An NYIT Students Advice to Aspiring Doctors Follow Your Own Timeline

Learn how real students navigate their way through the medical school admissions process and med school itself with our  What is Medical School Really Like?  series. Meet Reuben, an NYIT student who uses motivational words to â€Å"speak things into existence.† Reuben, thank you for sharing your story with us! Was there a particular person or event that inspired you to become a doctor? Reuben: There was one moment in particular that really solidified my desire to become a physician. It was during my sophomore year at Boston University where I was shadowing in the hospital. I had the opportunity to meet a patient who at the time was working three separate jobs part time. She had a lot of stressors in her life, particularly being uninsured and a single mother taking care of 2 boys. I watched closely how the physician interacted with this woman, how he made her feel cared for, how his empathy was conveyed well and the level of trust he has gotten in such a brief moment of meeting. It was really in that moment that I knew that I was called to become a physician and help serve people such as this woman and provide them the best care possible. How did you select medical schools to apply to? What do you love about NYIT? Reuben: When applying to medical schools I was really looking at the school’s mission, their average grade point average, and the MCAT to see if I could really fit into the school. The fit more so came along during the interviews I went on. I wasn’t really picky about where I wanted to go to medical school, my goal was just to get in! What I love most about NYIT is honestly the faculty and staff. They really have a student-centered approach and have our best interests in mind. I feel there is a very open relationship with the students and that just makes things very transparent and easy to reach out if something comes up. Did you experience any bumps in the road during the medical school application process? How did you identify and overcome these issues? Reuben: There were so many bumps in the road when applying to medical school, specifically the MCAT. I feel that the exam is one of the biggest hurdles that a lot of students face and for me, I had to take it multiple times. The first time applying, I had a weak MCAT paired with a subpar application and it was a recipe for disaster. I sat down with my mentor and he and I recognized my weak areas. I retook the MCAT, added more research and volunteer positions, and the second time applying I was able to land some interviews and get multiple acceptances. My mentality was to understand what was lacking and build upon the weakness and make it into something better and I did just that. To this day, my mentality has always been â€Å" How bad do you want it?† Life is all about sacrifices in order to get to where you want to be and so if I want it bad enough, I’ll do whatever it takes to get there. What appeals to you about the osteopathic approach to medicine? Reuben: The most appealing aspect of osteopathic medicine is the hands-on approach to care. Along with the standard medical school curriculum, I have the opportunity to utilize OMM as an adjunct tool to care. It is the versatility of osteopathic medicine that really drew me in. Whats second year like so far? How do you plan to tackle studying for STEP 1? Reuben: It’s really fun so far, definitely better than first year by far! I think what I like most about second year is that we are in systems and so you focus on that one system. For example during our cardio block, it would focus on all the disease processes related to the cardiovascular system. It really allowed me to hone in on the current system and get a deeper appreciation of the pathophysiology of that system and its effects on other systems. I plan to tackle study for Step 1 by utilizing First Aid, Pathoma, Boards and Beyond, and UWorld. During the spring semester, I plan to ramp up my board studying! Listen to our podcast interview  with Gina Moses, NYIT COM Director of Admissions:   How to Get Into NYIT’s College of Osteopathic Medicine [Episode 250] What keeps you motivated when things get tough? Reuben: Honestly the thing that keeps me motivated is my family. There are definitely moments in medical school where you will feel defeated or upset about some performance – it’s really something every medical student goes through. I personally had a tough first semester of med school. It was a very steep transition for me but I’ve gotten a much better handle on it. My motivation comes from my drive to be the best-trained physician I can be and I’m determined to make that happen. My mentality is to be prepared, confident, and know that all this work I’m putting in will pay off. Tomorrow is a new day with new opportunities to improve so I always look forward to how I can do better and continuing to improve. What are your favorite study tips for med school? Reuben: The best tips I can offer for medical school is getting ahead of the material. Personally, I like to review the material the night before and skim through the lectures so I can have a broad understanding of what is going to go on during lecture. Also having at least three passes at the material is something that I strive to do at the minimum. Questions are another huge point in helping to solidify material as well and it’s definitely the best learning tool. I use the questions I get wrong to help mold what topics I need to review and understand better. How do you juggle a heavy courseload of classes, board prep, and personal interests and still have time for self-care such as meal preparation and exercise? Reuben: I think there has to be that balance of where you can perform well academically and still have the time to do other things that you want to do. Right now I try to do at least one hour of board prep every single day no matter what’s going on. Additionally, self care is another important thing within my life and I try to accomplish that by exercising 4-5 days a week and making time with friends. It’s really all about time management and making time for things that are important to you. I always say, if it’s important to you – you’ll make time for it I understand you hold an MPH degree. Do you hope to be involved with healthcare policy as a physician? Reuben: There are so many avenues that I can use my MPH for, and healthcare policy has definitely been an interest of mine. I plan to get my MBA after I graduate from medical school and start residency in 2022. It’s my hope to bridge the gap between healthcare and business and to use my background in public health to bring about sustainable change to the delivery of care within a hospital setting. You indicate on your Instagram page that you believe in the power of words to inspire others. Who do you hope to inspire, and how? Reuben: I really hope to inspire premed students. I believe in speaking things into existence, and using these words to bring life into other people is really such a powerful thing. I want people who see my Instagram and know that they are capable and they do have the ability to hit those goals and become the physician that they want to be. Oftentimes, people project their insecurity on others and I want those who see my Instagram to know that those insecurities that others try to put on you do not define your work ethic, your ability to succeed, or your power to be great. What clinical rotations are you most looking forward to during third and fourth years? Reuben: I’m really looking forward to my third-year rotations that I start in July 2020. The ones I’m looking forward to the most are emergency medicine and surgery. I’m very interested in emergency medicine right now especially with the possibility of a fellowship in critical care medicine. If you could offer one piece of advice to premed students what would it be? Reuben: The one piece of advice I’d offer other premedical students is to stay in your own lane. Don’t let other people rush you and make you feel that you have to hit a certain timeline to get to med school. Medical schools are not running away and you don’t need to fit in a specific mold to get into medical school. Likewise, do not compare yourself to other students around you. You are on your own timeline and there’s nothing wrong with taking a little extra time to get to where you want to be. We are all making moves, just taking different steps Do you have questions for Reuben? Questions for us? Do you want to be featured in our next What is Medical School Really Like?  post? Know someone else who you’d love to see featured? Are there questions you’d like us to ask our students in this series?  LET US KNOW! You can learn more about Reuben by following him on Instagram. Looking forward to your own med school journey? We can help you reach the finish line!  Check out our Medical School Admissions Consulting Services  to team up with an admissions expert who will help you join the ranks of thousands of Accepted clients who get accepted to their dream schools. For 25 years, Accepted has helped applicants gain acceptance to their dream healthcare programs. Our outstanding team of admissions consultants features former admissions directors, admissions committee members, pre-health advisors, postbac program directors, and doctors. Our staff has guided applicants to acceptance at allopathic (MD) and osteopathic (DO) medical schools, residencies and fellowships, dental school, veterinarian school, and physician assistant programs at top schools such as Harvard, Stanford, Penn, UCSF, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, and many more.  Want an admissions expert  to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch! Related Resources: †¢ Med School Admissions: What You Need to Know to Get Accepted, a free guide †¢ How to Get Into NYIT’s College of Osteopathic Medicine, a podcast episode †¢ What’s Medical School Like for This MS4, Mom Cookbook Writer? a medical student interview

The Portrayals of Sexuality in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire - Literature Essay Samples

After seeing a play such as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or A Streetcar Named Desire, a viewer may be hard pressed to remember that there was once a time in Western culture when the revealing of a woman’s bare foot proved entirely scandalous. What was considered the dramatization of sexuality in the eighteenth century is entirely tame and bland in comparison to what occurs in the plays of the mid-twentieth century. Among the eras pioneering playwrights was Tennessee Williams, whose works include modern classics of American theater. Two of his most recognizable works, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire are known for their cinematic adaptations and, more importantly, for the clear and constant presence of sexuality on both stage and screen. While sexuality is the less prominent subject in one than in the other, both dramas show a change in the portrayals of usually muted kinds of sexual behavior, with carnal desire, homosexuality, and sadomasochism at the forefront. Both plays feature a definitive opening scene that readies the audience for the sexual subjects about to be conveyed onstage. In Cat, Maggie is shown within the first moments slipping out of her dress and speaking normally, as though the audience is receiving an even more intimate glimpse into her normal life (883). Going even further is the introduction of her husband, who we’ll learn is known for his good looks, on stage wearing only a towel and a leg cast (884). The fact that this entire play is mostly set in the bedroom of Big Daddy’s manor only continues the notion that the play will feature sexuality as a major part of the theatrical experience. Streetcar does the same thing, only in a seemingly subtle, yet actually more pronounced, way. The first sound of the audience hears when the curtain opens is the â€Å"Blue Piano†, which â€Å"expresses the life which goes on here† (469). Since the play takes place in New Orleans, it is obvious that the type of music being played is jazz, a distinctively sensual type of expression. Moreover, the musicality of jazz doesn’t imply lovemaking: it conveys dangerous and extremely arousing sexuality, thus foreshadowing the nature of Streetcar as a whole. Cat is different from other types of sexual dramatizations because sexuality is constantly being denied and ignored. Brick’s sexual abstinence and rejection of his wife are proof of this, as is his denial of homosexual identity or desire for his deceased friend, Skipper. It could be argued that Gooper’s â€Å"breeder† family is proof that sexuality is not entirely ignored, but the truth is that nobody, not even his family, likes Gooper, and his role is of little interest to the audience in comparison to Brick and Maggie’s childless relationship. What is so remarkable about Cat is that by denying the erotic, it becomes more pronounced to the audience and reader, who can feel their own sensual expectations of the play denied over and over again. It is in this way that sexuality is dramatized internally and more subtly in comparison to the overt physicality of Streetcar. The driving force behind the portrayal of sexual desire in Cat stems immediately from Act I. The revealing entrances of Maggie and Brick characterize them both as objects of sexual desire by the audience themselves. The clear problem is that although Maggie wants to make a sexual act come true for the audience, Brick makes in painfully clear that he doesn’t want her body at all. For example, when he is confronted over the way he was looking at her in the mirror, Brick bluntly insists the truth, that he, â€Å"wasn’t conscious of lookin’ at [Maggie]† and that, â€Å"[he] don’t remember thinking of anything† (890). Maggie’s sexual need of a man who doesn’t desire her is captivatingly masochistic, while it also destroys the preconceptions of male and female sexuality seen previously in American theatre. Maggie’s erotic needs are shown to begin crippling her and slowly breaking her down, suggesting an entirely new and frightening concept to an American audience. First, an example of growing paralysis is how she is shown changing her clothes in Act I, symbolizing her growing restlessness and dissatisfaction. She is denied her fertility, something that the audience cannot understand due to a natural captivation by her character. Fertility, the pinnacle of monogamous existence and the natural result of marriage, is threatened by the relationship between Maggie and Brick, particularly in his denial of her body. The audience expects them to resolve their issues by the end, but in the original version, the conflict is left unresolved and fertility is still something to be questioned. To an American audience that values child rearing, this is perhaps one of the most dangerous things sexuality can lead to, as it implies the endangerment of their own future as well as that of the chara cters. Though not the main theme of the play, homosexuality is a very important part of the characterizations and actions within Cat as a whole. Brick’s desire for his friend Skipper and devastation over his death are what cripple him, somewhat paralleling the denial of physical love that Maggie is experiencing simultaneously. Brick’s frustration over his desires and his guilt is symbolized through the cast on his leg as well as his abuse of alcohol. The cast clearly represents the castration of manhood that Brick would most certainly experience should he admit to himself his homosexual desires for Skipper. Desire has crippled him physically, as opposed to the inward crippling that Maggie experiences. Brick is a broken man purposefully driving himself to the brink of utter collapse by abusing alcohol, presumably to numb painful memories and regrets over his past with Skipper. By â€Å"incapacitating† the character that embodies quintessential masculinity with homosexual curiosities and urges, Williams suggests that Brick has internalized conventional morality within himself and that it will ultimately lead to his destruction. What frustrates both the characters and the audience is the unresolved conflict and ambivalent nature of Brick and Skipper’s relationship. In his conversation with Big Daddy, Brick insists that it was a platonic and non-physical love for himself, saying, â€Å"Why can’t exceptional friendship, real, real, deep, deep friendship! Between two men be respected as something clean and decent without being thought of as†¦fairies†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (948). This is the question that Williams poses to the audience: could Brick and Skipper have had a romantic relationship without hurting their status in society? Skipper’s death keeps the answer to this question from the audience and forces us to reflect upon it ourselves. In the 1950s, this meant reflecting on a type of sexuality that was considered unnatural and not to be spoken of. Williams does not challenge this societal more himself, but he questions it, thus forcing the audience to consider the way in which the topic of homosexuality is treated outside of the theatre and in American society as a whole. Representing a clash between old-fashioned American Southern lifestyle and working class immigrant culture, Streetcar is a play that is defined by and known for its depiction of sexuality as an animalistic, even violent urge. The play is a brutal clash between opposing carnal passions: Blanche Dubois’ internalized past and desires and Stanley Kowalski’s extremely powerful, beastlike sexual appetite. While Blanche is restrained by the expectations of the Southern society she was raised in, Stanley has nothing holding him back from exerting his power upon those around him. Streetcar is a definitive sign of the changes in the dramatization of sexuality seen in plays of the mid-twentieth century. Whereas sexuality was constantly denied in Cat, it is something that is both pronounced and confronted constantly throughout Streetcar. Blanche’s sexual persona and past are key to understanding the aforementioned clash of the erotic. She acknowledges her dependence on men in her final (and most famous) line of the play as she holds onto the arm of the doctor, â€Å"Whoever you are- I have always depended on the kindness of strangers† (563). Blanche thus categorizes herself as one who needs to attach herself to a man to have access to her own soul. However, by denying herself the opportunity to find herself on her own and without a man, she has led herself inadvertently into insanity. Also contributing to her growing insanity is the aftermath of being denied by men, particularly her teenage student and her homosexual husband, Allan. While an affair with a seventeen year old is prohibited on an obvious legal level, her firing because of it denies her of both the love affair and her livelihood. Not having a man or an income to live on, Blanche is forced to escape to delusions in order to remain living. Sh e is again denied a man to depend on when she discovers the homosexual affair of her husband Allan, which leads Allan to commit suicide. Haunted by her sexual past, Blanche erects a faà §ade of conventional morality that slowly begins to break down over the course of the play. This breaking down is gradual but increasingly clear as the play progresses, suggesting more and more the danger of Blanches sexual desires. In scene five, Blanche throws herself at the young newspaper boy, saying upon his arrival, â€Å"Well, well! What can I do for you?† (518). By attempting to seduce an innocent young man, Blanche’s unhealthy and immoral sexual appetite is uncovered and the reader and audience finally get the proof that her virtuous pretense is a lie. Williams does not address this kind of sexuality directly at first, using this scene instead as a tool to dramatize Blanche’s past and her carnal lust, as well as the debauchery of its nature. An animalistic sexuality is embodied entirely by the character of Stanley, whose commanding stage presence is a driving force behind much of the play’s action. When he first appears, Stanley is shown carrying â€Å"his bowling jacket and a red-stained package from a butcher’s† (470). His physical description comes later, after Blanche has arrived, demonstrating that the first thing the audience needs to know about him is that above all other things Stanley is an animal at his core. In his description, Williams again mentions this fact about him, saying in a stage description, â€Å"Animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes† (481). As a large part of his presence draws from his sexuality, it is implied that to lust after him is easily comparable to lusting after an animal itself, thus suggesting the perilous topic of bestiality. Sadomasochism is another highly implied aspect of Stanley’s relationships with women. In his description in the stage directions, Williams admits to this, stating, â€Å"He sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images flashing into his mind and determining the way he smiles at them† (481). The audience knows from Stanleys violent behavior that he doesn’t mean to simply take a woman to bed; he means to push her to the edge and then â€Å"fuck† her until he is completely satisfied. His relationship with Stella proves that this is something she finds endearing and attractive about him. In the play’s most famous scene, Stanley calls Stella’s name with â€Å"heaven-splitting violence† after an aggressive domestic dispute between them. In tune with their cycle of violence before sex, the two, â€Å"†¦stare at each other. Then they come together with low, animal moans. He falls to his knees on the steps and pres ses his face to her belly†¦her eyes go blind with tenderness†¦and [he] lifts her off her feet and bears her into the dark flat† (503). The pair seems to take carnal pleasure in the pain they inflict upon each other Stanley by abusing her and Stella by denying him. Their system makes them vulnerable to each other, yet abler to connect: it is from that mutual dependence that their passionate love emerges. The power of the play comes from the growing and anticipated clash of the sexual natures of Blanche and Stanley. In the beginning, Blanche is seen trying to flirt with him out of desperation for male attention, going so far as to fish for a compliment by saying, â€Å"Would you think it possible that I was once considered to be attractive?†. Stanley outwardly rejects her advances and responds, â€Å"Your looks are okay† (487). The passage indicates Blanche’s obvious sexual attraction to him as well subtly highlighting his truthfully repugnant view of her. However, later in the scene he says, â€Å"If I didn’t know you was my wife’s sister I’d get ideas about you!† (489). This quote is proof that although he does respond to Blanche’s flirtations, his actions and remarks towards her show that his flirtations are empty and that what he truly enjoys is having power over her. It is his desire for power over Blanche and her delusions that makes her vulnerable to the action of the climax. This opposition of strong sexualities is clear in the final confrontation, in which Stanley rapes Blanche while Stella is in the hospital. The assault is seemingly inevitable to the audience, making it unnecessary to be seen on the stage. After all, Stanley even says, â€Å"We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!† (555). The rape symbolizes his victory over her, shattering her delusions, sending her into complete madness, and constituting what some critics could call a â€Å"return† to Blanche for her sexual indiscretions in the past. What distinguishes the sexual encounters between Blanche and Stella is that Blanche’s sexuality is derived from the need for power, while Stella’s is the product of unconventional yet passionate and true love. Blanche is completely destroyed afterwards, showing that she has been broken by the society that she cannot understand because of her upbringing. A new social order arrived with the influx of immi grants, represented by Stanley, and with it came a complete change in American culture that Blanche’s upbringing could never have prepared her for. Williams uses sexuality to indicate a major change in American social order, represented by Stanley’s immigrant victory over Blanche’s southern gentility. Sexuality is portrayed in two different ways through these two plays: in one it is desperately though futilely obscured while in the other it is continually overbearing. In both, different types of sexuality uncommon in American theater are brought up in order to leave the audience members questioning how they are a part of American society in general. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof begs the audience to reflect upon the way homosexuality is discussed and portrayed in American society. A Streetcar Named Desire uses a clashing of different types of eroticism to imply a battle between new social orders. In both, it is the build up to these revelations of each play’s true meaning that gives each piece different kinds of energy. These hidden meanings and suggestions underlying each play suggest new kinds of sexual behavior that in turn are used to question American society as a whole. Astoundingly, when either of these plays is adapted today, the audience is still asked to consider the same questions that were posed to a clearly different society in the mid-20th century. Perhaps it is the fact that we continue to reflect upon Williams’ social commentaries through sexuality in the present day that makes the plays Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire as legendary as they are in the history of American theater.