Medical School: University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth - Texas COM
Hey y’all! Welcome to our page! My name’s Nicole and I was born and raised in Killeen, TX (near Fort Hood Army base). I’m a first-generation student and completed undergrad at the University of North Texas in Denton. I met my husband, Corey, in marching band freshman year. I played saxophone, he played tuba. Our love story is pretty unique, too long to get into on here, but ask me about it sometime! After college, I worked as a full-time receptionist at an urgent care for two years before I decided to pursue medical school. It took me three tries to get accepted but perseverance is a virtue, right? I did get to do a lot of cool things before medical school though, I got my Master of Science degree at UNTHSC, backpacked through Europe twice, and road tripped down Highway 1 on the California coast. I graduated from UNTHSC Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2020 and matched into my #1 program, here in beautiful Corpus Christi.
Let me start out by saying, this program is phenomenal! I rotated here at the end of my 3rd year and could NOT stop thinking about it throughout my entire application cycle. As a student you’re excited to just be able to place a foley or an IV or maybe stitch up a lac or two, but here I was allowed to intubate, help with orthopedic reductions, and perform US procedures on critical patients. That’s because this program is so unique, we are basically an unopposed program, meaning that there are no other specialty residents to take away your procedures. We don’t have optho, ortho or surgery residents so every chest tube, thoracotomy, orthopedic reduction, or lateral canthotomy that may be needed is done by an ER resident. You will have no problem getting your numbers to graduate! Another thing I absolutely love about this program is that you are not given restrictions as an intern. The first two months you will have an upper-level shadow you, which is super helpful with learning the EMR system and department flow, but you will not be given “easier” or less sick patients. My first patient in the department had COVID and DKA, and they ended up intubated and central lined, which was all managed by yours truly.
There are so many perks to this program, continuous pediatric exposure with continuity shifts and ED months at Driscoll Children’s Hospital, fantastic benefits like free food/great parking/solid pay, the ability to moonlight in 3rd year, and not to mention you’re living in a beach town! But I’d have to say, my most favorite thing about this program are the people. I know its cliché to say we are a family but let’s be real, we practically are. The relationship and friendship our residents develop with our attendings is unlike anywhere else I rotated or interviewed at. We support each other through the ups and downs and have each other’s backs 100% of the time. Residency is hard but I promise it makes a world of difference having amazing co-workers and down-to-earth attendings to help you through it.
If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out! Good luck with the application cycle!