November 17, 2024 • 42 mins
Struggling with rejection and questioning your future in medicine? In this episode of The Rejected Pre-Med Podcast, I chat with Sachi, a former pre-med student who found an unexpected yet fulfilling path after not being accepted into medical school. Sachi's journey led her to the prestigious University of Oxford, where she discovered a new passion for creating a thriving newsletter for health science students.
We dive into the emotional and mental challenges of facing rejection, dealing with burnout, and navigating the uncertainty that comes with reevaluating career paths. Sachi shares practical advice on maintaining mental wellness during tough times and how to pivot when you realize your original plans might not be the right fit
This episode is a must-listen for pre-med students, former pre-meds, and anyone in the health sciences questioning their next steps. It’s a conversation about embracing rejection as redirection and finding success outside of medical school and graduate programs.
If you're feeling lost or struggling with the emotional toll of rejection, book a private meeting with me at calendly.com/valerusu55. Everything we discuss—rejection, self-doubt, and more—will stay between us. We’re in this together, and there’s beauty in supporting one another through tough times. 💕
Podcast Social Media:
Instagram: @the_rejectedpremed_podcast
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/valeria-rusnak-911043234
Email: valerusu55@gmail.com
Donate: buymeacoffee.com/valeriarusnak
Show Notes:
- Connect with Sachi on LinkedIn: Sachi Chan LinkedIn
- Check out Sachi's newsletter Invite Health: Invite Health Newsletter
- Follow Invite Health on Instagram: @readinvitehealth
- Explore Sachi's photography on Instagram: @photobysachii
- Follow Sachi's personal journey at Oxford: @sachinoxford
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended to provide legal, medical, or professional advice.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi everyone, this is the sixth episode of the Rejected Prevent podcast.
(00:06):
I cannot believe we made it to the sixth episode.
I appreciate you all listening in and hearing what my guests and I have to say about rejection.
Talking about rejection does not usually make up for the most.
It wasn't a conversation, but in this podcast we unraveled this taboo topic and reveal how
rejection could actually be redirection and may even lead you to personal and professional
(00:26):
growth.
Yesterday, Saachi is a perfect example of this.
She applied to several medical schools in Canada in 2021 and did not get in, but the
next year though, Saachi applied to Oxford and of course she got accepted, which we
will talk about later in more detail.
Honestly, Saachi is probably one of the most accomplished girls I have ever met.
Just check out her LinkedIn page and her Instagram page.
(00:47):
You'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
She has been an entrepreneur and a self-starter since high school and there are many things
she accomplished, but the thing that stands out to me the most and the one we'll talk
about today is Invite Health, which is a newsletter created by Saachi.
It is filled with resources, job opportunities and how-to career stories for healthcare
and science students.
(01:07):
And the beautiful thing is that the creation of the newsletter, which helped so many people,
read by over a thousand, was driven by Saachi's personal struggles to figure out what she
wanted to do after not getting accepted into medical school and after realizing that medicine
was not her path.
So without further ado, let me introduce to you Saachi Chan.
I hope I said your name correctly.
(01:29):
Thank you for coming onto this podcast.
I'm very grateful for the opportunity to interview you.
Oh, thank you so much.
I am so glad to be here.
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Yeah.
So why don't we start with you telling a little bit about yourself before we dive into more
questions?
Sure.
Hi everyone.
My name is Saachi Chan.
(01:50):
As mentioned earlier, my pronouns are she and her.
I'm initially from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, so I'm a Canadian student.
And right now I'm doing my masters in translational health sciences at the University of Oxford.
I started last October, so it's been a year now, and I'm about to go into my second and
final year of my master's program.
(02:11):
Prior to this, I did my undergrad in health sciences at McMaster University, and I logged
my time there even if half of it was kind of cut short or online by the pandemic.
That was a little bit about my undergrad background.
I've been doing a lot of health sciences work, and that's probably my strongest background
right now.
But I also love being a very creative person.
(02:31):
I am a freelance photographer.
I've been doing that since I was in high school, and I think it's honestly been one
of the biggest things that's given me a lot of confidence.
And I'm also a very entrepreneurial person.
As you mentioned, I started Invite Health, which is a newsletter that I've been running
for two years now.
But on top of that, my photography is also an entrepreneurial passion, and I started
with two other organizations when I was in high school and university.
(02:53):
So I love being a very entrepreneurial person because I think it's a way to take initiative
on the problems that you care about and to actually create the change you want to see.
Yeah, that's a little bit about me, but we'll dive into it, I'm sure a little bit more later
on.
Yes, yes, we will.
And first, we will backtrack a little bit.
At first, you were set on medicine, and why do you think you wanted to pursue medicine
(03:16):
in the first place?
Because it motivated you to apply, because it's a process, right?
It is, yeah.
What schools did you apply to?
How was that experience for you and what were your motivations?
Sure, so there's a lot in that question.
I'll try to go chronologically.
So when I was in high school, I always had an interest in science and business, and I
actually couldn't decide what I wanted to do.
(03:38):
So that's why in my grade 11 and grade 12 year, I took courses in science and business.
Like I would have a physics, chemistry, biology, but I would also have accounting, marketing,
and only by taking those courses, I realized I was good at both of them, but I enjoyed
the sciences more.
I mean, I did apply to undergrad programs that were both science and business, but I
(03:59):
ended up getting expected to McMaster's health sciences program, which at the time was a
big deal and felt like a big deal because I was the only one from my high school who
got accepted at the time.
And even from like upper years to not many people that I knew above me in terms of years,
got accepted into that program, and it's just kind of those little jokes, right?
Those little things like, oh, Sachi, you've got accepted to McMaster health sciences.
(04:22):
You're going to call you Dr. Chan now, and you're on your way to becoming a doctor,
right?
Even though it's not a pre-med program, like being a McMaster health sciences did not
guarantee you go to medical school, but that's just kind of what its reputation was, and
it still is a little bit.
So I think from there, I was kind of socializing to think I was going to go to medicine.
And I mean, I knew that I liked healthcare because everyone experiences health, illness,
(04:43):
and disability at some point in their lives.
And if it's not us right now, it's going to be someone we know and we love.
And I care a lot about making an impact on people's lives.
So I thought healthcare and medicine would be the way that I do that.
And I think a lot of the skill sets that I had would compliment me if I went into medicine
because it's not just about enjoying science and enjoying the clinical side of healthcare,
(05:05):
but it's also the social side of it too.
Looking more holistically at people's health and also having good bedside manner because
being a physician is not just about, do you know what you're studying?
Do you know diseases and do you know anatomy?
But also, can you trust your patients, build trusting relationships with them?
And I think from a lot of my team experiences, like working with other people, like I do
(05:27):
enjoy that.
I do enjoy getting to build relationships with people and getting to talk to them and
being their support system.
So when I was an undergrad, after second year, I wrote the MCAP because that's kind of typical
for people in undergrad.
And then by the time third year comes around, you're starting to apply for med schools because
you need to do at least three years of a bachelor's in order to apply to med schools, at least
in Canada.
(05:47):
I applied to McMaster University, Queens University and the University of Toronto and I got rejected
from all of them.
But to be fair, I had pretty good grades and then I did the MCAT.
I did not do that well on the MCAT.
I got a 502, which is like just above the bare minimum to be eligible for U of T because
U of T you need to have like a 500, which if you're applying to med school, you know what
(06:08):
this means.
So I didn't have a very good score.
So I didn't know if my chances were going to be that great anyways.
And then yeah, I didn't do that great.
I did pretty well in CASPER though.
So like I had a CASPER and I had good grades and I thought I had like well rounded background,
but I also was not someone who had like a lot of research experience or a lot of clinical
experience.
But I don't know.
We never know why I got rejected.
(06:28):
It's competitive anyways.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I only applied to McMaster, Queens and the University of Toronto.
But yeah, that was a little bit about where I applied.
Right.
Right.
So I've encountered this and I've encountered this that once people hear that, oh yeah,
we decided to not apply to medical school anymore after not getting accepted one time.
(06:49):
They think the only reason you don't want to is because you're just fear being not accepted
again.
But I think there's that reflection period that comes.
Maybe you kind of start to think is medicine even for me?
And you had that similar reflection period as well where you realized that there's possible
reasons why maybe it's good that you didn't get accepted.
And that leads to my next question.
(07:10):
How did you realize that medicine is not for you?
And how did it feel realizing that?
Because that must have been like a big hit since you was thinking of medicine for a while.
Yeah.
It's a good question.
And I think there's a lot of things that actually ties into this.
So first off, during the summer when I was applying for the MCAT, I mean, MCAT's not an
enjoyable experience for anybody.
But some people I found could motivate themselves to study through the MCAT because they know
(07:35):
it was going to be worth it in the end.
They knew it was like a short-term pain, long-term gain.
I did not really feel that way when I was studying for the MCAT.
I did not like the MCAT.
I did not like what the MCAT stood for.
And I was not enjoying it.
And I couldn't really motivate myself to say it's going to be worth it.
It's going to be worth it.
I just, I didn't feel that way at all when I was studying for the MCAT.
(07:58):
I'm like, mm-hmm.
But I experienced some cost-balancing.
I was like, okay, I've been like studying for this for like a month.
I've already bought this textbook.
I've already booked a test date.
Might as well just go through with it because I don't like quitting either because it's
like, what's the point of quitting now?
Like you've already studied this for this for like a month or two and like half your summer
is gone.
You're not going to just quit and stop it.
So I went through with it and I mean, I'm glad I did.
(08:21):
But that was the first step that I realized that medicine wasn't for me.
And the second step was actually when I got my rejections.
I wasn't that upset.
I didn't feel like I had a dream crushed.
I did not feel like, oh, life is over or that there was nothing else for me to do.
I was just like, okay, I got rejected.
I was kind of expecting that considering how bad my MCAT was.
And it still sucks to get rejected, but it was more that I felt bad that I wasted other
(08:43):
people's time and that I wasted my own time applying to this and then didn't even work
out.
Like I felt bad that my referees wrote me reference letters and that I spent my summer
writing MCAT when I could have been doing something else.
It's a normal feeling.
I've went through this whole thing and my MCAT was, and I said this in my first episode
was lower than yours.
Let's just say that.
The critical analytical reading section is notoriously difficult and I've studied for
(09:08):
a year for this test.
First, I did it at 2021 and I studied first whole summer.
I'm like, okay, I didn't do good.
Let me do a whole year.
No.
So I understand all the feelings.
It's so normal.
And then there are students out there studying for it and also experiencing this.
Just want to say that you're not alone and MCAT is a hard test and it doesn't define your
intelligence.
(09:29):
When I get it, they want to weed out potential applicants who might not do well on tests
in medical school.
I heard that's why they do the MCAT, but it does not define how good of a doctor you
could have been.
So this is just one thing I want to emphasize.
But all those things kind of just like realizing that medicine does not the path for you, at
least for now, I really resonate with that.
So thank you for sharing that because it makes me feel better, especially considering how
(09:54):
accomplished you are.
Thank you.
Can I add something to that though, because I think it's something that's so really
go ahead.
Out of my experience.
So when I got rejected from med schools, it was the start of 2022.
So that was like my second semester of third year.
And around that time, I was also applying to the summer program called Shad, which is a
summer admission program for high school students across Canada.
(10:17):
And I was applying to be a program assistant there.
And I ended up working there summer of 2022.
And working at Shad was honestly life changing for me.
Also while I love the job because I get to spend a month with high school students, some
of the brightest high school students in Canada, helping them succeed in their education and
their careers and just being there at such an important time of their life was so important
(10:38):
to me.
But it was also the team that I worked with that really changed things for me.
I worked with them in July 2022.
And the thing about our team is that it was very diverse.
I was one of the younger people on the team.
I had teammates who were almost like 20 years older than me.
And there was only one team member who was in medicine, like he was an ER doctor, but
everyone else was not in medicine.
But they were so passionate about what they were doing, whether they were teachers, whether
(11:02):
they were engineers, whether they were in the arts, whether they were in politics.
It was just so exciting to be around because we had some overlaps in our interests, of
course, and that's why we all worked really well together.
But getting outside of that medicine bubble and getting outside of that health science
bubble was transformative for me because it's like, these people, they're not just passionate,
but they're also making an impact wherever they are, whether it's in the classrooms that
(11:25):
they're teaching, whether it's in the conversations you're having with them.
There's so many ways they're making an impact.
And I would verbalize with them.
I would have a lot of conversations with them about, you know, I don't know if I want to
go into medicine again.
And especially because a lot of my teammates were older than me, they also really emphasize
that careers are not meant to be linear and that they had a lot of twists and turns to
throughout their career.
(11:45):
So it's like, Sachi, even if you make the decision now to not go into medicine, it doesn't
mean you don't have to do it ever again.
And they talked about their personal experiences, their lived experiences.
And that was just a really good reminder for me to say, I'm only in like my third year
of undergrad.
This is only like one year.
I can always do this later if I want to.
And like my life is not over.
I don't have to make all these big decisions now.
And that you should follow what you're passionate about too, because I think in undergrad, you've
(12:11):
kind of feel like if you want to make a very impactful career, the best way to do that
is by going to become a doctor.
But you can make an impact wherever you are with whatever you're doing.
And especially teaching, teaching was something I really loved doing that summer and being
a mentor.
And I was like, this is what I really care about.
And so I will really be grateful for Shad for giving me that insight into all of my teammates.
(12:32):
That was definitely a life-changing experience for me.
And it's nice that it came right after your, let's say, rejections were not getting accepted.
It really did help you understand what your priorities are and where to kind of guide
yourself in the future.
When did the realization came to you that you do not want to apply to medicine again?
(12:53):
Was it during Shad?
Was it right before?
Was it right after?
When did you come to that?
Probably at different points.
After I got rejected, I was just thinking, okay, what am I going to do now?
I knew that I did not want to study for the MCAT again that summer.
I did want to write it a second time.
So I ruled that out first.
And in the summer of 2022, I also was doing most of my research on different grad programs
(13:17):
because I met some students who are upper years who did grad school.
And I knew I enjoyed being in school, so I knew I would rather go to grad school than
enter the workforce straight out of graduation because you have to start thinking about these
things when you're in fourth year.
And yeah, I mean, before I went into Shad, I was thinking, do I want to apply again?
Is this something I want to do?
I couldn't commit to a decision is what I'll say.
(13:38):
If I was going to apply or not, I was still kind of going back and forth.
But then after Shad, I was very certain and also very confident that, nope, I'm not going
to go apply to med school again in fourth year.
I'm going to go all into applying to grad schools.
That is probably the journey is like deciding not to write the MCAT again and then kind
of going back and forth with it over the summer while I was doing research on different grad
schools and seeing what other options were and then going to Shad.
(14:01):
Yeah, I just want to emphasize it's hard to say when to go further into medicine and persevere
or kind of admit to yourself, you're not really feeling it.
If you're not really committed to medicine that, okay, this is not something for me.
So if any of you listeners out there kind of going back and forth, it's normal first
of all to go back and forth and having those self doubts.
(14:22):
It's okay not to know right away what you want to do.
But ultimately, and maybe this sounds super cheesy, but it's an advice that helped me
a lot and I'm really learning to follow that is follow your heart.
Follow your heart.
What's your passion?
What are your interests?
Like where are you gravitating towards without really forcefully pushing yourself?
Because people who go into medicine ideally are people who are really passionate about
(14:45):
who are really motivated because I've seen people who have been so down by not getting
accepted once, twice, thrice and something inside them just tells them, I still want
to be a doctor and I'll go for it every time.
But it takes time to realize it.
But if you feel yourself that you're not fully committed to medicine, it's okay to try something
else and it takes courage to admit that to yourself sometimes.
(15:05):
But eventually you can reach it, but it's okay if it takes time.
That's what I'm trying to say.
I guess we can switch gears a little bit.
You've realized that medicine isn't for you and you start applying to several master's
programs and the one you chose and were accepted in is Oxford University, which is so cool.
And you study translational health sciences.
(15:27):
That was the masters you pursued.
Can you tell a little bit about the program and what made you choose a specific program?
Yeah, sure.
I guess I'll start with like the last question actually, like why I chose to study the specific
program.
So, like I mentioned in the last question, I knew that I enjoyed being in school and
I liked being in that intellectually stimulating environment and maybe also I wasn't ready for
(15:50):
the workforce.
I wasn't ready to be an adult.
And I actually specifically knew that I wanted to study translational health sciences or
translational research after graduating because I liked that it takes a very interdisciplinary
approach to solving health care problems and interdisciplinary meaning like you need to
have expertise in multiple disciplines rather than just one.
(16:11):
I went to like info sessions and I read about doing like maybe public health or global health,
but I didn't feel like I wanted to be in that field specifically or I felt like maybe it
was a bit too narrow for me.
It's good for other people, but it was just like for me, I'm more of a generalist.
I want to look more holistically.
And I wasn't like super enthusiastic about public health or global health in like undergrad.
(16:33):
I was more like I want to be excited about all of it.
Like I love both of these fields, but I don't want to have to like choose one exactly per
say.
And I didn't know if I wanted to follow a career in that way.
And I wanted to study translational health sciences because I found that in undergrad,
we spent a lot of time talking about health care problems.
So we talk about challenges with technology, talking about how marginalized groups faced
(16:55):
worse health care outcomes.
And I was like, okay, these are good problems to know.
That's what the research is telling us.
But what's next?
Who's addressing it?
Who is solving the problem now?
Maybe because undergrad was a bit too short in our courses, we're only like three to four
months and maybe just the nature of undergrad teaching too.
I just didn't feel like we spent enough time talking about solutions and talking to people
(17:16):
who were actually trying to address this, like working on the ground to address this.
So I knew that translational health sciences where it talks about how to translate research
into practice and how to actually implement innovations, how to implement research that
can actually help and benefit people.
You're not just a specialist in one field, but you need to know a little bit about everything
so you can kind of get the bigger picture.
(17:37):
I can see how passionate you are about this.
And I'm so happy that you pursued a program that you are feeling so positively about.
And we need people like you, like you said, you're a generalist who see things holistically
because it's such a skill that not everyone has.
We need people who can translate knowledge and research from academia to real life, to
(17:58):
policy, to actually implementing it because there's such a gap sometimes between academia
and then it stays in their circle and doesn't get to the organization, the nonprofits who
are doing the work.
So thank you for pursuing a degree like this and to other people who are pursuing similar
degrees because it's very, very useful to say, to say the least, it's very useful.
(18:21):
And what are your future plans with completing your degree?
Now that you're pursuing this and you know, you moved to Oxford, studied all this and
looking back now, are you happy with the decision you made not to pursue medicine?
Even somehow knowing what if you got in second time you applied?
I am so grateful to be here.
I think Oxford has been a life changing experience for the better.
(18:43):
It's been both the most rewarding and challenging year of my life because I was moving to a
new country, starting grad school, being away from friends and family, navigating a lot
of guilt and a lot of newfound independence is quite challenging.
But because I'm here now and I made it to the other side or I'm still in it, but I've
become more resilient because of it.
I'm really grateful for that experience.
(19:04):
And also there's very few places as international as Oxford, like having so many people from
different countries around the world in one place, especially in the master's community.
First off, there's a lot of diversity in age.
I'm usually the younger person in my class and there's people who are like 10, 20, 30,
40 years older than me and they're pursuing education, which is so inspiring because it
(19:27):
really goes to show that anyone can be a student and getting the international perspective,
especially for someone like me who's very curious and loves traveling and wanted to
spend my 20s living abroad.
It's been so valuable for me to just learn these different points of views of the world,
especially in my class, like with translational health sciences, like learn about different
initiatives that are happening in different countries, what kind of innovations they're
(19:50):
bringing to the classroom, essentially.
But yeah, so then tying that then to what I also really enjoy about is that everyone's
doing very different things.
It's very different from undergrad where everyone wants to kind of do the same thing because
everyone here already has a career kind of, especially in the master's level.
So very interesting to learn about what people are doing and get ideas for what I want to
(20:10):
do with my own career, which is still something I'm trying to figure out.
But I don't really have a linear career path that I'm thinking in mind.
I want to do multiple things with my career.
I feel like I believe more in the motto of make your own career instead of follow a career.
So I want to do my entrepreneurial stuff.
I want to be creative.
I want to travel.
Like, I don't know what I'm going to do immediately after I graduate.
(20:30):
I'm probably going to go for a job that's going to give me some more financial stability
and allow me to still be living abroad or living in a different country because I don't
think I'm ready to come back to Canada yet either.
I get it.
But I think long term though, I do want to be running my own enterprise and having that
be my main job but also be my main source of income because I just realized from me
(20:53):
in my personality too, I think I work best and I enjoy work the most when I get to be
the one in charge.
I realized that lesson the most when I was doing my photography business because it was
like, my photography was so fun.
I got to go to a lot of events.
I was getting paid to go to them.
I got to choose who I work with and I was getting paid for it.
Like, this sounds like the dream.
How do I do this long term?
(21:13):
Right.
Yeah, but in different fields.
So I'm just going along the way.
We'll see what happens.
First of all, you're a true leader.
You're the one who's going to set the standard in your workplace, whatever that's going to
be and people will follow you.
And as one of my mentors told me, go with the flow.
You know, approximately that you want to be in startups, you like putting the research
(21:35):
into practice and I feel like everything will align for you and you will find your place.
I have no doubt about it and go with the flow and don't stress at all.
That's what I tell you and I tell this to myself.
Yeah, everything will be good.
And similar to what you said, there are many careers in healthcare where you can help people
and take up a leadership position.
(21:55):
It doesn't have to be a doctor.
I mean, it can be.
It's good.
You can pursue it.
Like go for it if you decide that it's for you.
But just like you said, just go outside of your bubble.
See what else is out there.
And that doesn't just go to pre-meds.
I think that goes to just all people, especially who are in their 20s, just kind of explore.
Don't rush to commit to one career.
Just because all those stepping stones you make, they can change the trajectory of your
(22:20):
life in such ways you can't imagine.
And then I guess your journey of starting with preparing applications for medical schools,
writing the MCAT, and then applying to grad schools and now studying in Oxford.
You're a busy girl.
Studying these things, I imagine can feel very overwhelming at times.
How do you maintain your mental wellness, your mental health in the midst of all these
(22:43):
tasks or commitments that you have?
It's a good question.
I'm still figuring that out.
Yeah.
As we are all.
Yeah.
I'll be honest.
I do really enjoy being a busy person.
Like I like having a lot to do.
I'd rather be someone that has a lot on my plate rather than not a lot.
Even that's just someone who I am, call that being an overachiever, being a perfectionist,
(23:08):
whatever you want to say.
I get it.
Yeah.
I will recognize too.
I think it does come from a deep rooted insecurity I have about feeling like I'm not doing enough
and that I have to be a good role model, especially being the oldest sibling too.
There's just that innate personality trait of like, okay, you're a role model.
You are doing things first.
You want to do them well.
(23:28):
So yeah, like I do do a lot and I do recognize that it does probably come from an insecurity
I have as well.
But I think I also built a lot of confidence through doing a lot of different things.
So it's a balancing act for sure.
And I will be honest too, in that I probably burnt out every semester of undergrad by the
end.
I was so tired.
I don't think it physically took a toll on me in a way that I can remember.
(23:50):
I was fortunate that like my health was good enough for that, but I just remember feeling
like so exhausted, like so ready to be done, waiting for the next break.
And I think I burnt out like this summer too, like at Oxford.
So I am not the best person to advise on like how not to burn out, but I try to only commit
to things that I really enjoy and that I think add value to my life.
And I think that's where a lot of people, they're not enjoying their classes and they're
(24:11):
not doing their time or they feel extra stress because they're signed up for things that they
don't want to be doing.
They're doing it because they think it's going to help them in the long run.
But I feel like I just always did things that I really enjoyed.
Like I took courses because I wanted to take them.
I did only the extracurriculars that I really enjoyed doing.
Honestly, your mental health is just a lot better when you're doing things that you
care about and things that you enjoy.
(24:32):
And you're in control of that too, because it is your life.
It is your time.
You have to recognize that you are going to be busy because I work hard.
Like whenever I do something, I want to be doing well and I want to put my best effort
into it.
And if you're always going to be busy, which I feel like I am and I don't mind that, I
want to be doing things that I'm enjoying.
No, I love that.
When I do things that you enjoy and be intentional with your time, that's very important for
(24:55):
mental health.
Maybe question some self-care here and there.
I resonate with what you said a lot.
It's very hard for me to kind of stop what I'm doing and kind of tell myself, okay, just
kind of stop, go rest now, watch a movie.
It's very difficult for me.
So sometimes I have to be really forceful with myself to rest.
And then at first it feels weird, but then eventually it's just like my productivity increases.
(25:17):
I think more big picture sometimes, no matter how, I mean, maybe that's just my opinion,
no matter how busy you are, just even if it's like five minutes per day, just kind of lie
down.
It sounds funny, but like lie down on the bed and just kind of like close your eyes and
don't think about anything.
Just five minutes or it can be a nap or meditation, whatever your preferable choice of relaxation
(25:37):
is just to kind of reset yourself.
Because if you don't reset, like you mentioned, you might burn out and burnout doesn't always
contribute well to the work that you do.
But ultimately, yeah, it's having that balance because you're such an ambitious person and
there's projects you're working on and they're successful.
And of course you want to contribute more to them, so having that time for yourself.
(26:00):
No, 100%.
Like you don't do work well either when you are tired and when you are burnt out.
And that's something I've learned after she talking to like friends and family.
Like I need to be reminded, like it is so important for you to rest because you're not
going to do good work anyways when you're tired.
A task that usually will take you 10 minutes when you're well and healthy might take you
two hours when you're not feeling well.
So there's no point anyways.
(26:21):
But easier said than done.
Of course.
Of course.
I get crap from my family all the time.
Okay, just go out and just like enjoy your time.
I guess it's hard for me to learn my lesson.
Exactly.
I don't know how many times I'm going to have to like burn out for me to actually like make
a transformational change.
Is this you're such a leader and such an ambitious person?
It's extra hard and you're an overachiever and there's like a whole book written for
(26:44):
overachievers called the gap in the game.
And it's how overachievers usually a lot of them have this mindset of, okay, what else
do I have to achieve because they have this ideal self in mind.
But the ideal self is meant to be ideal self because you never truly achieve it because
it always grows.
And then instead switching to that gain mindset where you compare your current self to your
past self and just kind of seeing what you've accomplished.
(27:06):
Give yourself credit along the way to help yourself build that self esteem and realize
how cool of a person you are just for achieving what you already achieved in spite of what
other goals you put for yourself.
So yeah, and I've been so impressed just by looking at your page.
You're very entrepreneurial like you mentioned and you should be so, so proud of yourself.
Honestly, you're an inspiration truly just kind of remind yourself and give credit to
(27:30):
yourself along the way.
That's very, that's very kind and that's something I'm definitely going to take with
me this week.
It's easily my own worth critic so your words mean a lot to me when you say that.
Everyone wants to be acknowledged once in a while and you deserve to be acknowledged
and for all the work that you do.
So thanks.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
Okay, let's move on.
(27:52):
So your journey of not getting sent to medical school in a way led you to start a newsletter,
one of your many initiatives and the newsletter is called invite health.
So please explain it in more detail what invite health is, what it's about, how you were
led to start it.
Yeah, so invite health is a newsletter that I started two years ago when I was in the
(28:13):
start of my fourth year, my fourth and final year of undergrad.
It's a newsletter where I interview students and early career professionals and ask them
basically how they built their career in the life and health sciences.
I also do try to share resources and job opportunities, especially paid job opportunities
because those are very hard to find in healthcare.
And the point of invite health is honestly very multifold.
It's to show you about different career pathways in healthcare, but also not just showing you
(28:37):
what they are, but like how to get there.
Because I know that you can do anything you want with a lifestyle or health side degree,
but how do you get there?
What kind of program should you do?
And I think it's also exists to be the opposite of gatekeeping culture where everyone tries
to keep things themselves, opportunities to themselves and not really sharing those with
others.
And I think that's why I said it's a place where we're being very transparent about how
(29:00):
people build their careers and what type of opportunities they did and how did they get
it, whether they got it through applications or networking or just your luck.
Yeah, so that's a little bit about invite health.
How did I start it though?
It's honestly a very interesting journey.
As I mentioned earlier in 2022 winter, that's when I got rejected from med school.
And actually one of the things right after that when I got rejected was thinking, why
(29:22):
don't you call up call up as an like cooperative education where students get to a few placements
at different companies and work there.
They get paid as like interns get paid as students.
They're learning on the job.
They're getting valuable work experience.
And I was like, why doesn't McMaster Health Science have a co-op program?
It seems like such a good idea.
Students would get paid students would get experience.
You're connecting these incredible companies with super talented, super keen, super ambitious
(29:45):
students.
It seems like a win-win situation.
So actually after I got rejected from med school, I gathered two of my friends and we
wrote an email to our Dean asking if we could have a co-op program.
And it was a good meeting, but ultimately what our takeaway from that meeting was is
like a co-op program is something that's on the health side agenda, but it's not something
that's going to be immediately actioned.
So I was like, okay, there's that.
(30:07):
And then that was kind of like rejection number one.
And the second time was that I thought, okay, I really want to address this issue though
of like, they need to show us different career pathways and I want to promote different opportunities
and healthcare.
So I thought I was going to make change from like inside the health side program by running
to be the BHSS, which stands for Bachelor of Health Sciences Society.
It's kind of like our student government for McMaster Health Science.
(30:29):
I ran to be the academic coordinator because it's an election based position.
You have to be voted into it.
And I campaigned and I thought that was going to be the place where I get to use that platform
with the entire health side population and implement different ideas like different career
nights, showcasing different opportunities.
See all the changes that I wanted to see.
And then I lost that election.
(30:51):
I came second place.
So I was like, okay, that's not going to work for me either.
So then that summer, when I was also applying to grad schools, I knew I had this idea, this
itching idea of like, I want to create a platform where I share opportunities and that would
ultimately be in right health.
I decided to create a newsletter because there was a few different reasons I like newsletters.
(31:11):
I think I followed a few of them.
They were becoming more popular as like a creator tool, not just something that businesses
would do like sign up for mailing lists and stuff.
And I like that no matter if you have social media or not, you can access a newsletter because
it's just your email.
So I got the idea for invite health to be a newsletter.
The idea was that I was going to share opportunities I found online, like research groups, internships,
(31:34):
especially paid opportunities because I hate unpaid internships and especially in healthcare
happens way too often.
And I just think it's so ironic considering how much dialogue there is around trying to
make healthcare and medicine more equitable, yet unpaid internships seem to be the standard
and they just perpetuate inequity even further.
Anyways, yeah, so invite health was going to be a place where I wanted to share opportunities.
(31:57):
But then a week after I launched invite health, I went on LinkedIn and I saw someone make a
post about an internship they just completed, like a research internship.
And I was like, wait, and I had a huge light bulb in my head go off thinking, I want to
interview this person.
I want to ask them like, what did you do during your research internship?
How did you get the position?
Were you paid?
And I reached out to them, asked them about it, and they wrote up an interview for me.
(32:18):
And I was like, because the reason I reached out to them was because I had this platform,
like, wait, I have this newsletter, would you want to like talk about your experience
for it?
And they agreed to it.
And I published my first invite health interview.
And after that, I was like, this is what I'm going to be doing for invite health from now
on.
I'm going to be sharing opportunities and I'm going to be interviewing students because
that's such an effective way to learn.
You want to learn from people who are like one or two years older than you who are doing
(32:40):
things that you want to do so that you can learn from them because they have been in
your shoes recently.
And yeah, again, it goes back to like breaking down that gatekeeping culture.
So yeah, invite health.
Since I've launched, I've now published 51 interviews because I've just published one
today.
I've been running for two years and yeah, it's been read by over a thousand people, which
is crazy.
I'm like a thousand people, a thousand people in a room is a lot of people that just stumbled
(33:05):
upon this newsletter.
That is what invite health is about.
And that's kind of my journey to starting it.
And I'm still running it now, just hoping to share more stories and encourage more people
to learn about different career pathways in healthcare and to be transparent about how
they got there too.
Because we all win when we're all successful.
And I just want to reiterate how, again, like, I don't know, maybe I sound like a cheesy
(33:29):
grandmother, but how beautiful it is that it stemmed from kind of your uncertainty about
what you want to pursue.
But you knew you didn't want to do medicine eventually.
And then you figured out what to do.
But also in the process, you started this newsletter and you use this opportunity of
rejection, which a lot of people associate with negativity to create something new and
(33:52):
help people because listen, I've read your newsletter and read many articles and they're
very helpful because right now, even though I already completed my bachelors, but I'm
not really sure if I want to pursue my bachelors as neuroscience and I'm not really sure if
I want to pursue something in neuroscience specifically.
So reading your newsletter, it was really helpful for me to figure out what my next steps could
(34:14):
be.
What are some tips to cold email professors to do research in labs that you have not been
in before and you don't know the professors.
There are so many good tips.
So I'm not even a tidbit surprised that there are so many people subscribed to it.
So thank you for launching it.
(34:34):
I recognize that one of the reasons that I think invite health husband so impactful is
because not everyone in their life has a privilege of having connections or family or friends
who are in healthcare.
So there's a lot of extra barriers and a lot of extra work that someone needs to do if
they want to learn how to break into healthcare or go into the healthcare field.
And it can feel trickier and it can feel isolating and invite health just tries to be that platform
(34:58):
that anybody can access because of course it's on the internet.
It's for free.
So if you subscribe to it at any time, it'll always be available because not everyone has
that privilege of having opportunities.
So at least with invite health, I hope it could help people get at least a start to
finding mentors to finding connections to finding their first job and telling them how
to get there.
Yeah, it's a beautiful thing that you're doing and please continue doing it.
(35:19):
And we are soon coming to an end of this episode and we've talked about a lot.
We've covered so much.
Any last thoughts, main takeaways you have for our listeners before we wrap up and also
mention please where can the listeners connect with you if they want to learn more about
your journey, your masters or whatever it is else that you're doing.
(35:42):
Yes.
I think the first goes back to that gatekeeping and competitive culture.
I understand why people do it because there's a scarcity mindset.
There's not enough opportunities to go around.
Objectively, it's very difficult to get into like graduate schools and to get a job nowadays.
So I understand where people come from when they want to be competitive.
But realistically, especially in healthcare, healthcare is a very collaborative field.
(36:07):
You have to learn how to work together.
You have to learn to embrace other people's ways of thinking and you have to learn that
you're not going to solve all these problems by yourself.
So I think it's best to learn that earlier rather than later.
Getting an opportunity is difficult, but there's enough for everybody.
And like I said, I believe in making opportunities to like if you can't find an opportunity,
you can create one for yourself.
So we should all be working together, not against each other.
(36:29):
I think the second thing I'll talk about is that it's really important to have things
that you're doing outside of your academics.
I didn't get to talk about it as much, but being a photographer has been the best thing
that I've done outside of school because it's given me a lot of confidence.
It's allowed me to meet so many people.
It's allowed me to make extra aside income too and have a creative hobby and teach me
(36:51):
skills that also helped me in school.
Like I'm the better communicator because of it.
I'm better conversationalist because of photography.
And I also have different perspectives on the world because I've met people through photography
as well.
Like I got to learn about different cultures by going to cultural events.
I got to go to conferences that I probably wouldn't have been able to go to unless I
was a photographer.
I'm not saying that like everyone needs to go and become a photographer, but I'm just
(37:14):
saying that it's really important to have things outside of school that you're doing
so that you can also be reminded that school is not the only thing in your life.
And I recognize it also is a privilege too because I didn't need photography to be financially
like sustainable when I was an undergrad.
And I recognize that not everyone has that luxury of time to pursue different hobbies,
(37:34):
but try to find something that will work for you, whatever situation you're in and whatever
background you're in.
I think the third thing and maybe the most important thing is to be around supportive
communities and have a supportive community, whether that is or is not your immediate family,
whether that's your friends, whether that's people you meet in class, but especially for
(37:57):
people like us who are prone to being strong self critics.
You need to be around people who remind you that you are doing enough and that you are
doing a lot and that will remind you to rest and will make you feel good on days that you
don't feel great about yourself.
Because also if they're your friends, especially in your family and you trust they have good
judgment, you should listen to them.
(38:19):
You know they're smart.
Yeah.
You know they're telling you good advice, but you're not doing this alone.
And I'm also someone who like struggles, asks for help.
But when I have friends and family who can tell me, Hey, I recognize you're going through
something or I recognize you're not at your best right now.
You need that because sometimes we're not always the best judges of our own character
and our own health and our own habits.
(38:40):
So make sure you're around supportive communities.
Like I have been a very entrepreneurial person as I iterated throughout this podcast, but
it's also because every time I've launched something or started something new is because
my friends were there to support me and say like this is a great idea or they would share
it with other people.
Like everyone has a fear of rejection and everyone has a fear of like, I don't know
if I want to start this because what are people going to think and what if it fails.
(39:02):
Like no one has actually like come up to me and told me like my content is cringe or like
what I do for in my health, whatever I post on LinkedIn is cringe.
They tell me the exact opposite.
Like they enjoy seeing it and it's helped them.
Like it's easier to do things and it's easier to go after what you want when you have a
supportive community.
So I think that's the final piece of advice that I will give for people.
(39:22):
Yeah.
I'll I'll agree with that.
And yeah, please rely on your family to give you more objective evaluation of your character,
especially when you're feeling down.
You shouldn't you shouldn't listen to yourself because the thoughts that run through your
head are not are not reliable.
So yeah, have your family or like you said, if not immediate family of friends.
(39:46):
And I really do hope that whoever you are listening to this, you do have people who
will support you.
I remember when I was starting this podcast, I remember it felt like a light bulb too,
but it felt so silly as well because I even have the title in my head right away, the
rejected pre-med.
And I'm like, wow, that sounds so so weird at first.
(40:07):
And then I talked to my family about this and then they're like, no, go for it.
So they're very pivotal people who told me and they encouraged me to start this podcast.
And otherwise, I think if they said that it's a bad idea, probably wouldn't have done it.
So that's why it's very important to surround yourself with people who do support you.
Yeah.
Oh, sorry, I forgot to answer the question.
How can people connect with me?
I am very active on LinkedIn.
(40:28):
Just sat you can you can search me up or you can search up invite health.
And apparently if you put invite health into Google, the second search result will put my
name beside it.
So nice.
So I just started to invite health, Sachi, and it'll show up too.
I try to be active on social media.
I have invite health Instagram page, but I also have a Sachi and Oxford Instagram page
where I try to show my life here and also share more resources.
(40:50):
I am not as active on there as I am on LinkedIn.
So LinkedIn is probably the best way to reach me.
But I also have a photography page.
So if you want to see some of my photography, you can check that out.
It's called Photo by Sachi, Photo by Sachi with two eyes though at the end.
I'll send all these links to you too.
So yeah, yeah, I was going to say I was I'm just going to put it in show notes, all the
links to invite health, your social media, the photography page.
(41:12):
I'll just I'll put it in show notes so people can access it.
But yeah, thank you so much Sachi for appearing on this podcast.
It was a pleasure interviewing you and thanks to you, our listener as well for tuning in.
I'm very excited to be releasing this episode because it just shows how much rejection is
simply a redirection.
(41:32):
And at the end of the day, it all depends on our perception and the steps we take after
our so-called failure.
And I would love to hear from all of you listening in what you liked about this episode and
what topics you want me to cover in the future episodes.
So please DM me on Instagram or LinkedIn to share your insights and thank you again, Sachi.
Thank you so much.
(41:54):
Yeah, this was Valeria Rusnick, the host of the Rejective Pre-Met podcast.
And I thank you for listening.
Hi everyone, this is the sixth episode of the Rejected Prevent podcast.
(00:06):
I cannot believe we made it to the sixth episode.
I appreciate you all listening in and hearing what my guests and I have to say about rejection.
Talking about rejection does not usually make up for the most.
It wasn't a conversation, but in this podcast we unraveled this taboo topic and reveal how
rejection could actually be redirection and may even lead you to personal and professional
(00:26):
growth.
Yesterday, Saachi is a perfect example of this.
She applied to several medical schools in Canada in 2021 and did not get in, but the
next year though, Saachi applied to Oxford and of course she got accepted, which we
will talk about later in more detail.
Honestly, Saachi is probably one of the most accomplished girls I have ever met.
Just check out her LinkedIn page and her Instagram page.
(00:47):
You'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
She has been an entrepreneur and a self-starter since high school and there are many things
she accomplished, but the thing that stands out to me the most and the one we'll talk
about today is Invite Health, which is a newsletter created by Saachi.
It is filled with resources, job opportunities and how-to career stories for healthcare
and science students.
(01:07):
And the beautiful thing is that the creation of the newsletter, which helped so many people,
read by over a thousand, was driven by Saachi's personal struggles to figure out what she
wanted to do after not getting accepted into medical school and after realizing that medicine
was not her path.
So without further ado, let me introduce to you Saachi Chan.
I hope I said your name correctly.
(01:29):
Thank you for coming onto this podcast.
I'm very grateful for the opportunity to interview you.
Oh, thank you so much.
I am so glad to be here.
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Yeah.
So why don't we start with you telling a little bit about yourself before we dive into more
questions?
Sure.
Hi everyone.
My name is Saachi Chan.
(01:50):
As mentioned earlier, my pronouns are she and her.
I'm initially from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, so I'm a Canadian student.
And right now I'm doing my masters in translational health sciences at the University of Oxford.
I started last October, so it's been a year now, and I'm about to go into my second and
final year of my master's program.
(02:11):
Prior to this, I did my undergrad in health sciences at McMaster University, and I logged
my time there even if half of it was kind of cut short or online by the pandemic.
That was a little bit about my undergrad background.
I've been doing a lot of health sciences work, and that's probably my strongest background
right now.
But I also love being a very creative person.
(02:31):
I am a freelance photographer.
I've been doing that since I was in high school, and I think it's honestly been one
of the biggest things that's given me a lot of confidence.
And I'm also a very entrepreneurial person.
As you mentioned, I started Invite Health, which is a newsletter that I've been running
for two years now.
But on top of that, my photography is also an entrepreneurial passion, and I started
with two other organizations when I was in high school and university.
(02:53):
So I love being a very entrepreneurial person because I think it's a way to take initiative
on the problems that you care about and to actually create the change you want to see.
Yeah, that's a little bit about me, but we'll dive into it, I'm sure a little bit more later
on.
Yes, yes, we will.
And first, we will backtrack a little bit.
At first, you were set on medicine, and why do you think you wanted to pursue medicine
(03:16):
in the first place?
Because it motivated you to apply, because it's a process, right?
It is, yeah.
What schools did you apply to?
How was that experience for you and what were your motivations?
Sure, so there's a lot in that question.
I'll try to go chronologically.
So when I was in high school, I always had an interest in science and business, and I
actually couldn't decide what I wanted to do.
(03:38):
So that's why in my grade 11 and grade 12 year, I took courses in science and business.
Like I would have a physics, chemistry, biology, but I would also have accounting, marketing,
and only by taking those courses, I realized I was good at both of them, but I enjoyed
the sciences more.
I mean, I did apply to undergrad programs that were both science and business, but I
(03:59):
ended up getting expected to McMaster's health sciences program, which at the time was a
big deal and felt like a big deal because I was the only one from my high school who
got accepted at the time.
And even from like upper years to not many people that I knew above me in terms of years,
got accepted into that program, and it's just kind of those little jokes, right?
Those little things like, oh, Sachi, you've got accepted to McMaster health sciences.
(04:22):
You're going to call you Dr. Chan now, and you're on your way to becoming a doctor,
right?
Even though it's not a pre-med program, like being a McMaster health sciences did not
guarantee you go to medical school, but that's just kind of what its reputation was, and
it still is a little bit.
So I think from there, I was kind of socializing to think I was going to go to medicine.
And I mean, I knew that I liked healthcare because everyone experiences health, illness,
(04:43):
and disability at some point in their lives.
And if it's not us right now, it's going to be someone we know and we love.
And I care a lot about making an impact on people's lives.
So I thought healthcare and medicine would be the way that I do that.
And I think a lot of the skill sets that I had would compliment me if I went into medicine
because it's not just about enjoying science and enjoying the clinical side of healthcare,
(05:05):
but it's also the social side of it too.
Looking more holistically at people's health and also having good bedside manner because
being a physician is not just about, do you know what you're studying?
Do you know diseases and do you know anatomy?
But also, can you trust your patients, build trusting relationships with them?
And I think from a lot of my team experiences, like working with other people, like I do
(05:27):
enjoy that.
I do enjoy getting to build relationships with people and getting to talk to them and
being their support system.
So when I was an undergrad, after second year, I wrote the MCAP because that's kind of typical
for people in undergrad.
And then by the time third year comes around, you're starting to apply for med schools because
you need to do at least three years of a bachelor's in order to apply to med schools, at least
in Canada.
(05:47):
I applied to McMaster University, Queens University and the University of Toronto and I got rejected
from all of them.
But to be fair, I had pretty good grades and then I did the MCAT.
I did not do that well on the MCAT.
I got a 502, which is like just above the bare minimum to be eligible for U of T because
U of T you need to have like a 500, which if you're applying to med school, you know what
(06:08):
this means.
So I didn't have a very good score.
So I didn't know if my chances were going to be that great anyways.
And then yeah, I didn't do that great.
I did pretty well in CASPER though.
So like I had a CASPER and I had good grades and I thought I had like well rounded background,
but I also was not someone who had like a lot of research experience or a lot of clinical
experience.
But I don't know.
We never know why I got rejected.
(06:28):
It's competitive anyways.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I only applied to McMaster, Queens and the University of Toronto.
But yeah, that was a little bit about where I applied.
Right.
Right.
So I've encountered this and I've encountered this that once people hear that, oh yeah,
we decided to not apply to medical school anymore after not getting accepted one time.
(06:49):
They think the only reason you don't want to is because you're just fear being not accepted
again.
But I think there's that reflection period that comes.
Maybe you kind of start to think is medicine even for me?
And you had that similar reflection period as well where you realized that there's possible
reasons why maybe it's good that you didn't get accepted.
And that leads to my next question.
(07:10):
How did you realize that medicine is not for you?
And how did it feel realizing that?
Because that must have been like a big hit since you was thinking of medicine for a while.
Yeah.
It's a good question.
And I think there's a lot of things that actually ties into this.
So first off, during the summer when I was applying for the MCAT, I mean, MCAT's not an
enjoyable experience for anybody.
But some people I found could motivate themselves to study through the MCAT because they know
(07:35):
it was going to be worth it in the end.
They knew it was like a short-term pain, long-term gain.
I did not really feel that way when I was studying for the MCAT.
I did not like the MCAT.
I did not like what the MCAT stood for.
And I was not enjoying it.
And I couldn't really motivate myself to say it's going to be worth it.
It's going to be worth it.
I just, I didn't feel that way at all when I was studying for the MCAT.
(07:58):
I'm like, mm-hmm.
But I experienced some cost-balancing.
I was like, okay, I've been like studying for this for like a month.
I've already bought this textbook.
I've already booked a test date.
Might as well just go through with it because I don't like quitting either because it's
like, what's the point of quitting now?
Like you've already studied this for this for like a month or two and like half your summer
is gone.
You're not going to just quit and stop it.
So I went through with it and I mean, I'm glad I did.
(08:21):
But that was the first step that I realized that medicine wasn't for me.
And the second step was actually when I got my rejections.
I wasn't that upset.
I didn't feel like I had a dream crushed.
I did not feel like, oh, life is over or that there was nothing else for me to do.
I was just like, okay, I got rejected.
I was kind of expecting that considering how bad my MCAT was.
And it still sucks to get rejected, but it was more that I felt bad that I wasted other
(08:43):
people's time and that I wasted my own time applying to this and then didn't even work
out.
Like I felt bad that my referees wrote me reference letters and that I spent my summer
writing MCAT when I could have been doing something else.
It's a normal feeling.
I've went through this whole thing and my MCAT was, and I said this in my first episode
was lower than yours.
Let's just say that.
The critical analytical reading section is notoriously difficult and I've studied for
(09:08):
a year for this test.
First, I did it at 2021 and I studied first whole summer.
I'm like, okay, I didn't do good.
Let me do a whole year.
No.
So I understand all the feelings.
It's so normal.
And then there are students out there studying for it and also experiencing this.
Just want to say that you're not alone and MCAT is a hard test and it doesn't define your
intelligence.
(09:29):
When I get it, they want to weed out potential applicants who might not do well on tests
in medical school.
I heard that's why they do the MCAT, but it does not define how good of a doctor you
could have been.
So this is just one thing I want to emphasize.
But all those things kind of just like realizing that medicine does not the path for you, at
least for now, I really resonate with that.
So thank you for sharing that because it makes me feel better, especially considering how
(09:54):
accomplished you are.
Thank you.
Can I add something to that though, because I think it's something that's so really
go ahead.
Out of my experience.
So when I got rejected from med schools, it was the start of 2022.
So that was like my second semester of third year.
And around that time, I was also applying to the summer program called Shad, which is a
summer admission program for high school students across Canada.
(10:17):
And I was applying to be a program assistant there.
And I ended up working there summer of 2022.
And working at Shad was honestly life changing for me.
Also while I love the job because I get to spend a month with high school students, some
of the brightest high school students in Canada, helping them succeed in their education and
their careers and just being there at such an important time of their life was so important
(10:38):
to me.
But it was also the team that I worked with that really changed things for me.
I worked with them in July 2022.
And the thing about our team is that it was very diverse.
I was one of the younger people on the team.
I had teammates who were almost like 20 years older than me.
And there was only one team member who was in medicine, like he was an ER doctor, but
everyone else was not in medicine.
But they were so passionate about what they were doing, whether they were teachers, whether
(11:02):
they were engineers, whether they were in the arts, whether they were in politics.
It was just so exciting to be around because we had some overlaps in our interests, of
course, and that's why we all worked really well together.
But getting outside of that medicine bubble and getting outside of that health science
bubble was transformative for me because it's like, these people, they're not just passionate,
but they're also making an impact wherever they are, whether it's in the classrooms that
(11:25):
they're teaching, whether it's in the conversations you're having with them.
There's so many ways they're making an impact.
And I would verbalize with them.
I would have a lot of conversations with them about, you know, I don't know if I want to
go into medicine again.
And especially because a lot of my teammates were older than me, they also really emphasize
that careers are not meant to be linear and that they had a lot of twists and turns to
throughout their career.
(11:45):
So it's like, Sachi, even if you make the decision now to not go into medicine, it doesn't
mean you don't have to do it ever again.
And they talked about their personal experiences, their lived experiences.
And that was just a really good reminder for me to say, I'm only in like my third year
of undergrad.
This is only like one year.
I can always do this later if I want to.
And like my life is not over.
I don't have to make all these big decisions now.
And that you should follow what you're passionate about too, because I think in undergrad, you've
(12:11):
kind of feel like if you want to make a very impactful career, the best way to do that
is by going to become a doctor.
But you can make an impact wherever you are with whatever you're doing.
And especially teaching, teaching was something I really loved doing that summer and being
a mentor.
And I was like, this is what I really care about.
And so I will really be grateful for Shad for giving me that insight into all of my teammates.
(12:32):
That was definitely a life-changing experience for me.
And it's nice that it came right after your, let's say, rejections were not getting accepted.
It really did help you understand what your priorities are and where to kind of guide
yourself in the future.
When did the realization came to you that you do not want to apply to medicine again?
(12:53):
Was it during Shad?
Was it right before?
Was it right after?
When did you come to that?
Probably at different points.
After I got rejected, I was just thinking, okay, what am I going to do now?
I knew that I did not want to study for the MCAT again that summer.
I did want to write it a second time.
So I ruled that out first.
And in the summer of 2022, I also was doing most of my research on different grad programs
(13:17):
because I met some students who are upper years who did grad school.
And I knew I enjoyed being in school, so I knew I would rather go to grad school than
enter the workforce straight out of graduation because you have to start thinking about these
things when you're in fourth year.
And yeah, I mean, before I went into Shad, I was thinking, do I want to apply again?
Is this something I want to do?
I couldn't commit to a decision is what I'll say.
(13:38):
If I was going to apply or not, I was still kind of going back and forth.
But then after Shad, I was very certain and also very confident that, nope, I'm not going
to go apply to med school again in fourth year.
I'm going to go all into applying to grad schools.
That is probably the journey is like deciding not to write the MCAT again and then kind
of going back and forth with it over the summer while I was doing research on different grad
schools and seeing what other options were and then going to Shad.
(14:01):
Yeah, I just want to emphasize it's hard to say when to go further into medicine and persevere
or kind of admit to yourself, you're not really feeling it.
If you're not really committed to medicine that, okay, this is not something for me.
So if any of you listeners out there kind of going back and forth, it's normal first
of all to go back and forth and having those self doubts.
(14:22):
It's okay not to know right away what you want to do.
But ultimately, and maybe this sounds super cheesy, but it's an advice that helped me
a lot and I'm really learning to follow that is follow your heart.
Follow your heart.
What's your passion?
What are your interests?
Like where are you gravitating towards without really forcefully pushing yourself?
Because people who go into medicine ideally are people who are really passionate about
(14:45):
who are really motivated because I've seen people who have been so down by not getting
accepted once, twice, thrice and something inside them just tells them, I still want
to be a doctor and I'll go for it every time.
But it takes time to realize it.
But if you feel yourself that you're not fully committed to medicine, it's okay to try something
else and it takes courage to admit that to yourself sometimes.
(15:05):
But eventually you can reach it, but it's okay if it takes time.
That's what I'm trying to say.
I guess we can switch gears a little bit.
You've realized that medicine isn't for you and you start applying to several master's
programs and the one you chose and were accepted in is Oxford University, which is so cool.
And you study translational health sciences.
(15:27):
That was the masters you pursued.
Can you tell a little bit about the program and what made you choose a specific program?
Yeah, sure.
I guess I'll start with like the last question actually, like why I chose to study the specific
program.
So, like I mentioned in the last question, I knew that I enjoyed being in school and
I liked being in that intellectually stimulating environment and maybe also I wasn't ready for
(15:50):
the workforce.
I wasn't ready to be an adult.
And I actually specifically knew that I wanted to study translational health sciences or
translational research after graduating because I liked that it takes a very interdisciplinary
approach to solving health care problems and interdisciplinary meaning like you need to
have expertise in multiple disciplines rather than just one.
(16:11):
I went to like info sessions and I read about doing like maybe public health or global health,
but I didn't feel like I wanted to be in that field specifically or I felt like maybe it
was a bit too narrow for me.
It's good for other people, but it was just like for me, I'm more of a generalist.
I want to look more holistically.
And I wasn't like super enthusiastic about public health or global health in like undergrad.
(16:33):
I was more like I want to be excited about all of it.
Like I love both of these fields, but I don't want to have to like choose one exactly per
say.
And I didn't know if I wanted to follow a career in that way.
And I wanted to study translational health sciences because I found that in undergrad,
we spent a lot of time talking about health care problems.
So we talk about challenges with technology, talking about how marginalized groups faced
(16:55):
worse health care outcomes.
And I was like, okay, these are good problems to know.
That's what the research is telling us.
But what's next?
Who's addressing it?
Who is solving the problem now?
Maybe because undergrad was a bit too short in our courses, we're only like three to four
months and maybe just the nature of undergrad teaching too.
I just didn't feel like we spent enough time talking about solutions and talking to people
(17:16):
who were actually trying to address this, like working on the ground to address this.
So I knew that translational health sciences where it talks about how to translate research
into practice and how to actually implement innovations, how to implement research that
can actually help and benefit people.
You're not just a specialist in one field, but you need to know a little bit about everything
so you can kind of get the bigger picture.
(17:37):
I can see how passionate you are about this.
And I'm so happy that you pursued a program that you are feeling so positively about.
And we need people like you, like you said, you're a generalist who see things holistically
because it's such a skill that not everyone has.
We need people who can translate knowledge and research from academia to real life, to
(17:58):
policy, to actually implementing it because there's such a gap sometimes between academia
and then it stays in their circle and doesn't get to the organization, the nonprofits who
are doing the work.
So thank you for pursuing a degree like this and to other people who are pursuing similar
degrees because it's very, very useful to say, to say the least, it's very useful.
(18:21):
And what are your future plans with completing your degree?
Now that you're pursuing this and you know, you moved to Oxford, studied all this and
looking back now, are you happy with the decision you made not to pursue medicine?
Even somehow knowing what if you got in second time you applied?
I am so grateful to be here.
I think Oxford has been a life changing experience for the better.
(18:43):
It's been both the most rewarding and challenging year of my life because I was moving to a
new country, starting grad school, being away from friends and family, navigating a lot
of guilt and a lot of newfound independence is quite challenging.
But because I'm here now and I made it to the other side or I'm still in it, but I've
become more resilient because of it.
I'm really grateful for that experience.
(19:04):
And also there's very few places as international as Oxford, like having so many people from
different countries around the world in one place, especially in the master's community.
First off, there's a lot of diversity in age.
I'm usually the younger person in my class and there's people who are like 10, 20, 30,
40 years older than me and they're pursuing education, which is so inspiring because it
(19:27):
really goes to show that anyone can be a student and getting the international perspective,
especially for someone like me who's very curious and loves traveling and wanted to
spend my 20s living abroad.
It's been so valuable for me to just learn these different points of views of the world,
especially in my class, like with translational health sciences, like learn about different
initiatives that are happening in different countries, what kind of innovations they're
(19:50):
bringing to the classroom, essentially.
But yeah, so then tying that then to what I also really enjoy about is that everyone's
doing very different things.
It's very different from undergrad where everyone wants to kind of do the same thing because
everyone here already has a career kind of, especially in the master's level.
So very interesting to learn about what people are doing and get ideas for what I want to
(20:10):
do with my own career, which is still something I'm trying to figure out.
But I don't really have a linear career path that I'm thinking in mind.
I want to do multiple things with my career.
I feel like I believe more in the motto of make your own career instead of follow a career.
So I want to do my entrepreneurial stuff.
I want to be creative.
I want to travel.
Like, I don't know what I'm going to do immediately after I graduate.
(20:30):
I'm probably going to go for a job that's going to give me some more financial stability
and allow me to still be living abroad or living in a different country because I don't
think I'm ready to come back to Canada yet either.
I get it.
But I think long term though, I do want to be running my own enterprise and having that
be my main job but also be my main source of income because I just realized from me
(20:53):
in my personality too, I think I work best and I enjoy work the most when I get to be
the one in charge.
I realized that lesson the most when I was doing my photography business because it was
like, my photography was so fun.
I got to go to a lot of events.
I was getting paid to go to them.
I got to choose who I work with and I was getting paid for it.
Like, this sounds like the dream.
How do I do this long term?
(21:13):
Right.
Yeah, but in different fields.
So I'm just going along the way.
We'll see what happens.
First of all, you're a true leader.
You're the one who's going to set the standard in your workplace, whatever that's going to
be and people will follow you.
And as one of my mentors told me, go with the flow.
You know, approximately that you want to be in startups, you like putting the research
(21:35):
into practice and I feel like everything will align for you and you will find your place.
I have no doubt about it and go with the flow and don't stress at all.
That's what I tell you and I tell this to myself.
Yeah, everything will be good.
And similar to what you said, there are many careers in healthcare where you can help people
and take up a leadership position.
(21:55):
It doesn't have to be a doctor.
I mean, it can be.
It's good.
You can pursue it.
Like go for it if you decide that it's for you.
But just like you said, just go outside of your bubble.
See what else is out there.
And that doesn't just go to pre-meds.
I think that goes to just all people, especially who are in their 20s, just kind of explore.
Don't rush to commit to one career.
Just because all those stepping stones you make, they can change the trajectory of your
(22:20):
life in such ways you can't imagine.
And then I guess your journey of starting with preparing applications for medical schools,
writing the MCAT, and then applying to grad schools and now studying in Oxford.
You're a busy girl.
Studying these things, I imagine can feel very overwhelming at times.
How do you maintain your mental wellness, your mental health in the midst of all these
(22:43):
tasks or commitments that you have?
It's a good question.
I'm still figuring that out.
Yeah.
As we are all.
Yeah.
I'll be honest.
I do really enjoy being a busy person.
Like I like having a lot to do.
I'd rather be someone that has a lot on my plate rather than not a lot.
Even that's just someone who I am, call that being an overachiever, being a perfectionist,
(23:08):
whatever you want to say.
I get it.
Yeah.
I will recognize too.
I think it does come from a deep rooted insecurity I have about feeling like I'm not doing enough
and that I have to be a good role model, especially being the oldest sibling too.
There's just that innate personality trait of like, okay, you're a role model.
You are doing things first.
You want to do them well.
(23:28):
So yeah, like I do do a lot and I do recognize that it does probably come from an insecurity
I have as well.
But I think I also built a lot of confidence through doing a lot of different things.
So it's a balancing act for sure.
And I will be honest too, in that I probably burnt out every semester of undergrad by the
end.
I was so tired.
I don't think it physically took a toll on me in a way that I can remember.
(23:50):
I was fortunate that like my health was good enough for that, but I just remember feeling
like so exhausted, like so ready to be done, waiting for the next break.
And I think I burnt out like this summer too, like at Oxford.
So I am not the best person to advise on like how not to burn out, but I try to only commit
to things that I really enjoy and that I think add value to my life.
And I think that's where a lot of people, they're not enjoying their classes and they're
(24:11):
not doing their time or they feel extra stress because they're signed up for things that they
don't want to be doing.
They're doing it because they think it's going to help them in the long run.
But I feel like I just always did things that I really enjoyed.
Like I took courses because I wanted to take them.
I did only the extracurriculars that I really enjoyed doing.
Honestly, your mental health is just a lot better when you're doing things that you
care about and things that you enjoy.
(24:32):
And you're in control of that too, because it is your life.
It is your time.
You have to recognize that you are going to be busy because I work hard.
Like whenever I do something, I want to be doing well and I want to put my best effort
into it.
And if you're always going to be busy, which I feel like I am and I don't mind that, I
want to be doing things that I'm enjoying.
No, I love that.
When I do things that you enjoy and be intentional with your time, that's very important for
(24:55):
mental health.
Maybe question some self-care here and there.
I resonate with what you said a lot.
It's very hard for me to kind of stop what I'm doing and kind of tell myself, okay, just
kind of stop, go rest now, watch a movie.
It's very difficult for me.
So sometimes I have to be really forceful with myself to rest.
And then at first it feels weird, but then eventually it's just like my productivity increases.
(25:17):
I think more big picture sometimes, no matter how, I mean, maybe that's just my opinion,
no matter how busy you are, just even if it's like five minutes per day, just kind of lie
down.
It sounds funny, but like lie down on the bed and just kind of like close your eyes and
don't think about anything.
Just five minutes or it can be a nap or meditation, whatever your preferable choice of relaxation
(25:37):
is just to kind of reset yourself.
Because if you don't reset, like you mentioned, you might burn out and burnout doesn't always
contribute well to the work that you do.
But ultimately, yeah, it's having that balance because you're such an ambitious person and
there's projects you're working on and they're successful.
And of course you want to contribute more to them, so having that time for yourself.
(26:00):
No, 100%.
Like you don't do work well either when you are tired and when you are burnt out.
And that's something I've learned after she talking to like friends and family.
Like I need to be reminded, like it is so important for you to rest because you're not
going to do good work anyways when you're tired.
A task that usually will take you 10 minutes when you're well and healthy might take you
two hours when you're not feeling well.
So there's no point anyways.
(26:21):
But easier said than done.
Of course.
Of course.
I get crap from my family all the time.
Okay, just go out and just like enjoy your time.
I guess it's hard for me to learn my lesson.
Exactly.
I don't know how many times I'm going to have to like burn out for me to actually like make
a transformational change.
Is this you're such a leader and such an ambitious person?
It's extra hard and you're an overachiever and there's like a whole book written for
(26:44):
overachievers called the gap in the game.
And it's how overachievers usually a lot of them have this mindset of, okay, what else
do I have to achieve because they have this ideal self in mind.
But the ideal self is meant to be ideal self because you never truly achieve it because
it always grows.
And then instead switching to that gain mindset where you compare your current self to your
past self and just kind of seeing what you've accomplished.
(27:06):
Give yourself credit along the way to help yourself build that self esteem and realize
how cool of a person you are just for achieving what you already achieved in spite of what
other goals you put for yourself.
So yeah, and I've been so impressed just by looking at your page.
You're very entrepreneurial like you mentioned and you should be so, so proud of yourself.
Honestly, you're an inspiration truly just kind of remind yourself and give credit to
(27:30):
yourself along the way.
That's very, that's very kind and that's something I'm definitely going to take with
me this week.
It's easily my own worth critic so your words mean a lot to me when you say that.
Everyone wants to be acknowledged once in a while and you deserve to be acknowledged
and for all the work that you do.
So thanks.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
Okay, let's move on.
(27:52):
So your journey of not getting sent to medical school in a way led you to start a newsletter,
one of your many initiatives and the newsletter is called invite health.
So please explain it in more detail what invite health is, what it's about, how you were
led to start it.
Yeah, so invite health is a newsletter that I started two years ago when I was in the
(28:13):
start of my fourth year, my fourth and final year of undergrad.
It's a newsletter where I interview students and early career professionals and ask them
basically how they built their career in the life and health sciences.
I also do try to share resources and job opportunities, especially paid job opportunities
because those are very hard to find in healthcare.
And the point of invite health is honestly very multifold.
It's to show you about different career pathways in healthcare, but also not just showing you
(28:37):
what they are, but like how to get there.
Because I know that you can do anything you want with a lifestyle or health side degree,
but how do you get there?
What kind of program should you do?
And I think it's also exists to be the opposite of gatekeeping culture where everyone tries
to keep things themselves, opportunities to themselves and not really sharing those with
others.
And I think that's why I said it's a place where we're being very transparent about how
(29:00):
people build their careers and what type of opportunities they did and how did they get
it, whether they got it through applications or networking or just your luck.
Yeah, so that's a little bit about invite health.
How did I start it though?
It's honestly a very interesting journey.
As I mentioned earlier in 2022 winter, that's when I got rejected from med school.
And actually one of the things right after that when I got rejected was thinking, why
(29:22):
don't you call up call up as an like cooperative education where students get to a few placements
at different companies and work there.
They get paid as like interns get paid as students.
They're learning on the job.
They're getting valuable work experience.
And I was like, why doesn't McMaster Health Science have a co-op program?
It seems like such a good idea.
Students would get paid students would get experience.
You're connecting these incredible companies with super talented, super keen, super ambitious
(29:45):
students.
It seems like a win-win situation.
So actually after I got rejected from med school, I gathered two of my friends and we
wrote an email to our Dean asking if we could have a co-op program.
And it was a good meeting, but ultimately what our takeaway from that meeting was is
like a co-op program is something that's on the health side agenda, but it's not something
that's going to be immediately actioned.
So I was like, okay, there's that.
(30:07):
And then that was kind of like rejection number one.
And the second time was that I thought, okay, I really want to address this issue though
of like, they need to show us different career pathways and I want to promote different opportunities
and healthcare.
So I thought I was going to make change from like inside the health side program by running
to be the BHSS, which stands for Bachelor of Health Sciences Society.
It's kind of like our student government for McMaster Health Science.
(30:29):
I ran to be the academic coordinator because it's an election based position.
You have to be voted into it.
And I campaigned and I thought that was going to be the place where I get to use that platform
with the entire health side population and implement different ideas like different career
nights, showcasing different opportunities.
See all the changes that I wanted to see.
And then I lost that election.
(30:51):
I came second place.
So I was like, okay, that's not going to work for me either.
So then that summer, when I was also applying to grad schools, I knew I had this idea, this
itching idea of like, I want to create a platform where I share opportunities and that would
ultimately be in right health.
I decided to create a newsletter because there was a few different reasons I like newsletters.
(31:11):
I think I followed a few of them.
They were becoming more popular as like a creator tool, not just something that businesses
would do like sign up for mailing lists and stuff.
And I like that no matter if you have social media or not, you can access a newsletter because
it's just your email.
So I got the idea for invite health to be a newsletter.
The idea was that I was going to share opportunities I found online, like research groups, internships,
(31:34):
especially paid opportunities because I hate unpaid internships and especially in healthcare
happens way too often.
And I just think it's so ironic considering how much dialogue there is around trying to
make healthcare and medicine more equitable, yet unpaid internships seem to be the standard
and they just perpetuate inequity even further.
Anyways, yeah, so invite health was going to be a place where I wanted to share opportunities.
(31:57):
But then a week after I launched invite health, I went on LinkedIn and I saw someone make a
post about an internship they just completed, like a research internship.
And I was like, wait, and I had a huge light bulb in my head go off thinking, I want to
interview this person.
I want to ask them like, what did you do during your research internship?
How did you get the position?
Were you paid?
And I reached out to them, asked them about it, and they wrote up an interview for me.
(32:18):
And I was like, because the reason I reached out to them was because I had this platform,
like, wait, I have this newsletter, would you want to like talk about your experience
for it?
And they agreed to it.
And I published my first invite health interview.
And after that, I was like, this is what I'm going to be doing for invite health from now
on.
I'm going to be sharing opportunities and I'm going to be interviewing students because
that's such an effective way to learn.
You want to learn from people who are like one or two years older than you who are doing
(32:40):
things that you want to do so that you can learn from them because they have been in
your shoes recently.
And yeah, again, it goes back to like breaking down that gatekeeping culture.
So yeah, invite health.
Since I've launched, I've now published 51 interviews because I've just published one
today.
I've been running for two years and yeah, it's been read by over a thousand people, which
is crazy.
I'm like a thousand people, a thousand people in a room is a lot of people that just stumbled
(33:05):
upon this newsletter.
That is what invite health is about.
And that's kind of my journey to starting it.
And I'm still running it now, just hoping to share more stories and encourage more people
to learn about different career pathways in healthcare and to be transparent about how
they got there too.
Because we all win when we're all successful.
And I just want to reiterate how, again, like, I don't know, maybe I sound like a cheesy
(33:29):
grandmother, but how beautiful it is that it stemmed from kind of your uncertainty about
what you want to pursue.
But you knew you didn't want to do medicine eventually.
And then you figured out what to do.
But also in the process, you started this newsletter and you use this opportunity of
rejection, which a lot of people associate with negativity to create something new and
(33:52):
help people because listen, I've read your newsletter and read many articles and they're
very helpful because right now, even though I already completed my bachelors, but I'm
not really sure if I want to pursue my bachelors as neuroscience and I'm not really sure if
I want to pursue something in neuroscience specifically.
So reading your newsletter, it was really helpful for me to figure out what my next steps could
(34:14):
be.
What are some tips to cold email professors to do research in labs that you have not been
in before and you don't know the professors.
There are so many good tips.
So I'm not even a tidbit surprised that there are so many people subscribed to it.
So thank you for launching it.
(34:34):
I recognize that one of the reasons that I think invite health husband so impactful is
because not everyone in their life has a privilege of having connections or family or friends
who are in healthcare.
So there's a lot of extra barriers and a lot of extra work that someone needs to do if
they want to learn how to break into healthcare or go into the healthcare field.
And it can feel trickier and it can feel isolating and invite health just tries to be that platform
(34:58):
that anybody can access because of course it's on the internet.
It's for free.
So if you subscribe to it at any time, it'll always be available because not everyone has
that privilege of having opportunities.
So at least with invite health, I hope it could help people get at least a start to
finding mentors to finding connections to finding their first job and telling them how
to get there.
Yeah, it's a beautiful thing that you're doing and please continue doing it.
(35:19):
And we are soon coming to an end of this episode and we've talked about a lot.
We've covered so much.
Any last thoughts, main takeaways you have for our listeners before we wrap up and also
mention please where can the listeners connect with you if they want to learn more about
your journey, your masters or whatever it is else that you're doing.
(35:42):
Yes.
I think the first goes back to that gatekeeping and competitive culture.
I understand why people do it because there's a scarcity mindset.
There's not enough opportunities to go around.
Objectively, it's very difficult to get into like graduate schools and to get a job nowadays.
So I understand where people come from when they want to be competitive.
But realistically, especially in healthcare, healthcare is a very collaborative field.
(36:07):
You have to learn how to work together.
You have to learn to embrace other people's ways of thinking and you have to learn that
you're not going to solve all these problems by yourself.
So I think it's best to learn that earlier rather than later.
Getting an opportunity is difficult, but there's enough for everybody.
And like I said, I believe in making opportunities to like if you can't find an opportunity,
you can create one for yourself.
So we should all be working together, not against each other.
(36:29):
I think the second thing I'll talk about is that it's really important to have things
that you're doing outside of your academics.
I didn't get to talk about it as much, but being a photographer has been the best thing
that I've done outside of school because it's given me a lot of confidence.
It's allowed me to meet so many people.
It's allowed me to make extra aside income too and have a creative hobby and teach me
(36:51):
skills that also helped me in school.
Like I'm the better communicator because of it.
I'm better conversationalist because of photography.
And I also have different perspectives on the world because I've met people through photography
as well.
Like I got to learn about different cultures by going to cultural events.
I got to go to conferences that I probably wouldn't have been able to go to unless I
was a photographer.
I'm not saying that like everyone needs to go and become a photographer, but I'm just
(37:14):
saying that it's really important to have things outside of school that you're doing
so that you can also be reminded that school is not the only thing in your life.
And I recognize it also is a privilege too because I didn't need photography to be financially
like sustainable when I was an undergrad.
And I recognize that not everyone has that luxury of time to pursue different hobbies,
(37:34):
but try to find something that will work for you, whatever situation you're in and whatever
background you're in.
I think the third thing and maybe the most important thing is to be around supportive
communities and have a supportive community, whether that is or is not your immediate family,
whether that's your friends, whether that's people you meet in class, but especially for
(37:57):
people like us who are prone to being strong self critics.
You need to be around people who remind you that you are doing enough and that you are
doing a lot and that will remind you to rest and will make you feel good on days that you
don't feel great about yourself.
Because also if they're your friends, especially in your family and you trust they have good
judgment, you should listen to them.
(38:19):
You know they're smart.
Yeah.
You know they're telling you good advice, but you're not doing this alone.
And I'm also someone who like struggles, asks for help.
But when I have friends and family who can tell me, Hey, I recognize you're going through
something or I recognize you're not at your best right now.
You need that because sometimes we're not always the best judges of our own character
and our own health and our own habits.
(38:40):
So make sure you're around supportive communities.
Like I have been a very entrepreneurial person as I iterated throughout this podcast, but
it's also because every time I've launched something or started something new is because
my friends were there to support me and say like this is a great idea or they would share
it with other people.
Like everyone has a fear of rejection and everyone has a fear of like, I don't know
if I want to start this because what are people going to think and what if it fails.
(39:02):
Like no one has actually like come up to me and told me like my content is cringe or like
what I do for in my health, whatever I post on LinkedIn is cringe.
They tell me the exact opposite.
Like they enjoy seeing it and it's helped them.
Like it's easier to do things and it's easier to go after what you want when you have a
supportive community.
So I think that's the final piece of advice that I will give for people.
(39:22):
Yeah.
I'll I'll agree with that.
And yeah, please rely on your family to give you more objective evaluation of your character,
especially when you're feeling down.
You shouldn't you shouldn't listen to yourself because the thoughts that run through your
head are not are not reliable.
So yeah, have your family or like you said, if not immediate family of friends.
(39:46):
And I really do hope that whoever you are listening to this, you do have people who
will support you.
I remember when I was starting this podcast, I remember it felt like a light bulb too,
but it felt so silly as well because I even have the title in my head right away, the
rejected pre-med.
And I'm like, wow, that sounds so so weird at first.
(40:07):
And then I talked to my family about this and then they're like, no, go for it.
So they're very pivotal people who told me and they encouraged me to start this podcast.
And otherwise, I think if they said that it's a bad idea, probably wouldn't have done it.
So that's why it's very important to surround yourself with people who do support you.
Yeah.
Oh, sorry, I forgot to answer the question.
How can people connect with me?
I am very active on LinkedIn.
(40:28):
Just sat you can you can search me up or you can search up invite health.
And apparently if you put invite health into Google, the second search result will put my
name beside it.
So nice.
So I just started to invite health, Sachi, and it'll show up too.
I try to be active on social media.
I have invite health Instagram page, but I also have a Sachi and Oxford Instagram page
where I try to show my life here and also share more resources.
(40:50):
I am not as active on there as I am on LinkedIn.
So LinkedIn is probably the best way to reach me.
But I also have a photography page.
So if you want to see some of my photography, you can check that out.
It's called Photo by Sachi, Photo by Sachi with two eyes though at the end.
I'll send all these links to you too.
So yeah, yeah, I was going to say I was I'm just going to put it in show notes, all the
links to invite health, your social media, the photography page.
(41:12):
I'll just I'll put it in show notes so people can access it.
But yeah, thank you so much Sachi for appearing on this podcast.
It was a pleasure interviewing you and thanks to you, our listener as well for tuning in.
I'm very excited to be releasing this episode because it just shows how much rejection is
simply a redirection.
(41:32):
And at the end of the day, it all depends on our perception and the steps we take after
our so-called failure.
And I would love to hear from all of you listening in what you liked about this episode and
what topics you want me to cover in the future episodes.
So please DM me on Instagram or LinkedIn to share your insights and thank you again, Sachi.
Thank you so much.
(41:54):
Yeah, this was Valeria Rusnick, the host of the Rejective Pre-Met podcast.
And I thank you for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.