All Jessica Ulrich could think about that day was her Medical College Admission Test scores.

She pinched her nose and forced the large cup of glue-thick, reeking, yellowy liquid past her gag reflex. Her empty stomach protested, but her mom was waiting with a tried-and-true half-stick of gum to kill the taste. Two more cups to go.

With an IV pumping into her veins, she lay on a plastic board, hands above her head and rolled into the familiar tunnel of beeping and knocking sounds of the Magnetic Resonance Enterography machine.

But this time, Ulrich wasnt worried about the complications of her Crohnsdisease.

I was thinking the whole time, My scores are coming out right now, Ulrich said.

After it was over, her shaking hands grabbed her phone. As nurses wheeled her from one room to another, she typed in her password and cried when the slow hospital Internet finally brought her to the page.

The disease couldnt stop the 23-year-old from getting into the University of Minnesota Medical School.

Not an easy diagnosis

Ulrich was dissecting a human cadaver when her anatomy lab group, and closest medical school friends, learned of her Crohns disease. She was having trouble using the scalpel because of a reaction to her medication that made the joints in her fingers sore.

The students in her group, including her good friend Madeleine Roberts and her current boyfriend, understood the disease from their studies, which came as a relief to Ulrich.

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Obstacles push student toward medical school