August 16th arrived and with it the MCAT exam. I was almost paralyzed with fear as I drove to the Saint Paul University Campus testing site. It was a Saturday at 7:15am when I arrived. The line was already out the door as I queued up. The other student’s were chatting in line discussing their nervosa and the prospect of filling in the ‘do not accept’ at the back of the test. The MCAT is an exam that you can take more than once but your scores have to be averaged each time you take it. If it isn’t going well, you can opt to drop the test - eject. It was comforting on one hand to know there was a failsafe, but at the same time absurdly delusional to think of going through this again.
As I waited in line to be registered I noticed a trophy case with photos of students from years before. They were mostly black and white photos, mostly men with their whole life in front of them. They looked so old. They were probably younger than me, they didn’t look like kids, nor did they look like I felt, staring at my own reflection in the glass.
The test was given on the same day to every student in the United States. Twice a year you could take the test, the spring and the summer. This was before testing centers, computer terminals like they have now as if it was a scene from Enders’ Game. This was the day of analog, number 2 pencils and filling in the bubbles.
Registration was rather painless, the auditorium was filled to the maximum capacity, each of us sitting every other seat. It was salient to realize the sheer number of students; the perverse amount of people competing with each other to be healers, researchers, or surgeons. Every one of the kids was out for the same goal and only a limited number of spots to fill. It was hard not to imagine every other student in all the other 50 states embarking on the same journey.
The test proctors read the instructions and handed out the test books. After the last warning about the failsafe at the back of the book the six hours of testing begun.
It was brutal. Honestly, I really figured the difficulty of the MCAT was fear mongering, but the test would actually be easier. That was not the case; even today, as I write this 17 years after the fact I still remember the questions, the organic chemistry synthesis reactions, the calculus, lambda and wavelength physics, chemistry equations, valency, cell biology, and paragraphs of reading comprehension all in a very tight period of time. They were difficult and it wasn’t about figuring out the correct answer, it was about doing it in time to finish the section, I was lucky to even read all of the questions. They didn’t want sensitive, soft, emotional heroes, they were trying to create an army of programmable, high aptitude, genetically elite doctors that could be put under pressure and not crack.
When it came to the essay, I felt this was my greatest weakness, yet it was a relief from the barrage of final exam questions from the last four years of science. My essay question was ‘privacy in the media, do you give out sources? When is it okay to divulge your source’. I kicked its ass - wished the rest of the test was philosophical, written or even oral in which we could around talking about everything we had stored up in our heads, then I might have impressed the shit out of the testing regime.
When the test completed they explained the results would be released on exactly the same day for everyone, everywhere 60 days from today. I admit I hovered over that escape hatch, almost decided to ditch my test. But in the end, I didn’t leap, I let my score stand.
By the time I was taking the exam I was deep into the internship with the BCA. I had already registered for the fall term of my 5th and final year of college. I was ambivalent about being a doctor, but this is what the last four years were about, right? Where was I? Who was I? I seriously didn’t know and couldn’t answer. What I’d seen since the summer began had rocked my world.
All I could do was go through the motions. I was a kid with a plan that was handed to me, it was a roadmap and I was following it. I went to the morgue and absorbed every bit I could from Senior Special Agent Kohout, Senior Special Agent Good, Doctor Susan Roe and the rest. I was living day-by-day and trying to answer the ultimate question everyone was asking - what are you going to do?
The only thing I knew for sure was that didn’t know.
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