Keep Your Online Persona Clean!

by Brittany Warrick
SDN Staff Writer

The online world has evolved substantially over the past decade. Today it is commonplace for students to have a presence on social sites such as Facebook, Xanga, LiveJournal, or MySpace. But what most students do not appreciate is the fact that potential employers and schools may use these sites to evaluate their applicants.  They use them to weed out candidates for their positions and to decide if a potential employee is the type of person that would make a good “fit”.  Thus, our pages on Facebook and MySpace have become additions to our resumes and personal statements. One survey conducted by ExecuNet in 2007 found that 83% of recruiters use the Internet to evaluate their candidates and 43% of those have turned down a candidate based on what they saw online. The burning question is: how can students protect their personas on the Internet?  Read more »

Pre-Med Preparation: Getting Letters of Recommendation

by Christian Becker, Author of The Official Student Doctor Network Medical School Admissions Guide

In my last article for SDN, I addressed the importance of physician shadowing and clinical experience. This time, I want to focus on recommendation letters.

Recommendation letters are used by admission committees and are part of your application. To get good letters, participation in extracurricular activities and positive interactions with faculty and physicians are important.

Admissions committees see on the application what activities you have listed, but recommendation letters tell them how you interact with people, what type of person you are, and (hopefully) stress your good qualities and support your application to medical school. Read more »

Why Study Medicine? Pre-meds not in it for the money, survey says

by Charles Daniel and Michael O’Brien
SDN Staff Writers

For some, the answer to the question, “Why do you want to study medicine?” is a simple one: to make money.  These individuals, however, are in a shrinking minority, a recent survey has found.  Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions examined the responses of 914 students in its medical and law school preparatory courses to examine their motivations for professional study.  It seems that even as the traditional financial windfalls associated with medicine continue to wane, students’ passion for medical study is as fiery as ever.  In fact, less than half of pre-med respondents indicated their future earning potential “very much” or “somewhat” influenced their decision to study medicine.  But what does this mean?  Pre-professional students are notorious for their exaggerated claims of altruism while the true and ulterior motivation remains the big salary.  …or at least that was the belief.  Read more »

Call for Submissions: U.S. Public Health Service Scientific & Training Symposium

NEWS RELEASE

Students enrolled in a full-time health or health-related undergraduate or graduate course of study are invited to submit a poster presentation for the 2008 U.S. Public Health Service Scientific and Training Symposium. The conference will be held June 9-12 at the Tucson Convention Center. More than 1,000 public health administrators, providers, clinicians, professors and representatives from business employing public health professionals are expected to attend. This is an excellent opportunity to obtain experience presenting and to network with others in the field. Read more »

SDN Announces First docLive Chat — Harry Rosen, MD

Press Release

In our first docLive chat, Dr. Harry Rosen, author of The Consult Manual of Internal Medicine, will lead a live discussion wherein he will answer your questions about surviving 3rd year medicine clerkships. During this Sunday, April 20th session, participants will be able to ask Dr. Rosen their questions and receive real-time responses.

The chat session will take place at 8:00pm Eastern Time on SDnet, the SDN Chat Server. A temporary link to the docLive web client will appear in the Clinical Rotations forum at 7:30pm ET. For those wishing to use their own chat client, simply point it to irc.studentdoctor.net:6667 and join #doclive.

Please post in this SDN Forums thread to indicate your plans to attend, as space is limited. Come meet Dr. Rosen and walk away with strategies to make your Medicine rotations go much more smoothly!

Post-Marketing Surveillance of Vaccines [Part 1 of 4]

Reprinted with Permission

Benefits and Risks of Immunization
Over ten million childhood vaccinations are given to children (birth through 5 years) annually, and many millions of doses are given to adults.  All medicinal products, including vaccines, have risks and benefits.  Vaccines protect many people from dangerous illnesses, but, like drugs, can cause side effects, a small percentage of which may be serious.  The benefit of vaccines is measured as prevented disease, and the risk of vaccination is measured as potential side effects; both are monitored as part of the US public health system.  Read more »

Community-Based Education: Gerard Clancy, MD

With this interview, Student Doctor Network begins a new series of interviews relating to “community-based medical education” and with it a new forum on this subject. To launch the series, we interviewed Gerard Clancy, MD, the Dean of the newly established University of Oklahoma (OU) School of Community Medicine in Tulsa.

SDN: Dean Clancy, how do you envision your School of Community Medicine in Tulsa differing from a typical medical school?

Clancy: First, it is important to recognize that all the students in OU’s Community Medical School in Tulsa will graduate with the same MD degree as the students in OU’s traditionally organized medical school in Oklahoma City. They will learn the basic core information about medicine that they need to be successful as a physician. Read more »

The Successful Match: The Importance of Mentoring

by Samir P. Desai, M.D., and Rajani Katta, M.D., authors of The 250 Biggest Mistakes 3rd Year Medical Students Make And How To Avoid Them

In researching our book, we asked applicants what they found most difficult about the residency application process. A number of applicants commented on the same issue. “There’s so much conflicting information out there. How do you know what to believe? Who should you listen to?”

Applicants with mentors have a decided advantage. A joint committee of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine described a mentor as “someone who takes a special interest in helping another person develop into a successful professional.”¹ In defining the term, the committee described a fundamental difference between mentoring and advising. Read more »

© 1999-2007 Coastal Research Group. Some rights reserved.
The SDN Logo and "Student Doctor Network" are registered trademarks of CRG.

TRUSTe Trust Mark   Creative Commons License   We subscribe to the HONcode principles of the HON Foundation. Click to verify.   HACKER SAFE certified sites prevent over 99.9% of hacker crime.