Decisions Decisions

Well, I've returned from 5 weeks spent backpacking across Japan and it's once again time to resurrect my oft-neglected page. In typical fashion, I made my final decision about which medical school I will attend at the very last minute - only a few hours before I hopped on a plane bound for Japan. So, without further ado, next year I will be a first year student at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Hiking for a month through Japan certainly gave me plenty of time to consider my decision, but I think well before I even made my decision I knew in my gut that Penn was the place for me. There were tons of tangible factors I considered, often simultaneously, when making my decision. Match lists and tuition figures swirled through my head on a daily basis. Certainly, the safe choice for me would have been to take the generous award I received from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and never look back. My parents certainly wondered what the hell I was thinking.

One small comfort to me was that I was not the only one in this position. Every year, thousands of medical students face the same dilemma. They are elated to discover that they have been accepted to medical school, perhaps even the school of their dreams, only to be left wondering how the hell they are ever going to pay off 240,000$ of student loans. Many of these students will elect to attend a state school or settle for a place with more financial aid to throw around. It is a difficult decision, and there are no hard and fast rules that one can follow to find the "right choice".

So, here's hoping I made the right choice. I've got only a few weeks left of summer, and some serious drinking and chilling to do before school starts. Looking forward to getting this blog rolling.