunteed admittance based on his qualifications and interview results, if we just applied next year but super early (in june) so that we could be in the first interview group of the year (in october) and come the next year sept of 2011. Afraid to bank completely on that but also unwilling to accept any other school instead, we applied to 6 schools this year (more waste of money) just incase we didnt get in to PNWU and could accept somewhere else. After interviewing at PNWU Jordan liked that school alot and felt like that was the place to go. So he had his 2nd interview at PNWU oct 8th, the friday before PArry was blessed, and we found out our results the 13th. In fact Leann Hunter (the lady I mentioned) personally called him to tell him the good news, she was quite excited to deliver on her promise, and SO WERE WE!!

So we got a call saying WE WERE ACCEPTED. And of course were soooo excited and relieved that the hunting was done!

Oh and med school works like this: 2 years of class/book learning. the whole cadaver cut up thing, they usually take a year to dissect one cadaver per 4-6 students. Then they start rotations (means like 4-8 weeks in almost every field of medicine, from pediatrics to OBGYN) and more hands on hospital learning their 3-4 years. And actually this will probably not take place in Yakima since it is such a small town, so we might move again in two years, somewhere not too far tho, like vancouver, boise etc. Then you take lots of board exams and skill exams and apply for a residency based upon the specific field you want.....think of it as a two year minimum internship. surgery fields are usually 4-6 years residency and PCP is usually only two. THEN you take more exams and boards for states and pay pay pay to get licensed to practice.