Episode Transcript
Announcer: This is the show by med students for med students. It's The Med Student Mentor on The Scope.
Interviewer: Balancing work and extracurriculars can be difficult at best, but we're here today with Tim Muvihill, a nationally ranked cyclist and a pre-med student. Tim, welcome to the show.
Tim: Hi, nice to be here.
Interviewer: You're a very impressive young man. You balance this incredible cycling with med school. Really, where do you find the time?
Tim: You just have to kind of squeeze things in. If you really love to do something, I think you can always find a way to make it work and find a way to get out there and do what you want to do.
Interviewer: Do you have a lot of late night studying finishing problem sets?
Tim: I actually go for the early morning.
Interviewer: Really?
Tim: I try to get up early and get most of my work done. It frees up the rest of the day and I feel a little less guilty about sneaking out on my bike for a couple hours.
Interviewer: So what is an average day like for you? Walk us through your work day.
Tim: A typical day during the first year, I had class in the afternoons, so the morning was the time to get most of my studying and obviously riding done. So I'd be up and studying by six every day and study for about three or four hours, and then try to sneak in a ride before I'd go to class. A quick ride, go to class, and then in the afternoon finish up the rest of the studying I have to do and any errands that I might have to run for normal life like a normal person.
Interviewer: Do you find that to be sort of an abnormal schedule? Do most students have the depth and breadth of non-medicinal interests that you have?
Tim: I think pretty much everybody has their interest outside of medicine. People will develop more or less time to it and obviously the way people like to study is a lot different. A lot of my classmates really like to study at night, so they'll be up, you know, 1:00 in the morning still cramming or doing whatever it is they do. That never worked for me.
Interviewer: They're not getting up at 6:00 a.m. to study [inaudible 00:01:44].
Tim: Probably not.
Interviewer: What do you think makes you so accomplished then? What differentiates you between you and another med student who maybe is interested in cycling, but is not a nationally competitive cycle?
Tim: I'd like to say that it's really drive to be the best and competitive, but really I think of it, I just love cycling. Any chance I get I want to be out on my bike riding. And kind of a byproduct of that is that you get fast and then you win races.
Interviewer: It's passion for the sport.
Tim: Yeah, I'd say so.
Interviewer: Well, have you always had that passion? Where did it come from and do you think that that bleeds over into other aspects of your life?
Tim: Definitely in the sense that you want to be good at things and that you're interested in them, and you want to do them as well as you can. I am honestly interested in school and medicine, and it's something that I feel very passionately about. So I'm willing to do the work to study in order to get to where I want to be career wise. As far as cycling, it's just enjoyment of riding a bike. It's like flying. It's one of the most wonderful things in the world, I think.
Interviewer: Was there ever a time that you thought that maybe you couldn't do both where you thought you might have to give up one dream for another?
Tim: Maybe when you start med school it's that kind of transition period where you think you won't have any time, that you're going to be all consumed by exams and studying, and that everything else in your life is going to kind of fall away, that you won't have time for those activities that you love to do. Thankfully, that turned out not to be the case. I'm not trying to be a professional cyclist at this point. I am just loving to ride my bike and I'm thankful that I can still get out and compete at a pretty high level. I don't think I ever considered giving up cycling just because even if I wasn't racing, I'd still want to get out and ride as much as I can.
Interviewer: When did you decide to go to med school?
Tim: I started college with no intention of going to medical school. I wanted to go into business. I actually studied economics mostly the first couple of years. I decided to go to med school, I guess, my fourth year of college really. I ended up stretching college to five years.
Interviewer: Really?
Tim: But I was pretty late when I finally made the decision that I wanted to go.
Interviewer: Bio-chem and economics, a double major. Why?
Tim: Again, it's just two things that I'm interested in. I don't really feel the need that you have to choose one or the other regardless of whether it's medicine and cycling or economics and chemistry. If there are two things you really want to do, I say go for it. Don't give up one for the other.
Interviewer: Okay. Well, do you think that your background in economics is giving you a different take on someone who maybe just went pure biology? What sort of advice would you give to a pre-med student who's trying to decide between biology and economics?
Tim: Do the medicine prerequisites that you have to do and then major in whatever you want. There is no advantage of being a biology major or a chemistry major and taking physiology or anatomy, or anything as an undergrad. You're going to get everything you need in med school.
Interviewer: Really? So maybe would you say there is even a disadvantage? I don't want to push you into anything. That was a very leading question.
Tim: It's not a disadvantage. I won't call it a waste of your time. I'm just going to say that if it's something you're not interested in or if there are other subjects you want to pursue, undergrad is definitely the time to do that.
Interviewer: You do seem very invested in exploring your other interests.
Tim: Yeah.
Interviewer: I think that's good advice. I think that's great advice. So then just being a pre-med is stressful enough, how did you work in cycling during studying for MCATs and volunteer hours, and your last minute of pre-med requirement classes? How did you balance that?
Tim: Again, it's just making time for the things you want to do. I like routines. They help me be a lot more productive. So like volunteering, I went to the same place every week and spent four hours volunteering at a hospital, and it just becomes part of your week. You don't question whether you can squeeze in the time to go do it, it's just that's what you're doing. And so if you kind of partition your time in advance, it's a lot easier to squeeze things in.
Interviewer: So you spend about four hours a week volunteering. How many hours a week did you spend cycling?
Tim: I probably average about 20 hours a week on my bike.
Interviewer: Really? I got to ask, why is cycling important to you? Why are you willing to devote 20 hours as an undergrad to it?
Tim: Well again, it's not out of really any dream of taking this to another level. It's something that I really like to do. It's like some people like to play video games and I'm sure there are plenty of undergrads who spend 20 hours a week with their Xbox. Cycling is just kind of a more unusual pursuit, I guess.
Interviewer: But certainly healthier than video games.
Tim: Potentially, yeah.
Interviewer: I don't think I've ever worked up cardio playing video games.
Tim: I don't know. Some Halo sessions get a little intense there at the end.
Interviewer: So tell me, how did you first get into cycling then? We've talked about how you got into medicine a little bit.
Tim: A little bit, yeah. So cycling, I guess, I grew up swimming and running a bit. And so when I went to college I thought it might be fun to race triathlons, so I started biking. Pretty quickly decided I liked training for biking more than triathlons and gave up the swimming, and mostly the running, and from there I kind of started racing, and I guess that's the story.
Interviewer: Talk to me about med school. You've done a full year of it. You're going into your second year. What's been the most surprising thing?
Tim: Really just how interesting everything is. It's like you go to med school and you think it's going to be this intimidating thing. It's going to be super challenging and hard, but you don't really understand going in just how interesting the material is. It's fascinating.
Interviewer: What's been the hardest part so far?
Tim: Hardest is definitely the exams. You know? It's like dealing with the stress. The first year I had a test every week. And so that is something that you're kind of always being evaluated and you have to get used to that. I think learning to cope with stress is a big part of the first year for everybody and thankfully I have cycling that makes that a little bit easier for me.
Interviewer: So then do you think there is a specific kind of person who can go to med school and one who can't or do you think it's really just a matter of hard work?
Tim: I definitely think it's a matter of hard work. No matter what kind of background you come from there is a path to medical school. And if it's something that you're passionate about and really want to do, I'd encourage anyone to give it a crack. I think it's the greatest job in the world and I'm super privileged to be here.
Interviewer: All right. Well, thank you so much for your time.
Tim: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
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