Deleted Scene- Medical School Interview, Part Three

Readers: This is the third of many scenes which I wrote for IN STITCHES, but didn't make the final cut. Over the next several months I'll post many of these 'deleted scenes.'

The interviewer blinks. Well, one of his eyes blinks. I can’t see what the other eye is doing. He waits for my answer.
“I’ve thought a lot about how I want to serve humanity,” I say, leaning in, meeting his stare with a grave look of my own. The truth is I’ve been preparing a list of key touchy-feely responses to this question for weeks. I let them fly. My mouth starts moving and I hear myself blather “family practice,” “rural,” “Appalachia” “the less fortunate,” “the homeless,” “inner city,” “free clinic,” and, my favorite, “I have a need to give back.” I stifle the voice in my head, the one I use with friends when we satirize this very moment, the one that threatens to blurt, “prescribing privileges,” “six figures,” “nice car,” “hot chicks,” “won’t accept Medicaid,” and “breast augmentation.”
Dr. One Eye keeps his one eye trained on me.
“You have a need to give back. A need.”
“Well,” I say, “A desire. Maybe that’s more—”
“Allow me to peruse your personal statement.”
Great. This guy hasn’t even read my application. He rifles through my folder, nods at a page, finds my photograph affixed to the corner and compares that face to mine, confirms that the photograph is indeed me, lowers his eye and begins reading—for five full minutes. I squirm in my chair, my eyes tracing the veins on his bald spot as he labors over the most dreaded part of the application. Took me hours to write the personal statement. As cautioned by my friends who applied last year—you have to become noticed without going over the top. You want to appear memorable, in a good way. If you’re up for a Nobel Prize or climbed Mount Everest, be sure to squeeze that into your personal statement, but always connect it to medicine. As I reached the summit of Everest, I thought about this unfortunate handicapped child I met while volunteering at the clinic—
“I find the personal statement the most telling part of the application,” my inquisitor says without looking up. “Ah, yes. Hmm.”
Hmm? I crane my neck to see what’s caused him to hmm.
He raises his head and looks at me with the slightest hint of a smile.
“Fascinating,” he says. “So you were a Candy Striper.”
“Yes, ah ha, for two years, in high school.”
“Two years.” He slowly closes the manila folder of my application as if shutting a door.
_____________
More to come—

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