APPLYING TO MED SCHOOL AS A PREMED COUPLE

This guest post written by Sarah Cox. Sarah offers a unique perspective to those applying to medical school because she is not only a medical student, but a medical wife. Sarah and her husband, Riley, are both first year medical students at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio (UTHSCSA) Long School of Medicine. Sarah gives some great insight when it comes to Applying to Med School as a Premed Couple.

The last year or so has been quite the adventure for them as they have gone through the whole process of preparing, applying, interviewing, and receiving acceptances and rejections from medical schools—TOGETHER.

Major respect for all you premed and medical student couples taking on this journey together! Big thank you to Sarah for taking the time to share her experience and thoughts. I hope y’all find this post as helpful and as interesting as I did.

So, before we jump into her advice here is a bit about Sarah and Riley…

I am the oldest of five kids, and the daughter of an accountant and a Pediatric Hematologist-Oncologist in the Army. I grew up on both the East Coast and the West Coast, but consider Gig Harbor, Washington home. I did my undergraduate education at Brigham Young University where I majored in Physiology and Developmental Biology and minored in Music. I enjoy oil painting, practicing both flute and piano, finding good deals at used bookstores, and am currently trying to teach myself photography.

Riley is the middle of three children. He grew up on ten acres in Newman Lake, Washington, a community just a mile from the Washington-Idaho border. His father is a mechanical engineer, and his mom’s pride and joy is her huge garden she grows each years. Following a church service mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (split between Atlanta, Georgia and São Paulo, Brazil), Riley also did his undergraduate at Brigham Young University where he majored in Biology and minored in Chemistry. He enjoys having a project; recent builds include his own computer and screen-accurate Storm Trooper armor. Other hobbies include playing the piano, swimming, and going to the zoo.

Our life together began when we met the second week of our undergraduate in Chem 105, the introductory chemistry course for life-science majors. We studied together (and went on a few dates) over the next year, started seriously dating the next fall, and were married the following summer. We just celebrated our two-year wedding anniversary.

I have wanted to be a doctor since middle school. Riley however, after deciding not to pursue Veterinary Medicine or a PhD, determined he wanted a career in medicine only a year before applying to school.