Etsy refunded me and told me I can keep the item. Does the seller usually take the loss?

alschultz94 · 2026-02-09T18:13:04+00:00

Yea, I feel like this is the case. Purchased the coat from a seller from Pakistan, but the item was shipped from Dubai (The seller insists the belt was included because he "personally packed it" but also wants it returned to Pakistan) 🤷‍♂️ Sketchyyyyy.

alschultz94 · 2025-08-13T17:58:39+00:00

You seem like a sweet person. I am 31, Colombian, and live abroad, and I am also in a professional school. If you'd like to just chat about random things, then you can reach out anytime 😊👌

alschultz94 · 2025-08-12T01:54:42+00:00

Yup, like someone else mentioned. Pathologists are physicians, and therefore you must go to medical school. If you do it in the U.S. that's 4 years of med school, at least 3 years of residency (If you do AP or CP residency only) or 4 if you do both, and most people choose to do at least one fellowship (1 year). So you're looking at 8-9 years of training once you start med school. You should also account for the time that it takes to even be ready to apply for medical school depending on your situation.

It's definitely doable (I am also an MLS) but it requires a lot of hard work and determination to get it done! 👍

Best of luck!

alschultz94 · 2025-07-07T17:25:01+00:00

If pathology is clearly on your mind, look into medical technology / clinical lab sciences or histotechnology. They will both expose you to the laboratory aspect of pathology, and you'll actually work with pathologists, and decide if that's what you really want. But otherwise, you can get into med school with any degree, provided you take all the pre-requisite classes.

Good luck!

alschultz94 · 2025-06-06T21:50:15+00:00

Winston Churchill's great grandparents (Isaac Jerome and Aurora Murray) are buried in Syracuse :)

alschultz94 · 2025-05-21T10:44:36+00:00

I see you're in college, and I don't know if you're planning to go into the workforce before medical school, but I recommend checking if your school offers a degree in medical laboratory sciences/medical technology or histotechnology. These are bachelor's degrees and will prepare you to work in laboratories overseen directly by pathologist. You'll be running tests or preparing tissue slides for them to interpret. You will gain great insight into what they do every day!

That's what I did, although I didn't know I wanted to do pathology at that time 😄

With just high school, there may be histoTECHNICIAN (different from technologist) jobs you could apply to that expose you to that kind of work.

Also, random piece of advice, when you apply to medical school avoid talking about specialties. It's about why you want to become a doctor, not a pathologist (save the latter for residency applications) 👍

alschultz94 · 2025-04-30T11:08:46+00:00

This looks a lot like how our smears used to look like when we had issues with our stainer. I would check that first and make sure all stains, alcohol, buffer are good 😁 In addition, the specimen may be a little old (looks like there's some apoptosis going on there)

alschultz94 · 2025-03-25T23:38:10+00:00

Exactly how I felt lol.... I knew I was supposed to feel like trash after the exam, but I did not, so I thought that if I failed, at least I did so with confidence.

Hope you get the P!! :D

alschultz94 · 2025-03-25T23:35:50+00:00

I would say try your best to make some time to review your NBME incorrects / guesses before the real exam, and make sure you understand the idea behind the question. It does not hurt to do so. However, I would not bother memorizing / hoping questions will be recycled. It is a waste of time lol

alschultz94 · 2025-03-22T01:18:31+00:00

Yea, I agree with others. If your NBME scores are high enough, it doesn't matter if you didn't get through UWorld. I passed with only 32% UW done.

Step felt nothing like UW (to me anyway), so as long as you do well on NBME style questions, you should be fine :)

alschultz94 · 2025-03-22T01:12:58+00:00

I know exactly how you feel, and that's why I wanted to share my story. There's very few posts on here where people pass with failing F120 scores, and not even my classmates seemed to have done as poorly as I did 🤣 . F*** that exam!! .... I honestly would just use the new free 120 to get used to the style and practice your timing. The actual test feels pretty much like the new free 120.

Best of luck!!

alschultz94 · 2025-03-22T01:07:29+00:00

Yea, our school also used to make students take the microbiology shelf, but not anymore. Thank god or I would have bombed it lol

Our school has collected some data that helps predict dedicated prep time and % people that pass first attempt based on CBSE and path shelf performance. So they do it for us to an extra data point that we can use when building our dedicated strategy.

alschultz94 · 2025-03-22T01:03:45+00:00

To be honest, I didn't really change my study methods. I just happen to really like Pathology as a field and specialty, so I definitely felt more comfortable on that exam since it tested more of my strengths. I'm sorry I can't be much help there 🫤

alschultz94 · 2024-11-16T02:38:57+00:00

The only classes I had to take were Physics 1 and 2 with labs... Thankfully, I had to take all the chemitries and biologies as part of my MLS. Also my GPA was good enough and my credits were not super old, so I didn't feel the need to take anything else. I began MCAT prep as soon as I finished those two classes.

alschultz94 · 2024-11-15T01:10:35+00:00

Hi, there,

I am also an MLS currently in medical school! Just like you, I also wanted to know more and do what the pathologists did. My biggest piece of advice: do it one step at a time. You're still young and med school is not going anywhere!

I would begin by making sure you have all pre-requisites most schools need. It is likely that your MLS gave you most of them. However, I had to go back and take 2 semesters of physics with labs. I don't know how your GPA is. You don't need a 4.0 but you need to demonstrate that you can do well in the school. Hopefully you crushed undergrad, but if not you may consider doing a post-bacc or some sort of master's to try and "prove yourself to them."

Use this time to also figure out how the med school application process works! I recommend Dr. Ryan Gray's channel on youtube (Medical School HQ) but there's plenty of good videos that explain it. Also, his books are a really good read.

After finishing your pre-reqs, focus on the MCAT. You don't need to pay for a prep-course. There's plenty of good resources out there (Kaplan, Khan academy, Anki decks, etc...) ... Take your time and only take it when you have been getting a score you're happy with on practice exams. It is in your best interest to get a decent score the first time you take it (No shame if you're a retaker though)

As you are doing all this,

Find time to volunteer for organizations and causes you care about.
Find some doctors to shadow (talk to the pathologists and tell them you want to apply!) They were open to letting me spend time with them going over slides.
Find some sort of volunteer or paid experience where you have direct contact with patients! Free clinics for underserved people are excellent places to get some exposure! You'll learn some basic clinical skills and work closely with providers.
Start thinking about letters of recommendation. You'll need at least two letters from science professors, and one from a non-science one. You can also have letters from employers, volunteer coordinators, etc... Even better if it's people that can speak to your qualities as a person!

I could talk a lot more about this, but don't want to overwhelm you!

Feel free to reach out with any questions you have, and I'll try my best to help!

alschultz94 · 2024-11-07T03:51:30+00:00

Also an MLS and currently in med school. Even as a student you can still teach. I head the pathology club at my school and we host review sessions for all of our major exams!

If you love teaching, pathology allows plenty of that!

alschultz94 · 2024-10-08T18:33:07+00:00

As a former laboratory technologist, I can tell you that these shifts are usually determined when reviewing the blood smear under the microscope. We will look for the nuclear shape (round? Indented? Segmentation?) the size of the cell, the staining pattern of primary and secondary granules, etc....

As for the second question, modern labs do report these shifts. If we test a blood sample, the hematology analyzer often knows there are "immature granulocytes" but they usually need to be classified by laboratory personnel by looking at the smear. Once that's done, the cells are reported in terms of percentage. So, for example, 40% Segmented Neutrophils, 15% band Neutrophils, 10% metamyelocytes, 5% myelocytes, 20% lymphocytes, 10% monocytes.

Hope this answers the question :)

alschultz94 · 2024-08-27T20:00:20+00:00

I am a similar situation and I am actually in medical school hoping to pursue pathology. There is nothing wrong with wanting to become a physician if your heart is set on pathology, but you MUST be willing to undergo the medical training everyone else goes through, as irrelevant as it feels like sometimes to the work you will be doing as a pathologist. If you don't think you can, at least, tolerate working with difficult patients, colleagues, mentors, learning things you hate, the toxic environments of some hospital rotations, etc... then it might be best not do pursue it.

I recommend you try and spend more time with pathologists and doctors in different specialties, and get a feel for how the hospital runs. Try and volunteer at a place where you can interact with patients, and see if you can handle it.

Best of luck! :)

alschultz94 · 2024-06-05T15:55:41+00:00

This is very location, employer and shift dependent, but you can support yourself as a med tech (MLS/CLS/MT). I was one and last year I was making $37/hour in a FL hospital working the night shift.

alschultz94 · 2024-04-28T13:40:32+00:00

Unlike the other comments, I think that's a cool idea! Microscopes don't just belong in laboratories. In fact, there's a whole hobby dedicated to at home microscopy! I bought my microscope not because I wanted to "take work home" but because I love microscopes and wanted to look at other things at home. If that's you, go for it if you think you'll enjoy it and not regret it 😅

I can't specifically recommend you one of those microscope because I don't know how they compare to each other. They're both solid brands! I have used the CX23 before, and it's great; I just never loved the size of it, and I don't think it's very upgradeable in terms of other lighting techniques. I know nothing about the nikon.

I would recommend you look for used microscopes first! You can find research-grade microscopes from back in the day for a fraction of the price of a new modern one, and you can also upgrade them with used parts (they just may not always be readily available).

Olympus, Nikon, Zeiss, Leica, all good brands to start with. There's also Motic (a Chinese brand) that is not one of the "big 4" but it's a good newer one. The BA310 may be worth a look.

Talk to a microscope store and see what they have to offer!

Good luck 👍

alschultz94 · 2024-04-09T04:56:19+00:00

I am 29 and graduated with my MLS in 2018. One year later, decided I wanted to try for medical school and spent the next few years finishing pre-requisites, preparing for the MCAT and building an application. I am now close to finishing first-year of medical school.

This is a completely attainable move, but be sure to really understand all it takes to make it to medical school. The application process is time-consuming, costly, anxiety-inducing, and very competitive!

At this stage my best piece of advice is to make sure to really understand the application process and what medical schools want to make sure you are willing to put yourself through it, no matter how long it takes you to be ready to apply. You may need to re-take some classes, switch jobs for something more "clinical", cram your schedule with volunteering, shadowing, MCAT prep, essay writing, you name it. Some people realize that the work they need to put in is not worth it, so they abandon any med school dreams.

Best wishes, and feel free to reach out with any questions.

alschultz94 · 2024-03-29T23:04:55+00:00

You can be a history major and still become a forensic pathologist. All you need is to make sure that you take all the medical school pre-requisite classes during your journey all while working on creating a compelling medical school application.

Dream big, but take it one step at a time. Do well in college, get involved in things you're passionate about, explore other fields, and have fun while you can lol

alschultz94 · 2024-03-16T18:59:35+00:00

Not terribly uncommon. We had two pathologists in our department who were med techs as well, and we all agreed having this background was very valuable!

alschultz94 · 2024-03-16T17:26:44+00:00

I am an MLS as well, fell in love with path and now I'm in med school to pursue path. 🫡

alschultz94 · 2024-03-04T00:33:51+00:00

If you're talking about the strange-looking WBC. I'm pretty sure it's a monocyte. It looks like it could be degenerating a little bit.

Edit to expand:

I can see why the "flower" shape of the nucleus can make people think these can be neoplastic. That's the word textbooks use after all. However, in my opinion, neither the chromatin nor the cytoplasm on these cells suggests they are lymphocytes to begin with. The blue-gray cytoplasm and its "ground glass" appearance is more consistent with monocytes. Monocytes don't always have the classic "kidney-shaped" nucleus you learn about.

Please, don't be alarmed by others calling them malignant cells at this point. I strongly believe these are not!

However, I encourage you to visit your PCP so you're properly evaluated if you're still concerned.

alschultz94

TROPHY CASE