התמלול המלא של Episode 77: Transferable Skills That Matter: Insights from SOF to SOM Leaders

00:04:38,380 --> 00:04:42,052 That's an interesting story. I guess I'd always been kind of 71 00:04:42,076 --> 00:04:45,604 interested in medicine, but I think that it was appealing 72 00:04:45,652 --> 00:04:49,344 because. Because the scope of work that we were able to do 73 00:04:49,512 --> 00:04:53,312 seemed to be a little bit better if you were a medic. And 74 00:04:53,336 --> 00:04:56,992 I like the idea of being able to help my 75 00:04:57,016 --> 00:05:00,752 teammates and so it kind of put my toe in 76 00:05:00,856 --> 00:05:03,340 to go to the school. 77 00:05:04,440 --> 00:05:08,272 Our class basically votes when you graduate, who goes. I 78 00:05:08,296 --> 00:05:11,920 got voted to go over there and I ended up falling in love 79 00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:15,270 with medicine while I was doing it and kind 80 00:05:15,310 --> 00:05:18,966 of decided to pursue it on the outside 81 00:05:19,038 --> 00:05:22,742 of the civilian. Wow. So the team votes who 82 00:05:22,766 --> 00:05:26,310 to send to combat medic school. The way that 83 00:05:26,350 --> 00:05:30,182 we had done it, like when you graduate from what we call 84 00:05:30,206 --> 00:05:33,862 SEAL qualification training, there's a couple of billets 85 00:05:33,926 --> 00:05:37,622 basically to go to medic school. We get augmented with 86 00:05:37,646 --> 00:05:41,190 the army for about a year and go through like the Green Berets 87 00:05:41,270 --> 00:05:44,858 training pipeline for medics called Sockham. 88 00:05:44,934 --> 00:05:48,738 But we generally you have a lot more people that want to go than 89 00:05:48,794 --> 00:05:52,562 you have billets for. So kind of make your case and 90 00:05:52,586 --> 00:05:56,402 then your classmates get to decide who ends up going and 91 00:05:56,426 --> 00:06:00,230 who doesn't. Oh, it's interesting. Ricky Ditzel. 92 00:06:01,370 --> 00:06:04,754 So like Bren, I was a. I'm a non traditional student as well. I'm a 93 00:06:04,762 --> 00:06:08,210 second year medical student at Rush Medical College in Chicago. 94 00:06:08,370 --> 00:06:11,602 I also joined the Army. Well, I joined the army, not the Navy, 30 days 95 00:06:11,626 --> 00:06:15,472 after graduating from high school, so graduated and went 96 00:06:15,496 --> 00:06:19,264 right off to the military. Initially served as an infantry 97 00:06:19,312 --> 00:06:22,848 medic and a brigade support battalion medic at 98 00:06:22,904 --> 00:06:26,672 Fort Liberty, which used to be known as Fort Bragg, before assessing and 99 00:06:26,696 --> 00:06:29,952 selecting to become a Special Operations flight paramedic with the 100 00:06:29,976 --> 00:06:33,648 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, which 101 00:06:33,704 --> 00:06:37,520 is the premier aviation unit within the military to support the United 102 00:06:37,560 --> 00:06:41,128 States Special Operations Command. I also did my 103 00:06:41,184 --> 00:06:44,424 undergraduate degree while on active duty. I graduated from the George Washington 104 00:06:44,472 --> 00:06:48,280 University with a disaster management degree. And when I got 105 00:06:48,320 --> 00:06:51,368 out of the military in order to go to medical school, I completed a post 106 00:06:51,424 --> 00:06:54,712 baccalaureate pre medical certification at Columbia University in New 107 00:06:54,736 --> 00:06:58,504 York. Wow. Talk a little bit about how does the, 108 00:06:58,592 --> 00:07:01,880 the aviation battalion that you 109 00:07:01,920 --> 00:07:05,700 mentioned? Like how does. Is that support all 110 00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:09,928 branches or is it just army? Oh, so yeah, 111 00:07:09,944 --> 00:07:13,720 that's probably my favorite part is that we support anybody under the Special Operations 112 00:07:13,800 --> 00:07:17,640 Command umbrella. So that could be guys like Breton 113 00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:21,128 with seals, it could be folks like Reed Berets, it could be Special Mission Unit 114 00:07:21,144 --> 00:07:24,600 guys. It can be a whole bunch of different organizations. 115 00:07:24,680 --> 00:07:27,624 So that was one of my favorite parts of that job, was I needed to 116 00:07:27,632 --> 00:07:31,048 understand the protocols medically and tactically for all different 117 00:07:31,104 --> 00:07:34,632 units so that we could work cohesively. How many years were you 118 00:07:34,656 --> 00:07:37,720 in? I did eight years active duty. Okay, 119 00:07:37,880 --> 00:07:41,300 deployments. Where were you guys? Where'd you guys find yourself? Around the world? 120 00:07:41,600 --> 00:07:45,288 Yeah, I deployed once to Europe and then 121 00:07:45,344 --> 00:07:49,016 once to Africa. And then after my last 122 00:07:49,088 --> 00:07:52,392 deployment, they did what they call a shore 123 00:07:52,456 --> 00:07:55,832 command. But you get generally put in like 124 00:07:56,016 --> 00:07:59,784 a training type situation where you're non deployable, you're kind of giving back to 125 00:07:59,792 --> 00:08:03,212 the force before you deploy again. And while I was there, 126 00:08:03,316 --> 00:08:07,100 I stood up a tactical medical training command for all 127 00:08:07,140 --> 00:08:10,892 the SEAL medics on the East Coast. That means you were 128 00:08:10,916 --> 00:08:13,960 training other SEALs and in medic work? 129 00:08:14,580 --> 00:08:18,348 Yeah. So basically we set up a bunch of courses for them 130 00:08:18,404 --> 00:08:22,124 that was kind of the one side of it. We were able to partner with 131 00:08:22,212 --> 00:08:25,868 some civilian institutions and get 132 00:08:25,924 --> 00:08:29,692 them rotations up in New York. And then 133 00:08:29,876 --> 00:08:33,644 you're training. Like we kind of give back a little bit at the give and 134 00:08:33,652 --> 00:08:37,500 take relationship. But yeah, we train all the SEAL and like Special Boat Team medics. 135 00:08:37,580 --> 00:08:41,292 And then we'd also have like FBI medics, SWAT medics. 136 00:08:41,436 --> 00:08:45,132 We take local buyer

paramedics, come in and 137 00:08:45,156 --> 00:08:48,860 put them through our course. Wow. I'm trying to. You guys have 138 00:08:48,900 --> 00:08:52,572 a different language and so I find myself trying to 139 00:08:52,596 --> 00:08:56,354 translate a little bit when. When some of 140 00:08:56,362 --> 00:08:59,794 the phrases you guys use. Ricky, where were you finding yourself 141 00:08:59,842 --> 00:09:03,266 deployed? Deployed. Iraq and Afghanistan. Yeah. 142 00:09:03,378 --> 00:09:07,202 Wow. So you guys come back and you guys start 143 00:09:07,226 --> 00:09:10,946 to get into medicine. And then the next thing you know, there's 144 00:09:10,978 --> 00:09:14,786 this Special Operations Forces to School of Medicine organization. 145 00:09:14,898 --> 00:09:18,562 That's why we're here, part of the conversation today. So hear a little bit about 146 00:09:18,586 --> 00:09:22,308 that, talk about the origins of that and kind of, what. What does it do? 147 00:09:22,364 --> 00:09:26,084 What's the mission? Sure. So Special Operations 148 00:09:26,132 --> 00:09:29,284 Forces School of Medicine, or softasam for short, and how we can refer to it. 149 00:09:29,292 --> 00:09:33,060 The rest of this talk probably is a 501C3 that's out of North 150 00:09:33,100 --> 00:09:36,884 Carolina that helps the current and former special operator on their journey 151 00:09:36,932 --> 00:09:40,724 becoming a physician. So that means the premedical phase, the medical phase, 152 00:09:40,772 --> 00:09:44,244 and then the residency and beyond phase. So we want to take care of you 153 00:09:44,252 --> 00:09:48,052 through all three phases. The origin story is quite interesting. So I was at 154 00:09:48,076 --> 00:09:51,812 Columbia. Like I said, I had academic advisors who were helping me 155 00:09:51,836 --> 00:09:55,604 out with deadlines, personal statements. What is the working activities? 156 00:09:55,652 --> 00:09:59,172 Having all these great seminars about applying to medical school. So I was in this 157 00:09:59,196 --> 00:10:02,820 pipeline program, for lack of better terms. And then one of my best 158 00:10:02,860 --> 00:10:06,452 friends who had been accepted medical school in the past but had 159 00:10:06,476 --> 00:10:10,132 deferred to go to another military unit, was going back through the 160 00:10:10,156 --> 00:10:13,892 medical pipeline. And so him and I were talking every day about, like, what. What 161 00:10:13,916 --> 00:10:17,732 we were putting our applications, what does it look like, et cetera. And he 162 00:10:17,756 --> 00:10:21,184 said, hey, I got this other guy from my organization who 163 00:10:21,352 --> 00:10:24,112 is a little bit older, and he's trying to go to medical school, but, you 164 00:10:24,136 --> 00:10:27,760 know, he's working in a specific job and 165 00:10:27,880 --> 00:10:29,712 he doesn't really know what to do, so we should, like, get in a group 166 00:10:29,736 --> 00:10:33,024 chat together. So we got in this group chat and we were all studying for 167 00:10:33,032 --> 00:10:36,304 the MCAT to save time. And he's like, hey, do you remember Jesse Malaski? And 168 00:10:36,312 --> 00:10:38,608 I was like, oh, I know Jesse. We did X, Y, and Z together. He's 169 00:10:38,624 --> 00:10:41,136 like, hey, we're gonna add him to the group chat. He's studying for the mcat, 170 00:10:41,168 --> 00:10:44,864 too. He's trying to go to Mayo Clinic. And so that was. That's where it 171 00:10:44,872 --> 00:10:47,360 started. It was like five, six of us in this group chat. We're talking every 172 00:10:47,400 --> 00:10:51,216 day about MCAT studying. What resources are you using? You know, what are you writing 173 00:10:51,248 --> 00:10:54,412 your personal statement? How much military are you putting in your personal statement? How much 174 00:10:54,436 --> 00:10:58,156 military are you not putting in your personal statement? You know, what are you afraid 175 00:10:58,188 --> 00:11:01,516 of talking about? What are you not afraid? What are you comfortable talking about? And 176 00:11:01,668 --> 00:11:05,116 we just kept growing this little group chat. It was like, oh, hey, I remember 177 00:11:05,148 --> 00:11:07,404 Brentyn Jones. He's trying to Go to medical school. We should add him in the 178 00:11:07,412 --> 00:11:11,180 group chat. And the list goes on. Well, as we're in this 179 00:11:11,220 --> 00:11:14,520 thing, this group chat, we started doing these 180 00:11:15,060 --> 00:11:18,772 like, zoom sessions of talking to each other about, you know, 181 00:11:18,796 --> 00:11:22,212 your application, your military career and what you're going to put on your application. 182 00:11:22,356 --> 00:11:26,120 And we had one folk, one person in particular who's now our CEO, 183 00:11:26,940 --> 00:11:30,372 and I remember meeting with him on Zoom and he was going to apply to 184 00:11:30,396 --> 00:11:33,908 medical school and he had hit me up and he was like, hey, I'm. 185 00:11:34,084 --> 00:11:37,364 My personal statement's done. I got like eight working activities. Here's my MCAT score. I'm 186 00:11:37,372 --> 00:11:39,412 going to apply to med school. And I found this to be a really big 187 00:11:39,436 --> 00:11:43,060 red flag, the eight working activities, specifically because I did a study with West 188 00:11:43,100 --> 00:11:46,680 Virginia University School of Medicine, wvsam, 189 00:11:47,020 --> 00:11:50,824 looking at all their allopathic applicants medical school. And we found that it 190 00:11:50,832 --> 00:11:54,520 was statistically significant acceptance if you had 12 or more work 191 00:11:54,560 --> 00:11:58,280 and activity sections filled out. So if you looked at all, all 192 00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:01,992 variables across the board, mcat, gpa, whatever, those were the obvious, like 193 00:12:02,016 --> 00:12:05,528 higher mcat, higher gpa. But the work activities thing hasn't really been talked 194 00:12:05,544 --> 00:12:08,872 about. So I was like,

hey, you can't apply to med school. You won't get 195 00:12:08,896 --> 00:12:12,616 in. Statistically proven. So we got in the zoom chat and it was initially, 196 00:12:12,648 --> 00:12:15,780 it's going to be about, how can I. How can we add to his 197 00:12:16,200 --> 00:12:19,568 working activity section? So three hours 198 00:12:19,624 --> 00:12:23,168 later, we had a 15 section, working 199 00:12:23,224 --> 00:12:26,784 activities filled out, and we had a therapy session. 200 00:12:26,912 --> 00:12:30,544 And I think that the most important part of that zoom call was this deeper 201 00:12:30,592 --> 00:12:33,712 connection with someone who had really robust 202 00:12:33,776 --> 00:12:37,440 experiences, unlike many people in the military have ever had, let 203 00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:41,260 alone people on this planet. And he didn't want to talk about it. 204 00:12:41,880 --> 00:12:45,698 He felt like he was selling out his teammates. He felt like he was 205 00:12:45,754 --> 00:12:49,490 selling out the personnel he treated that didn't make it home, both us and non 206 00:12:49,530 --> 00:12:53,042 US personnel. He felt like nobody would 207 00:12:53,066 --> 00:12:56,546 care about what he was going to talk about. He felt that his story wasn't 208 00:12:56,578 --> 00:13:00,322 believable and he had not talked about any 209 00:13:00,346 --> 00:13:04,162 of that and had repressed it for so many years due to things like 210 00:13:04,186 --> 00:13:07,874 moral injury and just overall coping mechanism. When you're in the 211 00:13:07,882 --> 00:13:11,568 military, you know, sometimes we cope by just not talking about it, whether 212 00:13:11,624 --> 00:13:15,472 we're doing it consciously or not. And I said, after that call, I said, 213 00:13:15,496 --> 00:13:19,040 man, we really have something. And the most important part 214 00:13:19,080 --> 00:13:22,736 is this guy wasn't going to get into medical 215 00:13:22,808 --> 00:13:26,220 school and he probably wasn't going to reapply if he didn't get into medical school. 216 00:13:26,600 --> 00:13:30,240 And I don't know how many 217 00:13:30,280 --> 00:13:34,080 academic advisors could tap in the way we were able 218 00:13:34,120 --> 00:13:37,424 to tap in. And I don't mean that any disrespect to any academic advisors out 219 00:13:37,432 --> 00:13:40,832 there. You guys are incredible at what you do. But what sparked the 220 00:13:40,856 --> 00:13:44,640 conversation was he said he was in a certain location, deployed location, a certain year. 221 00:13:44,680 --> 00:13:48,432 And I said, oh, you were part of that special Forces 222 00:13:48,496 --> 00:13:51,712 team? He said, yeah. And I said, so you were with this doctor? He's like, 223 00:13:51,736 --> 00:13:55,344 yeah. And I said, so you did that save and it's a very well known 224 00:13:55,432 --> 00:13:58,384 patient save in our community. And he was like, yeah, dude, that was me. And 225 00:13:58,392 --> 00:14:01,220 I was like, where is that on your application? 226 00:14:01,640 --> 00:14:05,472 And that's when he kind of broke down. And I 227 00:14:05,496 --> 00:14:09,098 think that that was a huge breakthrough we had. And from 228 00:14:09,154 --> 00:14:12,842 that conversation we've had tons more since that 229 00:14:12,866 --> 00:14:15,098 person. So I know it's a very long answer from what is soft to song, 230 00:14:15,114 --> 00:14:18,858 but I think it's really important. Yeah. Understand that what we're doing 231 00:14:18,914 --> 00:14:22,538 is a forest bias type thing. But I 232 00:14:22,594 --> 00:14:26,362 personally believe that these folks, most of them would be successful without us getting 233 00:14:26,386 --> 00:14:29,150 into medical school. They're high achievers, they've been highly selected, 234 00:14:29,650 --> 00:14:33,418 psychologically, physically, emotionally, multiple times throughout their careers 235 00:14:33,594 --> 00:14:37,386 and they're high achieving individuals. The thing that we provide differently 236 00:14:37,418 --> 00:14:40,748 is that like you said in the beginning of the podcast, we speak the language, 237 00:14:40,844 --> 00:14:43,960 we can decode it, we 238 00:14:44,500 --> 00:14:47,980 know things that they've been through, we can relate to them and we can 239 00:14:48,100 --> 00:14:51,932 extract that and get it out of them and help them transition 240 00:14:51,996 --> 00:14:54,320 from a very high functioning 241 00:14:54,980 --> 00:14:58,284 physical and mental, but more physical type job 242 00:14:58,372 --> 00:15:02,172 into medicine, which is much, much different from physical to 243 00:15:02,196 --> 00:15:05,660 a more cognitive, demanding job in a totally different 244 00:15:05,700 --> 00:15:09,298 environment. So that's who we are. That's where we came from. We're 245 00:15:09,314 --> 00:15:12,882 officially incorporated. We have a whole all volunteer board, all volunteer staff, and we 246 00:15:12,906 --> 00:15:16,546 operate through three programs which we can talk about later. And that's our mentorship 247 00:15:16,578 --> 00:15:19,842 program, scholarship program and research program. What's the 248 00:15:19,866 --> 00:15:22,750 organization do today to support. 249 00:15:23,610 --> 00:15:27,442 You've mentioned scholars, there's a scholar program. So talk a little 250 00:15:27,466 --> 00:15:29,870 bit about how that happens now. 251 00:15:31,370 --> 00:15:34,594 Yes. So the way that happens now is we have application 252 00:15:34,642 --> 00:15:38,240 cycle that opens up basically in line with the 253 00:15:38,280 --> 00:15:42,112 AAMC cycle so that we're aligned to what the medical schools are 254 00:15:42,136 --> 00:15:45,152 looking for. And we take folks up to two to three years out from them 255 00:15:45,176 --> 00:15:48,240 applying to medical school so people can be in all the different stages of being 256 00:15:48,280 --> 00:15:51,744 ready. So it could be the postbac stage The I'm figuring my life out stage,

257 00:15:51,792 --> 00:15:55,152 or hey, I'm taking the MCAT six month stage. And we have a 258 00:15:55,176 --> 00:15:58,896 proprietary screening model of objective measures that we 259 00:15:58,968 --> 00:16:02,608 found to be successful for what makes someone successful in medical school 260 00:16:02,664 --> 00:16:06,316 to our standard. So once they're selected by our committee, 261 00:16:06,388 --> 00:16:10,108 they're brought on and we provide them one on one mentorship 262 00:16:10,284 --> 00:16:13,884 with a paired mentor who has something in common with them that's going to help 263 00:16:13,892 --> 00:16:17,148 them succeed. So that could be seal to seal, that could be sealed, a green 264 00:16:17,164 --> 00:16:20,972 beret. But those persons are both married and they both want to go the 265 00:16:20,996 --> 00:16:24,796 same geographic area, et cetera. So we find something where those folks can connect 266 00:16:24,828 --> 00:16:28,220 and provide best value. We provide funding for 267 00:16:28,260 --> 00:16:31,356 their application fees, tutoring fees, 268 00:16:31,548 --> 00:16:35,074 and MCAT preparation fees. And then our research 269 00:16:35,162 --> 00:16:38,882 program helps these folks become published authors for 270 00:16:38,906 --> 00:16:42,590 the first time or speak at conferences, teach them about research, 271 00:16:42,890 --> 00:16:46,370 just add to their overall picture of being a physician and also help to become 272 00:16:46,410 --> 00:16:50,146 highly competitive. And Bren has a very specific role in our 273 00:16:50,218 --> 00:16:53,922 nonprofit that has also, I 274 00:16:53,946 --> 00:16:57,170 would say, stemmed from the fact that we have this great selection 275 00:16:57,250 --> 00:17:00,862 program which allows his job to 276 00:17:00,886 --> 00:17:04,062 flourish. I'll let Brentyn kind of talk about our outreach. Talk a little about what 277 00:17:04,086 --> 00:17:07,550 you do. Yeah. So I'm the director of 278 00:17:07,590 --> 00:17:10,570 partnerships, and my job more or less has been 279 00:17:11,030 --> 00:17:14,622 connecting with different universities that value the 280 00:17:14,646 --> 00:17:18,334 backgrounds and some of the skill sets and strengths that prior 281 00:17:18,382 --> 00:17:21,982 military and specifically special forces have to 282 00:17:22,006 --> 00:17:25,438 bring into medical school and then later into being 283 00:17:25,494 --> 00:17:28,740 physicians. So we basically try to 284 00:17:29,520 --> 00:17:32,744 see where they stand, see where these universities 285 00:17:32,872 --> 00:17:36,376 and softasam and our scholars have common 286 00:17:36,408 --> 00:17:40,040 interests and we make these linkage programs. 287 00:17:40,120 --> 00:17:43,528 So we have about 10 right now. We have four or five 288 00:17:43,584 --> 00:17:47,380 more that are in the process at the moment. But 289 00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:51,560 these linkage programs basically allow our scholars 290 00:17:51,640 --> 00:17:55,326 to get a little bit of a second 291 00:17:55,398 --> 00:17:59,166 look, I guess is probably the best way to describe 292 00:17:59,198 --> 00:18:02,846 it. So they, the universities are buying 293 00:18:02,878 --> 00:18:06,334 in on the fact that the average training pipeline for 294 00:18:06,502 --> 00:18:10,302 our guys is around one and a half to two years. And the average 295 00:18:10,366 --> 00:18:13,090 investment of training of special operations 296 00:18:13,830 --> 00:18:16,755 course of personnel is around $1.3 297 00:18:16,928 --> 00:18:20,334 million. And so that's obviously all taxpayer 298 00:18:20,382 --> 00:18:23,948 funded, but they're making an investment 299 00:18:24,084 --> 00:18:27,852 in the investment that's already been made in and allowing these 300 00:18:27,876 --> 00:18:31,356 guys to use the high specialty 301 00:18:31,468 --> 00:18:35,228 training and the mentalities that they've been able to 302 00:18:35,364 --> 00:18:38,940 grow throughout their time in the military and 303 00:18:38,980 --> 00:18:42,220 transition it into being the same high level performers 304 00:18:42,300 --> 00:18:45,756 in an academic and then later in a medical 305 00:18:45,908 --> 00:18:49,302 environment. Yeah. Talk a little bit 306 00:18:49,326 --> 00:18:52,934 about Ricky. How many scholars now 307 00:18:53,022 --> 00:18:56,770 have gone through the program. Like, how many cohorts have you had 308 00:18:57,070 --> 00:19:00,822 some success rates? What's that look like? Yeah, 309 00:19:00,886 --> 00:19:04,262 so we've done three cohorts successfully so far, 310 00:19:04,446 --> 00:19:08,150 and that's 30 personnel, plus or minus, like, five, like, 311 00:19:08,190 --> 00:19:12,022 four people. On the plus side, actually about 30 personnel so far 312 00:19:12,046 --> 00:19:15,572 in a medical school. And right now we're at 313 00:19:15,596 --> 00:19:19,320 100% success rate there with people applying and being matriculated. 314 00:19:19,740 --> 00:19:23,220 And I think the exciting part of 315 00:19:23,260 --> 00:19:27,012 that has been that, you know, we 316 00:19:27,036 --> 00:19:30,484 set this goal of trying to take 10 folks per year, just from a 317 00:19:30,492 --> 00:19:34,260 bandwidth perspective and a funding perspective, mostly the bandwidth. Just make sure we can really 318 00:19:34,300 --> 00:19:38,084 mentor them and put the effort into them. And to see that payoff 319 00:19:38,132 --> 00:19:41,934 has just been incredible. I think my favorite thing ever is we 320 00:19:41,942 --> 00:19:45,102 have a candid photo of one of our folks getting accepted into medical school. And 321 00:19:45,126 --> 00:19:48,334 one of our guys had taken a picture right as he got the phone call, 322 00:19:48,422 --> 00:19:52,174 and he's got this big smile on his face, and he's been trying 323 00:19:52,182 --> 00:19:55,838 to get to medical school for, like, three years. I think that that 324 00:19:55,894 --> 00:19:59,246 picture

summarizes our why, for sure. Yeah, 325 00:19:59,358 --> 00:20:02,638 that's. It's such a amazing organization. 326 00:20:02,734 --> 00:20:06,558 I'm still grateful that you guys reached out to me to talk about 327 00:20:06,614 --> 00:20:10,384 this, because I think you guys are doing great work 328 00:20:10,552 --> 00:20:14,016 for great, great people, and 329 00:20:14,168 --> 00:20:17,180 it's very impressive what you. What you guys have put together. 330 00:20:19,480 --> 00:20:22,780 Let's talk a little bit more about. Like, 331 00:20:23,560 --> 00:20:27,140 do you want to transition to talk about some transferable skills? 332 00:20:27,480 --> 00:20:31,184 And I. I have to think, 333 00:20:31,352 --> 00:20:35,104 guys, that that was probably something. When you're having these conversations with the scholars, 334 00:20:35,152 --> 00:20:37,930 is drawing out from them, like 335 00:20:38,710 --> 00:20:42,414 your. To your story, Ricky, about the. The one. The guy who didn't 336 00:20:42,462 --> 00:20:46,078 feel like they could share some stuff or just was reluctant in a way 337 00:20:46,134 --> 00:20:49,022 to maybe talk about things in a way that medical schools would want to hear 338 00:20:49,046 --> 00:20:52,686 about them. How do you get guys to talk about transferable skills 339 00:20:52,718 --> 00:20:56,542 or understand the things they've done in their training? Med schools want to hear 340 00:20:56,566 --> 00:21:00,142 about this? Yeah, for sure. This is something I'm, like, really 341 00:21:00,166 --> 00:21:03,928 passionate about, too. So 342 00:21:03,984 --> 00:21:07,432 when we talk to the special operations medics, this. The. So we take care of 343 00:21:07,456 --> 00:21:10,728 any special operator. It doesn't matter if you're a communications person, a medical 344 00:21:10,784 --> 00:21:13,944 person. If you were a weapons 345 00:21:14,072 --> 00:21:17,592 expert, whatever, it'd be your special operator. Special operations. What we see with the 346 00:21:17,616 --> 00:21:20,808 medics is the medics, because they function this high 347 00:21:20,864 --> 00:21:24,696 capacity of trauma diagnosticians and proceduralists. 348 00:21:24,808 --> 00:21:28,552 They want to talk about their transferable tactical medical skills. They 349 00:21:28,576 --> 00:21:30,472 want to talk about the fact that they can do a chest tube or take 350 00:21:30,496 --> 00:21:34,198 someone's airway surgically. Major minor surgeries they've 351 00:21:34,294 --> 00:21:38,070 completed. And what we've realized, and actually what we move 352 00:21:38,110 --> 00:21:41,462 away from is we don't want them to really talk about these crazy 353 00:21:41,606 --> 00:21:45,334 medical cases they've taken care of, because that. That part, 354 00:21:45,422 --> 00:21:48,678 while transferable, isn't what we think makes them unique and 355 00:21:48,734 --> 00:21:52,262 special. We think makes them unique and special across the board of 356 00:21:52,286 --> 00:21:55,830 our special operators is they're highly 357 00:21:55,910 --> 00:21:59,400 resilient individuals who are 358 00:22:00,260 --> 00:22:03,788 expert problem solvers. So what they can 359 00:22:03,844 --> 00:22:07,644 do and tested throughout their career is, you know, when you're in 360 00:22:07,652 --> 00:22:10,348 the unit that I was in, or even the unit Brent is in, rank doesn't 361 00:22:10,364 --> 00:22:13,932 matter and age doesn't matter. So when I was a brand new young guy at 362 00:22:13,956 --> 00:22:17,388 my unit, I deployed for the first time. You know, I'm briefing 200 363 00:22:17,444 --> 00:22:21,052 people on a tactical medical plan at a, you 364 00:22:21,076 --> 00:22:24,684 know, task force level of 200, 300 people for an entire area of 365 00:22:24,692 --> 00:22:28,250 operations. And I'm, you know, 23, 24 years 366 00:22:28,290 --> 00:22:31,946 old, you know, low rank. If you were to look at traditional military 367 00:22:31,978 --> 00:22:35,802 ranks, and my word is gospel, and the ground force commander who you 368 00:22:35,826 --> 00:22:39,290 could say is like the CEO of the mission, that CEO takes everything I say 369 00:22:39,330 --> 00:22:43,114 seriously and is like, okay, that medic from that unit said, that's what we're going 370 00:22:43,122 --> 00:22:46,682 to do. As soon as injured, I trust them. There's no. No questions, because that 371 00:22:46,706 --> 00:22:49,642 unit's reputation has been that for so many years. 372 00:22:49,826 --> 00:22:53,546 So I think what's very transferable from our folks is extra 373 00:22:53,578 --> 00:22:57,298 little problem solving. They're extremely resilient individuals. 374 00:22:57,394 --> 00:23:00,690 The whole stage of medicine in the career of being a physician is all about 375 00:23:00,730 --> 00:23:04,370 resiliency. In medical school, it's resiliency. In studying and 376 00:23:04,410 --> 00:23:08,178 test taking, it's resiliency and prepping for step one, it's 377 00:23:08,194 --> 00:23:10,882 resiliency. When you score a bad on one test, can you bounce back and get 378 00:23:10,906 --> 00:23:14,162 good at the next test? It's telling your friends that you can't go out on 379 00:23:14,186 --> 00:23:17,202 Friday or Saturday because you have step one, step two coming up. It's all these 380 00:23:17,226 --> 00:23:20,856 little things you're attending telling you did a terrible presentation that day 381 00:23:20,978 --> 00:23:24,268 on rounds, and you got to come back the next day and crush it and 382 00:23:24,324 --> 00:23:27,644 be happy you got told you did that. And then in residency, 383 00:23:27,692 --> 00:23:31,452 it's first time a patient dies. It's the first time you make a medical mistake. 384 00:23:31,516 --> 00:23:34,860 It's your attending telling you you're terrible that day, and then the next day come 385 00:23:34,900 --> 00:23:37,292 back and looking them in the face and being like, hey, I Had a bad 386 00:23:37,316 --> 00:23:40,684 day yesterday. And then when

you're attending, it's all on you. So 387 00:23:40,852 --> 00:23:44,252 our folks have been tested through that, through every stage of their 388 00:23:44,276 --> 00:23:48,092 career, and that's what our those selections are looking for. In the military, it's not 389 00:23:48,116 --> 00:23:51,788 about 100 push ups. It's not about the super fast runners. It's usually 390 00:23:51,804 --> 00:23:55,224 the middle of the pac fol. Folks that have extreme mental and 391 00:23:55,312 --> 00:23:59,112 emotional maturity, who can take that adversity and smile 392 00:23:59,256 --> 00:24:02,920 and be like, oh, man, this sucks right now, but it won't last forever. 393 00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:06,580 This backpack's super heavy, but at some point I'm going to take it off. 394 00:24:07,360 --> 00:24:11,144 And I think that's what's really special about our folks, and that's what's really transferable. 395 00:24:11,192 --> 00:24:14,680 And then the last thing is these people have been in leadership positions since day 396 00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:18,504 zero. They know how to get people motivated. They know 397 00:24:18,512 --> 00:24:21,352 how to drive people towards a goal. They know how to take a really big 398 00:24:21,376 --> 00:24:24,996 goal and chop it down to small pieces so that you have a cohesive vision 399 00:24:25,028 --> 00:24:27,332 for where we're trying to go and what we're trying to do. They can see 400 00:24:27,356 --> 00:24:31,012 the long game and break it up into short pieces, which really is your 401 00:24:31,036 --> 00:24:33,972 first two years of medical school. What do I need to do every single day 402 00:24:33,996 --> 00:24:36,900 so that when step one comes around, I'm gonna crush it? And then you just 403 00:24:36,940 --> 00:24:40,740 keep doing that. And then medicine is teamwork, and 404 00:24:40,780 --> 00:24:44,628 medicine is teamwork of people with different levels of education, different 405 00:24:44,684 --> 00:24:48,260 levels of experience, and different specialty. Whether that specialty is 406 00:24:48,300 --> 00:24:52,004 environmental services, business administration, billing, 407 00:24:52,132 --> 00:24:55,428 or neurosurgery versus family medicine. Special 408 00:24:55,484 --> 00:24:59,172 operators. They have the SEAL team. So Bren 409 00:24:59,236 --> 00:25:03,044 has him and his group of seals. They have the motor guys, 410 00:25:03,092 --> 00:25:06,564 the mechanics who've helped fix the vehicles. They have the regular 411 00:25:06,612 --> 00:25:10,228 Navy corpsmen or regular Navy folks who are going to support them on their, 412 00:25:10,364 --> 00:25:13,892 you know, on their ship or say, be a cook or whatever. Then they 413 00:25:13,916 --> 00:25:17,572 have the special Operations command in charge them. And then sometimes they might have a 414 00:25:17,596 --> 00:25:21,038 big Navy command team that they have to interact with that's very similar 415 00:25:21,094 --> 00:25:24,542 setup. So being able to have this meta leadership style where they can lead up, 416 00:25:24,566 --> 00:25:28,222 down, left and right and work cohesively in a team of differing opinions and 417 00:25:28,246 --> 00:25:31,966 skill levels to be successful, I think is really unique 418 00:25:31,998 --> 00:25:34,574 and really rare. And you don't see that in a lot of different. In a 419 00:25:34,582 --> 00:25:38,046 lot of backgrounds. So I think that's highly transferable skills that make these folks 420 00:25:38,078 --> 00:25:41,726 successful. Yeah, we, we had a prep call before 421 00:25:41,798 --> 00:25:45,342 this and before we sat down today, and you were 422 00:25:45,366 --> 00:25:49,112 talking, you guys were talking A little bit about how the, our rigorous selection 423 00:25:49,176 --> 00:25:52,984 process to be a scholar. And I kind of laughed and said, haven't you 424 00:25:52,992 --> 00:25:56,728 guys been through enough to be selected 425 00:25:56,824 --> 00:26:00,648 for this? I mean, you guys have been working your tails off for almost 426 00:26:00,704 --> 00:26:04,440 10 years in the, in the, in this area. And I think, Ricky, you said 427 00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:08,328 something like there's always selection. Yep. Selection's 428 00:26:08,344 --> 00:26:11,784 an ongoing process. That's right. Selection is an ongoing process. 429 00:26:11,872 --> 00:26:15,660 And isn't that something that's transferable you see in medicine? 430 00:26:16,580 --> 00:26:20,252 Yeah, I think Brentyn can really talk about this better than me. But I'll say 431 00:26:20,276 --> 00:26:23,676 something to prime him, which is you got to earn the Trident every single 432 00:26:23,708 --> 00:26:27,164 day. You got to earn the right to call yourself a SEAL every day. So 433 00:26:27,172 --> 00:26:30,364 I think, Brian, you can talk more about what it's like to be constantly 434 00:26:30,412 --> 00:26:33,964 selected. Yeah, 435 00:26:34,092 --> 00:26:37,820 that's one of our sayings. You have to earn your Trident every day. 436 00:26:37,860 --> 00:26:41,212 And basically the premise of that is you put all this effort in on the 437 00:26:41,236 --> 00:26:44,972 front end, going through our selection courses, to be able to wear a trident, which 438 00:26:44,996 --> 00:26:48,648 is the insignia of a Navy seal, and to be able to 439 00:26:48,704 --> 00:26:52,328 be called a Navy seal, but you have to consistently 440 00:26:52,424 --> 00:26:56,008 earn that right. You've never made it more or less 441 00:26:56,064 --> 00:26:59,880 is the thought process behind it. And what 442 00:26:59,920 --> 00:27:03,592 that does is it weeds out complacency and it weeds 443 00:27:03,656 --> 00:27:07,384 out a lowering of standards, which is what happens a 444 00:27:07,392 --> 00:27:10,920 lot of times when you set a goal and you reach it is you've already 445 00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:14,552 hit the pinnacle. And so it's very easy to see that start to 446 00:27:14,576 --> 00:27:18,072 regress, whether physically,

whether it's 447 00:27:18,136 --> 00:27:21,892 mentally, whether whether it's the amount of commitment, time 448 00:27:21,916 --> 00:27:25,268 and effort you're putting into something. It's very hard to 449 00:27:25,324 --> 00:27:28,820 keep motivation when there isn't a follow on 450 00:27:28,860 --> 00:27:31,840 goal. So I think that that is 451 00:27:32,300 --> 00:27:36,020 probably one of the more, the more 452 00:27:36,060 --> 00:27:39,844 relatable things when you move into medicine and into health care 453 00:27:39,932 --> 00:27:43,444 is it's very easy to finish your 454 00:27:43,612 --> 00:27:47,430 residency and then basically not make any 455 00:27:47,470 --> 00:27:51,222 changes for the rest of your career, which is what you see happen sometimes with 456 00:27:51,246 --> 00:27:54,854 older physicians who are stuck in something they learned 30 years ago 457 00:27:55,022 --> 00:27:58,630 and unwilling to change, but if you have this ever growing 458 00:27:58,710 --> 00:28:02,166 mindset of change and growth, it 459 00:28:02,238 --> 00:28:06,006 allows you to be able to not only stay at the forefront of your given 460 00:28:06,078 --> 00:28:09,622 field, which in this case is going to be medicine, but also to be a 461 00:28:09,646 --> 00:28:13,462 leader and innovative because you're not falling behind, you're actually staying on 462 00:28:13,486 --> 00:28:17,220 the forefront of whatever it is you're doing. How have you 463 00:28:17,260 --> 00:28:20,280 found Brentyn, now that you're a first year medical student? 464 00:28:20,940 --> 00:28:24,516 That you're seeing transferable skills not only 465 00:28:24,588 --> 00:28:27,972 in yourself, as you're now out of the military 466 00:28:28,036 --> 00:28:31,812 and you're back to being a student and in your 467 00:28:31,836 --> 00:28:35,444 classmates. What have you seen that has been helpful to 468 00:28:35,452 --> 00:28:39,076 you as far as these transferable skills, ones you possess and ones 469 00:28:39,108 --> 00:28:41,000 maybe you've seen in your classmates? 470 00:28:43,670 --> 00:28:47,134 I think that for me, I didn't have 471 00:28:47,302 --> 00:28:50,990 as much of a rigorous school background as 472 00:28:51,030 --> 00:28:54,670 some other people. I didn't have a bioengineering 473 00:28:54,750 --> 00:28:58,350 undergraduate degree. So going into medical school, I think 474 00:28:58,390 --> 00:29:01,758 for a lot of traditional students, especially that lean very 475 00:29:01,814 --> 00:29:05,662 heavily into the sciences is a 476 00:29:05,686 --> 00:29:09,022 lot easier due solely to the fact that they have 477 00:29:09,046 --> 00:29:12,766 been very high achieving academically and they've 478 00:29:12,798 --> 00:29:16,382 been put in very rigorous learning and testing conditions 479 00:29:16,446 --> 00:29:20,206 for pretty much the entirety of their academic careers. 480 00:29:20,398 --> 00:29:24,174 So transitioning into that was difficult for me. It 481 00:29:24,182 --> 00:29:27,850 was kind of a bit of a learning shock. And I think when 482 00:29:28,550 --> 00:29:32,158 I look back at the question you were originally asking, it 483 00:29:32,214 --> 00:29:35,918 is when you're not doing as well as you know you can 484 00:29:35,974 --> 00:29:39,736 be doing, what changes can you make to 485 00:29:39,808 --> 00:29:43,544 be successful? And I think that what we see, what 486 00:29:43,552 --> 00:29:47,400 I see in buds when I was going through, was kind of 487 00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:51,240 something Ricky touched on previously. But it's that the people 488 00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:54,872 who are generally the most high performing, the people 489 00:29:54,976 --> 00:29:58,600 that are holding, you know, world records for 490 00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,864 running or for powerlifting or whatever it is, 491 00:30:02,032 --> 00:30:05,592 they've never really come to a situation where they failed. 492 00:30:05,736 --> 00:30:09,300 And what each of these selection pipelines does, 493 00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:13,416 and even once you make it through, as they put you in positions where 494 00:30:13,488 --> 00:30:17,192 you will fail, nothing you will do will be good enough. And 495 00:30:17,216 --> 00:30:21,000 it makes you have to recover from that and 496 00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:24,424 figure out how you're going to make changes to be successful moving forward. So in 497 00:30:24,432 --> 00:30:27,384 these selection pipelines, a lot of the people who have never failed fail for the 498 00:30:27,392 --> 00:30:30,920 first time and it's detrimental to them and they end up washing out and not 499 00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:34,728 finishing selection because they can't cope with the fact that their best 500 00:30:34,784 --> 00:30:38,276 effort in this case was not good enough. I think in that medical school it's 501 00:30:38,308 --> 00:30:42,068 been very, very similar so far. And I would assume that that 502 00:30:42,124 --> 00:30:45,732 translates well into residency and to being an attending 503 00:30:45,796 --> 00:30:49,140 physician as well, where you're going to fail 504 00:30:49,260 --> 00:30:52,756 and you have to be able to recover, 505 00:30:52,868 --> 00:30:56,532 make changes and not make the same mistake again, which 506 00:30:56,556 --> 00:31:00,212 is the name of the game for us. You can make the mistake once, but 507 00:31:00,236 --> 00:31:02,612 you can't make it twice. So what are you going to do to make sure 508 00:31:02,636 --> 00:31:06,352 it doesn't happen again? Ricky, what would you say about that? What 509 00:31:06,376 --> 00:31:10,160 have you seen? What have been some of the skills that maybe surprised you, that 510 00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:13,632 you possess, that you're like, oh, like I'm. 511 00:31:13,776 --> 00:31:17,456 That I didn't think that kind of skill or characteristic would, 512 00:31:17,528 --> 00:31:20,608 I'd be using that today. But you are as a second year medical 513 00:31:20,664 -->

00:31:24,192 student. You know, one that 514 00:31:24,216 --> 00:31:27,072 surprised me. That's a tough question. I have to really think about one that has 515 00:31:27,096 --> 00:31:30,380 surprised me. There's so many that haven't surprised me. 516 00:31:31,650 --> 00:31:35,466 But no one that I think surprised me, that 517 00:31:35,618 --> 00:31:39,226 we're really good at is public speaking and briefing. 518 00:31:39,338 --> 00:31:42,890 I think that is the superpower of the, of our 519 00:31:42,930 --> 00:31:46,630 community. I didn't real, you know, I didn't realize that. 520 00:31:48,050 --> 00:31:51,338 Well, you know me having a medical background, I knew about presenting patients, I knew 521 00:31:51,354 --> 00:31:54,858 about presenting to a attending physician. I've done that my whole 522 00:31:54,874 --> 00:31:58,556 career. But what I didn't realize was that being 523 00:31:58,628 --> 00:32:02,220 confident in speaking is something that really helps you stand 524 00:32:02,260 --> 00:32:05,980 out and it really is a differentiator in medical school. I think 525 00:32:06,020 --> 00:32:09,820 a lot of the folks in medical school are extremely smart individuals. They're very, very 526 00:32:09,860 --> 00:32:13,708 smart. But there's a difference in confidence level sometimes 527 00:32:13,804 --> 00:32:17,400 of folks and I'll be in class or I'll be in 528 00:32:17,780 --> 00:32:21,452 a situation with attendings and other medical students. Sometimes you want to keep 529 00:32:21,476 --> 00:32:24,204 your mouth shut and not speak because you're like, oh, I'm a med student, I 530 00:32:24,212 --> 00:32:28,034 don't need to speak up. But from my background and other backgrounds of guys in 531 00:32:28,042 --> 00:32:31,346 Soft Assam is we've always been in rooms where there's a higher ranking 532 00:32:31,378 --> 00:32:34,930 individual with more experience and might be smarter and if you 533 00:32:34,970 --> 00:32:38,002 identify there's a problem or you identify something wrong, you're supposed to speak up because 534 00:32:38,026 --> 00:32:41,826 that could get someone killed if you don't. And I think that surprised 535 00:32:41,858 --> 00:32:44,850 me a lot as being classroom is, I'm surrounded by people who probably know the 536 00:32:44,890 --> 00:32:48,722 answer faster than I do, may know it earlier than, than I do, but they 537 00:32:48,746 --> 00:32:52,492 won't speak up. And I speak up a lot. And I think that just 538 00:32:52,516 --> 00:32:55,640 comes from having confidence, being in rooms and speaking up. 539 00:32:56,020 --> 00:32:59,692 Because I've, I've been in situations where my 540 00:32:59,716 --> 00:33:02,652 senior medic or someone's like hey man, when we're in briefing, like you're the guy 541 00:33:02,716 --> 00:33:05,756 so you need to talk and they force you to, they put you in uncomfortable 542 00:33:05,788 --> 00:33:09,500 positions. You know, I, I go back to briefing ground force commanders and task force 543

00:33:09,580 --> 00:33:13,388 overseas. You can't question yourself when you're 544 00:33:13,404 --> 00:33:15,964 going to go spend and stand in front of 250 people and tell them what 545 00:33:15,972 --> 00:33:19,020 the medical plan is. You know, the medical mission plan is if one, their best 546 00:33:19,060 --> 00:33:22,768 friend gets hurt, you know, I can't walk up to Brighton's platoo 547 00:33:22,844 --> 00:33:26,456 command, you know, SEAL team commander, and say, hey, I think I have an idea 548 00:33:26,488 --> 00:33:29,768 of what's going on, but if you need me, call me. That they're gonna shut 549 00:33:29,784 --> 00:33:33,528 the mission down, you know, and that's, that's, that's, that's just too important. So 550 00:33:33,584 --> 00:33:37,240 that's very much surprised me is our 551 00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:41,096 folks have this ability to brief. They know how to 552 00:33:41,168 --> 00:33:44,920 brief long and short. Because we had to be 553 00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:48,248 in situations where we, we have to adjust our 554 00:33:48,304 --> 00:33:52,060 methodology. And they're very confident, dang. What they think 555 00:33:52,100 --> 00:33:55,852 is incorrect in certain rooms. And I think the thing we have to 556 00:33:55,876 --> 00:33:59,356 work on ourselves as special operators and we, we remind our guys in south dasam 557 00:33:59,388 --> 00:34:02,284 is you guys got to change the approach a little bit. You know, in the 558 00:34:02,292 --> 00:34:05,516 military, you can tell someone they're wrong a certain way. And 559 00:34:05,668 --> 00:34:09,212 medicine, we, you know, in academics, we just gotta. The tact a little more 560 00:34:09,236 --> 00:34:13,052 tactful. Yeah, a lot more tactful. Yeah. So I 561 00:34:13,076 --> 00:34:16,899 think it was something Ricky, you said was important a moment ago was that. But 562 00:34:16,939 --> 00:34:19,279 you can't be afraid to speak up. 563 00:34:22,379 --> 00:34:26,179 I think there's an analog between the hierarchy in medicine, 564 00:34:26,259 --> 00:34:29,747 which you've mentioned. You can have attending, fellow, resident, 565 00:34:29,843 --> 00:34:33,639 medical student, and there's hierarchy obviously in the military. 566 00:34:33,979 --> 00:34:37,731 And to your point, if you don't speak up about something, 567 00:34:37,915 --> 00:34:41,651 there could be very detrimental consequences to 568 00:34:41,675 --> 00:34:44,970 that. And I think there's a, I think 569 00:34:45,270 --> 00:34:48,782 there can be a, in medicine, a 570 00:34:48,806 --> 00:34:52,478 tendency to have group think. And if you get stuck in group 571 00:34:52,534 --> 00:34:56,318 think, that's when problems can occur. And 572 00:34:56,374 --> 00:35:00,142 if you feel like I'm the, the junior person on this team, but 573 00:35:00,166 --> 00:35:03,966 I, I think I see something. There's a mistake here, but I'm the medical 574 00:35:04,038 --> 00:35:07,748 student and I'm in a vulnerable position because I'm being

575 00:35:07,934 --> 00:35:11,592 evaluated by the resident or attending and 576 00:35:11,616 --> 00:35:15,272 I'm afraid to say something that group. And if the attending is like saying, I 577 00:35:15,296 --> 00:35:17,960 think this is happening right now, this is where we should proceed. But if that 578 00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:21,592 student is astute and picks up on something but feels the 579 00:35:21,616 --> 00:35:25,432 fear to not saying something, that group think can bleed through 580 00:35:25,456 --> 00:35:29,128 the rest of the team and there can be problems there too. Is that something 581 00:35:29,184 --> 00:35:31,540 that you agree and have seen? 582 00:35:32,240 --> 00:35:35,918 100%. I've actually talked to my classmates about this a lot. 583 00:35:36,104 --> 00:35:39,922 You know, at my school, we have conversations all the time in what we call 584 00:35:39,946 --> 00:35:43,730 our, like, role sessions. More of the professionalism side of, of 585 00:35:43,770 --> 00:35:47,314 our curriculum. And we always talk. There's always examples of like, you're in the operating 586 00:35:47,362 --> 00:35:50,994 room and there's a malignant surgeon and they're telling you they're doing something wrong and 587 00:35:51,002 --> 00:35:53,730 you're the med student. What do you do? And I'm like, tell them they're wrong, 588 00:35:53,810 --> 00:35:57,442 like calling a safety timeout or something. And like, you know, a lot of my 589 00:35:57,466 --> 00:36:00,658 classmates will be like, well, aren't you afraid they're going to yell at you? Aren't 590 00:36:00,674 --> 00:36:03,850 you afraid they're going to hold that against you for residency? 591 00:36:04,190 --> 00:36:07,862 And respectfully, what I say is the only thing that separates us from 592 00:36:07,886 --> 00:36:11,414 them is time. We're in the, you know, to all the other med students out 593 00:36:11,422 --> 00:36:15,142 there, you're in the same pipeline as any of these surgeons, any of these attendings 594 00:36:15,206 --> 00:36:18,982 that you're going to work for one day. They've just started earlier than you. 595 00:36:19,006 --> 00:36:22,662 They're born earlier than you. They worked just as hard. They 596 00:36:22,686 --> 00:36:26,342 went through the medical school pipeline. They went to a residency, and now 597 00:36:26,366 --> 00:36:28,982 they're using the same skills they learned as a medical student resident and applying it 598 00:36:29,006 --> 00:36:32,786 every day as an independent practitioner. But they were exactly 599 00:36:32,818 --> 00:36:36,402 where you were at when you were. When, when you started, when they 600 00:36:36,426 --> 00:36:39,746 started. So I, I 601 00:36:39,898 --> 00:36:43,490 respect the, the hierarchy and the chain of command a 602 00:36:43,530 --> 00:36:46,642 lot because I grew up in it. I understand why it's so important. You know, 603 00:36:46,666 --> 00:36:50,466 I'm not an attending physician. They do know a lot more medicine than I do. 604 00:36:50,618 --> 00:36:53,950 However, we're all people 605 00:36:54,810 --> 00:36:58,562 and we all have good experience. We all have, you know, a high 606 00:36:58,586 --> 00:37:02,422 degree of intelligence. So I don't see anything wrong with speaking up 607 00:37:02,446 --> 00:37:06,054 in a room when there's something especially like a safety concern or a 608 00:37:06,062 --> 00:37:08,770 patient safety concern involved. It's just, 609 00:37:10,270 --> 00:37:13,970 it's just a timing thing. In 10 years, I'll be where they're at, too. 610 00:37:15,070 --> 00:37:18,838 That's awesome. Brentyn, talk a little bit about, like, what's 611 00:37:18,854 --> 00:37:22,370 your advice to. We've been focusing a lot on 612 00:37:22,750 --> 00:37:26,350 our special forces operator, like 613 00:37:26,390 --> 00:37:30,222 alum or veterans going into medicine. But I'm sure you have 614 00:37:30,246 --> 00:37:33,050 classmates that are non traditional students as well. 615 00:37:33,830 --> 00:37:37,054 What's your advice to non traditional or just traditional 616 00:37:37,102 --> 00:37:40,734 applicants as far as these kind of 617 00:37:40,742 --> 00:37:44,462 skills we're talking about? Yeah, 618 00:37:44,526 --> 00:37:48,238 so we definitely have a lot of non traditional applicants. I think the 619 00:37:48,294 --> 00:37:51,998 numbers for that across the country have been going up 620 00:37:52,054 --> 00:37:55,250 pretty tremendously. And I think with these universities 621 00:37:56,470 --> 00:37:59,530 transitioning to a more what they call holistic approach 622 00:38:00,310 --> 00:38:03,534 also has taken away a lot of the kind of traditional 623 00:38:03,582 --> 00:38:07,342 barriers. You will do four years and 624 00:38:07,366 --> 00:38:11,102 get a chemistry or biology degree, and you will scribe for four 625 00:38:11,126 --> 00:38:14,894 years and you will get a 4.0 and a 520 MCAT 626 00:38:14,942 --> 00:38:18,526 or you're not getting in at medical school. I think that they've wanted 627 00:38:18,558 --> 00:38:22,340 to open up their aperture a little bit as to what 628 00:38:22,380 --> 00:38:25,860 they let in and who they're training to be 629 00:38:25,900 --> 00:38:29,652 physicians. Because I think like in pretty much all aspects of 630 00:38:29,836 --> 00:38:33,040 every occupation, there is a 631 00:38:33,660 --> 00:38:37,284 benefit to having diversity of background, skill sets, 632 00:38:37,412 --> 00:38:40,708 knowledge, critical thinking. So in 633 00:38:40,764 --> 00:38:44,580 seeing my fellow veterans in my class, as well as the 634 00:38:44,620 --> 00:38:48,182 other non traditional students that don't have veteran background, 635 00:38:48,316 --> 00:38:52,162 I think the biggest thing is leveraging the skill sets that you've learned 636 00:38:52,226 --> 00:38:55,714 or that you've mastered in your specific trade 637 00:38:55,802 --> 00:38:59,586 or, you know, career background into 638 00:38:59,738 --> 00:39:03,410 something that

is going to benefit 639 00:39:03,490 --> 00:39:07,154 the school and will later benefit you as a physician. 640 00:39:07,202 --> 00:39:10,914 Ricky went over a lot of the things that we see in special operations, 641 00:39:11,042 --> 00:39:14,834 but a lot of those skills could be easily transferred to 642 00:39:14,922 --> 00:39:18,290 a lot of other occupations. And there's a lot of skills that other 643 00:39:18,330 --> 00:39:21,838 occupations have that, that you probably don't see in special 644 00:39:21,894 --> 00:39:25,614 operations. So I think the hard thing and what we have done at SOFT 645 00:39:25,662 --> 00:39:28,702 to SOM is helped to identify a lot of the common 646 00:39:28,766 --> 00:39:32,574 threads to be able to use to exemplify the type 647 00:39:32,622 --> 00:39:36,206 of applicant that you are. But that doesn't 648 00:39:36,238 --> 00:39:39,566 mean that those things don't exist for 649 00:39:39,718 --> 00:39:43,550 a whole plethora of other occupations. So I would say 650 00:39:43,670 --> 00:39:47,358 if you're somebody who's going into school, my classmates who have done the same 651 00:39:47,414 --> 00:39:51,082 thing, it's being able to leverage those skill sets to be 652 00:39:51,106 --> 00:39:54,762 able to present a model that 653 00:39:54,786 --> 00:39:58,538 they want to see without fabricating anything. Because you don't need 654 00:39:58,594 --> 00:40:02,010 to. You just really need to present in a way that they can 655 00:40:02,050 --> 00:40:05,850 understand what skills you have accumulated over your 656 00:40:05,890 --> 00:40:09,706 lifetime as a non traditional applicant. Ricky, what's 657 00:40:09,738 --> 00:40:13,466 your advice? When somebody's going into the application process, they're sitting 658 00:40:13,498 --> 00:40:17,060 down with amcas, getting ready to write out 659 00:40:17,210 --> 00:40:20,672 their explanations or descriptions of their experiences. 660 00:40:20,816 --> 00:40:24,064 How do you do? How would you recommend to a prospective 661 00:40:24,112 --> 00:40:27,744 applicant to approach that and try to highlight 662 00:40:27,792 --> 00:40:31,552 these skills so that they, they seem to have some context, but 663 00:40:31,576 --> 00:40:35,424 also kind of everyone, everyone wants to stand out. What's your advice to 664 00:40:35,432 --> 00:40:39,184 them? Write your honest story. Write your honest 665 00:40:39,232 --> 00:40:42,864 story and write who you really are. So I think anybody listening to this podcast 666 00:40:42,912 --> 00:40:46,560 would probably assume that my personal statement was about being a special operations 667 00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:50,412 medic and this crazy journey through special operations. There's two 668 00:40:50,436 --> 00:40:54,252 sentences in my personal statement on military special operations. The 669 00:40:54,276 --> 00:40:57,900 rest of my. The rest of my personal statement about my journey to medicine had 670 00:40:57,940 --> 00:41:01,196 nothing to do with the military, it had a lot to do with other things, 671 00:41:01,268 --> 00:41:04,972 and the military cemented that for me and gave me the avenue to get on 672 00:41:04,996 --> 00:41:08,588 a pipeline of being in medicine. And 673 00:41:08,724 --> 00:41:12,252 so I think that everybody should tell their truth on their 674 00:41:12,276 --> 00:41:15,730 application. I think Breton hit the nail on the head. 675 00:41:15,900 --> 00:41:19,430 Admissions committees have read just like you, Christian. I've read thousands of 676 00:41:19,470 --> 00:41:22,822 applications. You know who's telling the truth and you know who's not, and you know 677 00:41:22,846 --> 00:41:26,630 who's fluffing a story, and you know who's underselling a story. So 678 00:41:26,670 --> 00:41:29,862 just tell the truth of what it was. If you worked under a physician in 679 00:41:29,886 --> 00:41:33,462 the past and they taught you a valuable skill, like, you 680 00:41:33,486 --> 00:41:37,334 know, sometimes it's, you know, sometimes more important to hold your patient's hand than 681 00:41:37,342 --> 00:41:41,190 it is to reset their iv. And that was impactful for you. Talk 682 00:41:41,230 --> 00:41:44,546 about it. Say, hey, I shadowed this position. We, you know, I learned 683 00:41:44,578 --> 00:41:48,114 dermatology. But the most important thing I took away from that was not the 684 00:41:48,122 --> 00:41:51,954 diagnostic skills. It was how to. How to talk to a patient with a 685 00:41:51,962 --> 00:41:55,682 different background than you. How to. How to, you know, overcome a 686 00:41:55,706 --> 00:41:59,266 language barrier. You learn that from your physician or your physician 687 00:41:59,298 --> 00:42:03,042 assistant or nurse practitioner. I think those things are way more important to discuss the 688 00:42:03,066 --> 00:42:05,710 honest, raw, deep details than it is to 689 00:42:06,890 --> 00:42:10,702 just think that they want to hear that you're already a doctor. I don't think 690 00:42:10,726 --> 00:42:14,330 any admissions team wants you to be a doctor already or come to doctor school. 691 00:42:14,630 --> 00:42:18,398 So tell them what you've been doing and how you've been preparing 692 00:42:18,414 --> 00:42:21,870 yourself to be able to succeed in a rigorous 693 00:42:21,950 --> 00:42:25,694 program, because that's what medical school is. But they'll teach you the rest of 694 00:42:25,702 --> 00:42:29,170 it. And when you're on the other side, you're a medical student. 695 00:42:29,750 --> 00:42:33,502 You know, throughout your. Your first year, you're like, oh, man, I'm still not good 696 00:42:33,526 --> 00:42:37,102 at writing patient notes. Like, I'm going to be so terrible in third year and 697 00:42:37,126 --> 00:42:39,502 in the second year. And you're like, I'm still. I'm getting better, but I'm still 698 00:42:39,526 --> 00:42:42,782 not that good. And then, you know, just yesterday, I was briefing attending during our 699 00:42:42,806 -->

00:42:46,494 clinical rotation, like, preparatory class thing that we do, and he 700 00:42:46,502 --> 00:42:49,102 was like, hey, you guys are getting a little better at note writing. Don't even 701 00:42:49,126 --> 00:42:51,534 stress about it, because third year, it's going to be totally different, and we're going 702 00:42:51,542 --> 00:42:54,238 to teach you how to do it then. So just keep practicing. And you. It's 703 00:42:54,254 --> 00:42:58,062 like you create all this false stress and false narratives that's just 704 00:42:58,086 --> 00:43:01,570 unnecessary. So tell your truth. Be yourself. 705 00:43:02,150 --> 00:43:05,662 Talk about what you're passionate about and then realize that you don't need to be 706 00:43:05,686 --> 00:43:09,472 a doctor yet to get into medical school. All right? People listening can't see 707 00:43:09,496 --> 00:43:12,768 that I'm emphatically shaking my head up and down the entire time you're 708 00:43:12,784 --> 00:43:16,160 talking and you're preaching. 709 00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:20,080 Ricky, I think what. And I can kind of broad stroke this. 710 00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:23,940 For most medical school admissions committees and people to read these applications, 711 00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:28,400 we're looking for the. And we keep harping on these skills. And this is 712 00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:31,664 why I was so excited to get you guys here, because you have a skill 713 00:43:31,712 --> 00:43:34,580 set that says. We keep saying transferable skills, 714 00:43:35,340 --> 00:43:38,660 but when we're reading these applications, we're looking for 715 00:43:38,700 --> 00:43:42,480 characteristics and attributes that you. That 716 00:43:42,860 --> 00:43:46,452 are maybe to your core, something you've worked into 717 00:43:46,556 --> 00:43:49,840 or like you've grown. Like, you mentioned, like, 718 00:43:50,860 --> 00:43:54,244 is it more important to describe to admissions committees that you 719 00:43:54,412 --> 00:43:58,244 saw the dermatological, like, pathology, 720 00:43:58,372 --> 00:44:01,760 or you observed that the physician held their hand 721 00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:04,936 when they had to tell them they have, you know, malignant 722 00:44:04,968 --> 00:44:08,504 melanoma. Right. And you saw empathy 723 00:44:08,632 --> 00:44:12,072 and that inspired you to be more empathetic. And you saw what 724 00:44:12,096 --> 00:44:15,800 empathy looks like and the verbal and non verbal cues 725 00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:19,272 going on back and forth between patient and physician and. 726 00:44:19,456 --> 00:44:23,208 Or it was their communication skills that you were like, wow, they 727 00:44:23,264 --> 00:44:27,080 can connect with somebody who is of completely different background than 728 00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:30,688 theirs. And it's that stuff that is 729 00:44:30,744 --> 00:44:33,980 the money in the med school application process. 730 00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:38,080 I think we're not as impressed if, like you mentioned before, if 731 00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:41,872 you can put a chest tube in or, you know, you can 732 00:44:41,896 --> 00:44:45,728 suture things. Like, not everybody has done that 733 00:44:45,784 --> 00:44:49,504 one, but we're. That's. That's our job in med school to train you how to 734 00:44:49,512 --> 00:44:52,672 do those things. Like, that's just gonna ha. Everybody's gonna be able to do that 735 00:44:52,696 --> 00:44:56,074 eventually. So I think people are. Med schools are less impressed 736 00:44:56,122 --> 00:44:59,190 by, like, you mentioned going through all the 737 00:45:00,290 --> 00:45:04,042 procedures you may have learned in your career if you had that 738 00:45:04,066 --> 00:45:07,882 opportunity. It always makes us a little nervous if we see somebody went to a 739 00:45:07,906 --> 00:45:11,658 foreign country and they were like, doing things they probably shouldn't 740 00:45:11,674 --> 00:45:15,002 be doing as well. I've seen that where people are kind of bragging about, like, 741 00:45:15,026 --> 00:45:17,866 well, I got to do this thing. Like, you're in 742 00:45:17,938 --> 00:45:20,000 undergraduate. You're not even 743 00:45:21,340 --> 00:45:24,996 a military member who. This is a part of your job doing this. 744 00:45:25,148 --> 00:45:28,932 So it's a very slippery slope if you start going down 745 00:45:28,956 --> 00:45:32,020 that road. But we really want to see these characteristics and 746 00:45:32,060 --> 00:45:35,636 attributes. It brings your application to life. It really 747 00:45:35,708 --> 00:45:39,268 does. It makes what could be a very somewhat dry Application 748 00:45:39,364 --> 00:45:43,124 just breathe life into it and gets us excited. Like, gosh, they had the core 749 00:45:43,172 --> 00:45:46,878 skills to do this. So I would, I would also say the last 750 00:45:46,934 --> 00:45:49,742 though on, on that of telling your truth. I think one more thing that's really 751 00:45:49,766 --> 00:45:53,246 important. I see, see a lot of traditional applicants do this because we soft, 752 00:45:53,766 --> 00:45:56,302 like someone hits us up, we help them. Obviously we're not going to take them 753 00:45:56,326 --> 00:45:59,774 into our program, but you know, we give a lot of folks advice is 754 00:45:59,942 --> 00:46:02,890 don't compare like your experience 755 00:46:03,670 --> 00:46:07,502 to someone else's experience where you think like they 756 00:46:07,526 --> 00:46:10,782 might have had it harder than you growing up or you had it, you were 757 00:46:10,806 --> 00:46:14,382 more privileged than they weren't or like, like, don't, don't sell yourself 758 00:46:14,446 --> 00:46:18,270 short. Like, if you learned resilience through failure and 759 00:46:18,310 --> 00:46:22,142 it's only purely academic, like you've only, you failed a couple exams in 760 00:46:22,166 --> 00:46:25,950 your life and that's where you learned resiliency from. Tell that truth, that's fine. Like 761 00:46:25,990 -->

00:46:29,806 you learned how to bounce back academically and it still taught you something. Don't 762 00:46:29,838 --> 00:46:33,278 worry about that. There might be someone out there whose house burned down and that's 763 00:46:33,294 --> 00:46:37,086 where they were learned. It's not a competition of hard 764 00:46:37,158 --> 00:46:40,910 stories. And I see that a lot in younger kids when they reach 765 00:46:40,950 --> 00:46:44,094 out to us is they'll be like, well, you know, you guys gone through all 766 00:46:44,102 --> 00:46:47,802 this crazy stuff and I just, I just, I. It's not, I just, I 767 00:46:47,826 --> 00:46:50,986 wasn't ready to go to medical school when I was 22 years old. You're accomplishing 768 00:46:51,018 --> 00:46:54,650 something extremely impressive to me. I'm going to medical school. 769 00:46:54,690 --> 00:46:58,346 I'm 30 as a second year med student. I think Brian's smiling because 770 00:46:58,418 --> 00:47:00,730 I don't think he was ready to go to medical school at 22 years old 771 00:47:00,770 --> 00:47:04,394 either. So don't do this I just thing or 772 00:47:04,482 --> 00:47:07,962 you guys, that thing. Just tell your truth. The academic, the 773 00:47:07,986 --> 00:47:11,802 committees know what they're doing and you know, maybe you do need 774 00:47:11,826 --> 00:47:15,480 some community service hours, maybe need some shadowing hours. That makes sense. But. But 775 00:47:16,180 --> 00:47:19,836 I just don't like when the kids really sell themselves short 776 00:47:19,908 --> 00:47:23,612 when they don't need to. Yeah. And if I just want to add one thing 777 00:47:23,636 --> 00:47:27,132 to that as well, because Ricky kind of touched on it, made me think of 778 00:47:27,156 --> 00:47:30,600 it is we have a lot of our 779 00:47:30,900 --> 00:47:34,476 scholars and a lot of people just generally in special 780 00:47:34,548 --> 00:47:38,348 operations that their pipeline looks something along 781 00:47:38,404 --> 00:47:41,904 the lines of they go to college for one to two years, 782 00:47:42,052 --> 00:47:45,832 they leave with a 1 to 2.0 GPA, they 783 00:47:45,856 --> 00:47:49,208 join the military, and then they go back to school some point 784 00:47:49,264 --> 00:47:53,000 later. And they are now mature enough 785 00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:56,568 to be able to be academically successful and they'll pull 786 00:47:56,664 --> 00:48:00,424 4.0 GPAs and they go, you know, to Wharton. They go 787 00:48:00,432 --> 00:48:04,040 to all these schools and do all these great things. But I think that 788 00:48:04,160 --> 00:48:07,912 a lot of the times people think that if you don't get a 4.0 in 789 00:48:07,936 --> 00:48:11,352 every class, then you're never going to go to medical. Like, if you go down 790 00:48:11,376 --> 00:48:13,340 the Reddit rabbit hole, 791 00:48:14,700 --> 00:48:18,484 nobody gets into medical school unless you have a 4. 0 from Harvard. 792 00:48:18,532 --> 00:48:22,036 You know, not true. I think that it's 793 00:48:22,068 --> 00:48:25,780 important in that sense as well of, in this comparison 794 00:48:25,860 --> 00:48:29,364 game of when you're giving somebody an actual 795 00:48:29,412 --> 00:48:32,708 holistic look, you want to see what their 796 00:48:32,764 --> 00:48:36,580 circumstances are, what they have overcome. And I think something like that, 797 00:48:36,620 --> 00:48:40,180 where if you did do poorly and then you come back and you 798 00:48:40,220 --> 00:48:43,630 show significant growth and competency, 799 00:48:43,820 --> 00:48:47,642 then you're showing the admissions committee that even though you 800 00:48:47,666 --> 00:48:51,322 don't, your cumulative is not a 4.0. It's probably 801 00:48:51,466 --> 00:48:55,146 way lower than you want it to be. You're not the same person that 802 00:48:55,218 --> 00:48:58,858 had this terrible undergraduate previously and you 803 00:48:58,914 --> 00:49:02,506 still are going to be a very successful medical student 804 00:49:02,538 --> 00:49:06,266 and later physician. The two things you guys have said 805 00:49:06,338 --> 00:49:09,828 have a great way to kind of wrap this up. And I, I, 806 00:49:09,994 --> 00:49:13,472 I'm glad you brought guys brought these things up because I don't want our 807 00:49:13,496 --> 00:49:16,912 listeners who are maybe in undergrad Christian brought in these two 808 00:49:16,936 --> 00:49:20,752 unicorns. And I'm never going to be able to compare myself to 809 00:49:20,776 --> 00:49:24,592 them. But what we spent the last about 20 minutes or so 810 00:49:24,616 --> 00:49:28,032 talking about is everybody has some skills 811 00:49:28,176 --> 00:49:31,888 that you have to start to in your story and bring it out 812 00:49:31,944 --> 00:49:35,504 and don't be afraid to kind of contextualize it for 813 00:49:35,592 --> 00:49:39,340 admissions committees when they're reading this and not to I don't want you, 814 00:49:39,380 --> 00:49:42,732 I'm not bringing guys on here to, to be just like the 815 00:49:42,756 --> 00:49:46,172 unicorns to like, ah, these guys are, they got 816 00:49:46,196 --> 00:49:50,028 100 acceptance rate in the last three cohorts. Like you got to be a special 817 00:49:50,084 --> 00:49:53,836 forces operator to get to med school. No, like 818 00:49:53,908 --> 00:49:57,132 you. But you have to, there are things that you have inside you that you 819 00:49:57,156 --> 00:50:00,364 need to express out. And you, you can do that 820 00:50:00,452 --> 00:50:04,300 and thoughtfully and tell, like you said, 821 00:50:04,340 --> 00:50:08,042 tell your story and tell the truth. And you 822 00:50:08,066 --> 00:50:11,882 know, that's a way to get the ball rolling in this crazy application 823 00:50:11,946 --> 00:50:15,722 process. I want to wrap things up with two things, guys, to 824 00:50:15,746 --> 00:50:18,922 kind of we talked about advice for 825 00:50:19,026 --> 00:50:22,762 prospective applicants. Ricky, what's your advice 826 00:50:22,826 -->

00:50:26,270 to any additional advice to our listeners 827 00:50:27,010 --> 00:50:29,390 from your perspective, your experiences? 828 00:50:30,130 --> 00:50:33,802 Yeah, one Thing when I was screening medics 829 00:50:33,866 --> 00:50:37,562 to come work at my unit, my special operations unit, I never assessed their 830 00:50:37,586 --> 00:50:41,226 medical skills. So that should tell you the same thing about medical 831 00:50:41,298 --> 00:50:45,050 school. That's why I harp on this topic so much, what I tested them 832 00:50:45,090 --> 00:50:48,922 on, because it was important. Our motto is night stalkers don't quit. I would put 833 00:50:48,946 --> 00:50:52,682 them in an impossible situation in our trauma lane that we put them through. 834 00:50:52,786 --> 00:50:56,634 So what, they would fail continuously and repeatedly. And I was looking to 835 00:50:56,642 --> 00:50:59,914 see if they're going to quit during their trauma lane because that was more 836 00:51:00,002 --> 00:51:03,578 important. And I knew I could teach them the medicine. 837 00:51:03,754 --> 00:51:07,338 And I think all the prospective students out there, when you're looking at medical 838 00:51:07,394 --> 00:51:10,842 school, one know one thing as someone who's older is going through it and we 839 00:51:10,866 --> 00:51:14,234 have folks in south sumper in their 40s who are going to be M1s. 840 00:51:14,402 --> 00:51:17,930 Medical school will always be there. If there is no real 841 00:51:17,970 --> 00:51:21,642 timeline, that's our all arbitrary. If 842 00:51:21,666 --> 00:51:24,394 you think you're not ready and you need to take time or you want to 843 00:51:24,402 --> 00:51:28,012 go experience life or the world and you're very young, it's okay to go do 844 00:51:28,036 --> 00:51:31,884 that. I encourage it. You'll have more life experience. You'll have more relatability 845 00:51:31,932 --> 00:51:35,772 to your patients. You'll have experienced, you know, paychecks and other 846 00:51:35,796 --> 00:51:39,212 things if you've never worked before. And all these other parts of life, they're important. 847 00:51:39,396 --> 00:51:42,120 So I encourage you to go live that if you want to. 848 00:51:43,780 --> 00:51:47,388 I would listen to trusted resources. If you're going to go to medical school, listen 849 00:51:47,404 --> 00:51:51,244 to this podcast. Christian is meeting with ADCOMs 850 00:51:51,292 --> 00:51:55,100 from all over the nation constantly. That is better information than 851 00:51:55,220 --> 00:51:59,052 the Reddit or the student doctor network channels. It's better information than 852 00:51:59,076 --> 00:52:02,412 your buddy who knows a guy who knows a guy who's in medical school. 853 00:52:02,516 --> 00:52:05,948 Okay, Listen to trust the resource. And then lastly, use the 854 00:52:06,004 --> 00:52:09,836 AAMC website and look at the core competencies of. They're telling 855 00:52:09,868 --> 00:52:13,132 you exactly what medical school admissions committees are looking for and how to be 856 00:52:13,156 --> 00:52:15,720 successful. That's like showing up to 857 00:52:16,740 --> 00:52:20,332 the 160th to try and be a night stalker, not knowing the night 858 00:52:20,356 --> 00:52:23,840 stalker creed or, you know, not going to Ranger regiment, not knowing 859 00:52:23,920 --> 00:52:27,616 what their background was. Like, you would never prepare for a job interview 860 00:52:27,648 --> 00:52:31,472 without knowing about that company. And so I think when you're looking at 861 00:52:31,496 --> 00:52:35,072 medical, when you're looking at the. The AMCAs, look 862 00:52:35,096 --> 00:52:38,832 and see what they want physicians to physician applicants to 863 00:52:38,856 --> 00:52:42,624 look like and make sure you hit those pillars in your application. And 864 00:52:42,632 --> 00:52:45,728 there's a lot of different ways to do that. So that's my overall advice. And 865 00:52:45,784 --> 00:52:47,140 I'd pass it over to Brian. 866 00:52:49,410 --> 00:52:53,178 Yeah. The only thing that I would really add to that, which we semi touched 867 00:52:53,194 --> 00:52:56,874 on previously, is when you're telling your story, I 868 00:52:56,962 --> 00:53:00,650 would say focus on being okay 869 00:53:00,810 --> 00:53:04,602 and letting yourself be okay with opening up and being a little bit vulnerable. 870 00:53:04,666 --> 00:53:07,990 Because everybody has stuff in their life. 871 00:53:08,770 --> 00:53:12,442 For us, it's, you know, a lot of the silent professional stuff. 872 00:53:12,506 --> 00:53:15,994 What have you done that's hard to talk about, but 873 00:53:16,082 --> 00:53:19,802 whatever the struggles are that help make you who you are and it 874 00:53:19,826 --> 00:53:23,030 puts you in whatever position it is that you are currently in, 875 00:53:23,330 --> 00:53:26,470 being able to openly talk about that, 876 00:53:27,090 --> 00:53:30,922 I think only enhances your application and I think that it lets the 877 00:53:30,946 --> 00:53:34,442 admissions committees be able to see a lot more of 878 00:53:34,466 --> 00:53:37,994 you and a different side than just this 879 00:53:38,162 --> 00:53:41,882 academically superior student who, you know, has 880 00:53:41,906 --> 00:53:45,110 no faults. So I think that that's very important. 881 00:53:45,410 --> 00:53:49,242 I've mentioned that before and I don't know, several episodes, but just 882 00:53:49,266 --> 00:53:52,030 about. You don't have to come across as perfect. 883 00:53:52,850 --> 00:53:56,522 You can show that you have areas of growth you've identified. I'm working on 884 00:53:56,546 --> 00:53:59,978 them. That's showing growth, mindset. Not like, I am 885 00:54:00,034 --> 00:54:03,830 absolutely perfect. I'm only 23 and I've got it all figured out. 886 00:54:04,130 --> 00:54:07,910 And I don't know, there's really a person out there that is like that. 887 00:54:09,460 --> 00:54:12,972 Guys, I. I've appreciated this conversation. Again, I

was 888 00:54:13,156 --> 00:54:16,956 really grateful to have you guys here. Last thing, I've been asking you guys 889 00:54:16,988 --> 00:54:20,764 all the questions. What questions do you have for me? What do 890 00:54:20,772 --> 00:54:24,396 you. Oh, yeah, I would say, you know, what. What challenges have you seen veteran 891 00:54:24,428 --> 00:54:27,040 applicants have when they, when they've applied? 892 00:54:28,500 --> 00:54:32,188 Things you guys have touched on, and this may be this reluctance to 893 00:54:32,324 --> 00:54:36,140 share things that they don't feel like 894 00:54:36,180 --> 00:54:39,770 they should. Like that I. Maybe I should. I'm bragging about my 895 00:54:39,810 --> 00:54:42,870 service when it was just. That's my service. And, and 896 00:54:43,730 --> 00:54:47,578 that would be one thing. I like that we, we see stuff that they've 897 00:54:47,594 --> 00:54:51,390 done in their military career, but it's just the facts 898 00:54:52,210 --> 00:54:56,042 and not a lot of like the background or 899 00:54:56,066 --> 00:54:59,626 the context or any storytelling. Second thing 900 00:54:59,698 --> 00:55:03,070 would be, as I mentioned, right at the. Be at the beginning, 901 00:55:03,750 --> 00:55:07,534 you guys have a different language, the. The language of 902 00:55:07,542 --> 00:55:11,326 the military. And I've seen veterans 903 00:55:11,358 --> 00:55:14,478 when they write stuff. I don't know what some of this stuff is. Like when 904 00:55:14,534 --> 00:55:17,690 there are certain. There's certain phrases or 905 00:55:18,230 --> 00:55:22,062 battalions or like, like kind of if. If you're a 906 00:55:22,086 --> 00:55:25,710 veteran and you're applying. And I think this also can apply to other People 907 00:55:25,750 --> 00:55:28,770 I like, they put like, their organization abbreviation, 908 00:55:29,320 --> 00:55:32,624 and they don't tell you what the abbreviation stands for. I'm like, I don't know 909 00:55:32,632 --> 00:55:36,140 what AC Ms. Stands for. And. 910 00:55:36,440 --> 00:55:40,256 And so be thoughtful and understanding. People that are reading 911 00:55:40,288 --> 00:55:43,920 this are not maybe from the military background or they. 912 00:55:43,960 --> 00:55:47,200 You make sure you make things kind of clear and spell it out a little 913 00:55:47,240 --> 00:55:50,992 bit. Dumb it down. If it's like your guys, 914 00:55:51,056 --> 00:55:54,208 you know, language. Dumb it down a little bit. And that can also be part 915 00:55:54,264 --> 00:55:57,840 of the bragging piece. Like when you say, I'm in a battalion and I was 916 00:55:57,880 --> 00:56:01,440 in front of. You said 250 people. Had you not. Had you just said 917 00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:05,200 it's. I'll say the word battalion, I would have been like, Is that 918 00:56:05,240 --> 00:56:09,020 like nine guys? Or is that like 250 people 919 00:56:09,960 --> 00:56:13,344 getting that. That level of context? Like, wow, it's a big deal. Like, I. I 920 00:56:13,352 --> 00:56:15,792 was a reader. Like, that sounds like a big deal. They're in charge of a 921 00:56:15,816 --> 00:56:19,520 lot of stuff and they're. So don't be afraid to kind of go into 922 00:56:19,560 --> 00:56:23,382 some of those details and explain to people. I remember 923 00:56:23,446 --> 00:56:27,062 reading one application and the applicant said they 924 00:56:27,086 --> 00:56:30,610 received the Bronze Star, and 925 00:56:31,070 --> 00:56:34,534 I didn't know what that was. I had to go look it up. And so 926 00:56:34,542 --> 00:56:37,046 I think if you take. Go to the next step and just kind of say, 927 00:56:37,118 --> 00:56:40,646 I received the Bronze Star. It's awarded to people who've 928 00:56:40,678 --> 00:56:44,502 done acts of courage or that kind of thing. Go ahead 929 00:56:44,526 --> 00:56:47,568 and say that. Yeah, yeah, I think that's 930 00:56:47,664 --> 00:56:50,300 okay. I've seen. I've also seen, 931 00:56:51,640 --> 00:56:55,376 unfortunately, on the awards thing, I've seen academic advisors tell personnel 932 00:56:55,408 --> 00:56:59,232 not to put their military awards unless it's a Bronze star or 933 00:56:59,256 --> 00:57:02,816 higher. And we've pushed back against that and 934 00:57:02,888 --> 00:57:05,792 said, hey, you, if you get an award, just explain what it was for. So 935 00:57:05,816 --> 00:57:09,616 if so. One thing that's pretty common is there's an Army Accommodation Medal. Navy Accommodation 936 00:57:09,648 --> 00:57:13,008 Medal. Usually it's given for leadership. So I tell folks, I'm like, hey, just say 937 00:57:13,064 --> 00:57:16,816 you've received six awards for leadership versus say, even call 938 00:57:16,888 --> 00:57:20,032 saying what the award name is. And that's kind of the advice we've given our 939 00:57:20,056 --> 00:57:23,888 applicants. So if you're a veteran out there and you have awards, read your citation 940 00:57:23,984 --> 00:57:27,680 and say that. So if your commander thought that you explained 941 00:57:27,760 --> 00:57:31,392 great resilience and leadership during a training exercise, say, I received award. An 942 00:57:31,416 --> 00:57:35,232 award of. For leadership during a training exercise that had 400 people in it. 943 00:57:35,256 --> 00:57:37,710 You know? Yep. It's. Yep. Absolutely. 944 00:57:38,930 --> 00:57:42,730 Yeah. Listen, fellas, this has been highly enjoyable. 945 00:57:42,810 --> 00:57:46,138 I appreciate your time and your expertise and your 946 00:57:46,194 --> 00:57:49,866 insight and certainly your service. I mean, I think there anybody 947 00:57:49,898 --> 00:57:53,722 listening, this should have gratitude for the service you guys have given this 948 00:57:53,746 --> 00:57:57,482 country, and it's a level that very few have been able to 949 00:57:57,506 --> 00:58:01,290 do. So I'm. I'm thankful. And thanks again for taking 950 00:58:01,330 --> 00:58:04,640 some time today. Thanks for having us, brother. We appreciate it. 951 00:58:05,900 --> 00:58:09,720 Appreciate it, Christian. Thank you. Bye.