About Organs: First-Year Student's Nontraditional Journey Led to CHM

“What are you majoring in at college, Elizabeth?”

That question came from the mailman. It came from my hairstylist, my friends, my coworkers, and the lady-who-used-to-go-to-my-church-who-I-ran-into-at-the-grocery-store-after-ten-years.

Fair enough.

I was about to leave my quiet Ohio town to set off on a new adventure at Indiana University, and I counted myself lucky to have others sharing in my excitement.

“Organ performance.”

I had spent the last year practicing my tail off for college auditions, getting up at 6am to get an hour in before school each day. At the end of audition season, I was headed to my top-choice school, to study with my top-choice instructor, and spend the next four years learning how to be the best church organist possible.

“Huh! So you want to be a doctor? A surgeon?”

Mr. Runner, a family friend, was much more familiar with the organs of the body than the pipe organs of Europe. I had very fond memories of the summer that I spent shadowing in an orthopaedics clinic during high school. Mr. Runner and I had a really nice conversation about that.

“No, Mr. Runner. I want to be a musician.”

And so I was. I studied the (pipe) organ for four years in college and spent another four years after that teaching public school music. I would not trade those experiences for the world. But Mr. Runner recognized something in me that I didn’t yet recognize in myself.

At The Organ!

He knew that I had spent the first 18 months of my life in and out of the hospital after having a cyst, and half of my small intestine, removed the day that I was born. He also knew that I had loved my orthopaedics clinic internship the previous summer. I am certain that he did not know that ten years after our conversation, I would be sitting in my living room writing a blog post about our conversation.

I didn’t know either.

Halfway through my sophomore year of college, I was diagnosed with celiac disease. After five years of not knowing why I had felt ill, lost weight, and had brittle hair and nails all the time, I had an answer.

Having that answer was so powerful that it inspired me to read the health articles on the front page of the news website I liked to start my morning. Soon, my morning habit turned into reading CDC and NIH articles. In time, I found myself wanting to read more about diseases, drugs, celiac disease, and cysts than music history and education. At that point, I knew that I wanted to become a physician. I also knew that I had a long road ahead of me in order to do so.

Nash: My furry study-buddy!

Just over one year shy of an education degree, I decided to finish my degree, teach school, and take classes during the evenings and summers to knock out premedical prerequisite coursework. In 2015, I went back to school full-time to finish my biomedical sciences degree. After taking the MCAT, I was ready to apply to medical school!

At the beginning of the application process, there were four other schools on my list that I had ranked above the College of Human Medicine. I hadn’t heard anything bad about CHM; it just plain wasn’t on my radar.

If there is one bit of advice I have to give from the “other side” of the application process, it is that interview day can change everything.

I was pretty used to being the oldest (at 27!) student at interview days, let alone one with a wedding ring and husband. Things were no different as I did a quick perusal of the CHM room and checked the mental box that, yes, I was probably the only organ-major-turned-teacher-turned-med-school-applicant present.

I didn’t mind feeling different during the application process, because I knew that I wanted to become a physician. I was so incredibly lucky to get to the place in my life where I could apply to medical school.

What an absolute honor it was to sit in a seat at CHM, or anywhere, as a medical school applicant. Within 10 minutes of the beginning of the CHM interview day, something felt different. At one of the schools where I taught music, the motto was “Be Nice.” As I soon learned, that is the unofficial, subconscious, genuine motto of everyone at CHM. The presenters were nice. The medical students were nice. The interviewers were nice. The applicants, competing for spots, mind you, were nice. Everybody was nice.

For the first time, I felt like I had discovered a place where I could be truly happy for the next four years—a place that would teach me how to be a more compassionate human being and a physician. I called my mom on the way home from the interview and told her, “I want to go to medical school at CHM.”

Fast forward a little more than a year, and I get to go to medical school at CHM!

The most surprising thing about CHM so far has been that I don’t feel that different from everybody else. I had expected to feel like I did at 25, when I started med school prerequisites and was paired with an 18-year-old lab partner in Chemistry 101 (he was Snapchatting and I was lost).

I think the reason I don’t feel different is because of the small groups that we are placed into at CHM. Seven of my classmates and I meet with two local physicians and a basic science faculty member two times per week. During our meetings, I get to share insights from my teaching background on whatever we are studying, and my classmates share super interesting insights from their backgrounds.

We are all learning together. We are all in this medical school experience together. Instead of feeling old, I feel a sense of togetherness. That is why I love CHM.

Post-Grand Rapids Marathon!

Being a nontraditional student has helped me in two ways that I wouldn’t trade for anything. First, having been in the working world, I learned that balance is the key to being happy in life (at least for me). I love to run and I haven’t stopped doing so in medical school (my favorite experience this fall was running the Grand Rapids Marathon in my new hometown – it is so beautiful here!).

Likewise, I love my husband, and I try to sit down and just chat with him, being fully present in our conversation each evening. Most nights, at 9pm, I shut down my laptop, watch a little TV, and then head to bed. Running, time with my husband, and sleep give me the energy to study my tail off during most waking hours of the day while staying healthy, happy and grounded.

Finally, being a nontraditional student has helped me focus on the end goal, which is helping others. Helping others was my absolute favorite part of teaching and I suspect that it will be my absolute favorite part of being a physician.

Three out of the four schools in which I taught were in communities where many of my students went hungry in the evenings. Some of my students had parents in jail. Some of my students could not walk through their neighborhoods at night due to gang and gun violence. For some of my students, school was the best 7.5 hours of the day. It was an absolute honor to do my part for 45 minutes of that time.

What keeps me going in medical school is the fact that I will get the opportunity to positively impact the day, or perhaps life, of each patient that I see. I can’t wait.

It will be so worth the hard work and patience. In the meantime, I have some organs to go study.




Elizabeth Bruce is a first-year student from Ohio. Prior to matriculation at the College of Human Medicine, Bruce graduated with a BME in Music Education from Indiana University as well as a BS in Biomedical Science from Western Michigan University.