During my pediatrics clerkship, one of our core faculty gave a lecture during orientation. This orientation lecture was particularly good, as the professor giving it was one of our most-loved faculty members who is deeply in tune with medical students at all stages. This was back in the summer when we were just getting started with our clinical experiences, but what he said stuck with me all year. He noted with a bit of humor that third-year medical students are the lowest of the low—barely even acknowledged by many team members, ignored by some patients who refuse to talk to anyone but a “real doctor,” disregarded by residents unless it is to point out something you are doing wrong. We chuckled, already able to relate with this view, but he turned the conventional description on its head by encouraging us to think of the third year of medical school as “the year of privilege.”
Casper for Medical School Admissions: What to Expect and How to Prepare
Introduction & Background The CASPer (Computer-based Assessment for Sampling Personal Characteristics) test is a 90-minute … Read more
Conquer the Obstacle Course of Medical School By Building Multiple Strengths
Everyone has this perfect image of how fun medical school is when they enter. You daydream about working with patients and saving lives from your first year, but the reality is, medical school is a giant obstacle race. Many people say that it is a marathon, but I do not think that this is accurate. A marathon requires you to be a good runner. Marathon training is gruesome and tiring, but the focus is on increasing your mileage until you feel confident that you can achieve the 26.2 miles on race day. Obstacle race training, on the other hand, is a little more dynamic. You must train yourself to be able to handle the long mileage of running the course, but you also have to develop your body and mind to conquer obstacles requiring strength, agility, strategy, and overall grit. In my drawn-out analogy here, obstacle race training is the “preparing to apply for medical school” stage and the actual application and interview seasonCon is the beginning of your long obstacle race that ends with a medical degree. I will come back to these two points, but first I would like to elaborate on why medical school is an obstacle race.
So You Want to Leave Patient Care: Now What?
Are you experiencing clinician burnout? Do you bring your patients’ emotional and physical burdens home … Read more
Chronicles of a Med Student: Flexibility in Practice
For a typical medical student shadowing in a clinic for a day, it looks a little something like this: we enter the familiar setting of an outpatient clinic and help as the attending physician sees patient after patient in quick fifteen minute intervals. We also get to see things that patients are not privy to—the virtual stacks of paperwork that wait at the end of each visit, the phone calls for consults, the appropriate orders for the workup of a certain condition in a certain patient. It all seems like a blur. Then we think about the clinical world before we even get to practice as a physician: the years of clinical rotations and especially residency are much more daunting, with their own strict rules, long work hours, and meager pay. Do I have to end up in an office or hospital setting? This is a thought that crept into my mind after hours of clinic observation. What I saw as a pre-medical student is somewhat different than what I experience as a medical student which makes this question far more relevant.
10 Tips to Prepare for the AMCAS Application Opening
Updated December 1, 2021. The article was updated to correct minor grammatical errors and technical … Read more
4 Reasons First-Year Medical Students Should Reflect on Their Initial Clinical Experiences
Many medical schools are now enhancing their preclinical curriculum (which is typically taught in the first two years of the program) with mandatory and optional clinical opportunities. Though intensive clinical exposure is typically reserved for third- and fourth-year rotations and sub-internships, students whose early curriculum provides clinical experiences should reflect on the impact of these opportunities.
If you are in a medical school with early clinical exposure, consider evaluating these experiences for the following reasons:
What to Expect as a Med School Spouse: Years 1 and 2
By Amy Rakowczyk, SDN Staff Writer
Congratulations! You are now officially a Medical Spouse. This is a highly rewarding, and also a highly challenging role. You’ve undoubtedly heard that “medical school is hard” and that there is a lot of studying and exams ahead. Your spouse is about to embark upon a completely new path, and you as the spouse, are along for the ride. This article is here to help you understand what’s in store so you can prepare yourself for the next two years!
If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try (Try, Try, Try) Again
You are an applicant (or reapplicant) in the current medical school admission cycle who has … Read more
Keeping the Cynic out of the Clinic: Books to Renew your Love of Medicine
Most people don’t associate being a premed with relaxation. Outsiders imagine your existence as a … Read more
The 8 Most Common Mistakes Students Make On Their Medical School Applications
Let’s be honest: it’s really hard to get into medical school. Each medical school receives thousands of applications every year and most schools have less than a hundred spots available. Which means that if you’ve just received the blow of a med school rejection, you are far from alone.
That doesn’t make it any easier or feel any nicer, we know! Especially when med school is a goal you’ve worked hard for, and when it’s just the next step in your long-term goal of becoming a physician. We understand that being rejected can shake your confidence and leave you wondering what went wrong.
That’s where we can help. At Accepted, we’ve worked with thousands of med school applicants, so we know what committees are looking for – and which applicant mistakes can lead to that dreaded rejection. The first step towards crafting a successful reapplication strategy is understanding what went wrong this time: Did you make a mistake in your application strategy? In the content or execution of your application? Were you overly optimistic about your competitiveness?
Is a Combined Bachelor’s/MD Program Right For You?
By Jessica Friedman
For students who are fully committed to a career in medicine, combined programs – those that grant you acceptance to both undergraduate college and medical school – can be a great option. They allow you to earn a bachelor of arts or science and a medical degree and are called BS/BA-MD programs. Some programs are as long as 8 years (4 years of college and 4 years of medical school), some are 7 years (3 years of college and 4 years of medical school) and a few are 6 years (2 years of college and 4 years of medical school). The more abbreviated programs are especially rigorous since you complete your college degree in a shorter time. Students in these programs often are in school year round.
Before deciding to apply to combined programs, you should understand the plusses and minuses of doing so.
The Changing Landscape of the Multiple Mini Interview
The Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) was first adopted by McMaster University in Ontario, Canada at the Michael G. DeGroote, School of Medicine back in the early 2000s. Initially, MMIs were used strictly during the admissions process for medical school.
For starters, depending on the specific program where you interview, your MMI circuit will likely consist of 6 to 12 stations and may include rest stations. There will be as many participants in your interview circuit as there are stations. The instructions for each station are typically posted directly outside of each room and you are given up to two minutes to carefully read the prompt prior to entering the room. At the end of the two minutes, a bell will sound and this is your cue to enter the room. Typically, a bell ringer type method is used to keep track of the time and you will be allocated six to eight minutes for each station before moving on to the next station.
Finding Clinical Opportunities: Show Up, Ask, and Follow Through!
I was recently asked to give advice on finding clinical opportunities. Here’s the short version: show up, ask, and follow through! This is an exciting and supportive profession you are entering. Physicians not only remember what it feels like to be in your shoes but they are eager to support you. Part of our responsibility in medicine is to educate and mentor the next generation. This applies to everyone from a first-year medical student all the way to the most seasoned attending. I’ve had opportunities to tutor my classmates, write for Elsevier, deliver a heart from its pericardium, coordinate a helicopter landing and practice my old fashioned medical skills on the 7th continent all because I have shown up, asked for opportunities, and followed through when given the chance. Here are a few notes on how I approach gaining these clinical opportunities.
The Art of Writing Medical School Secondaries
I always think of secondaries as the real meat of the med school application process. … Read more
Maximizing Your Predental Experience
Being a dentist is a lifelong dream for many people. Yet few are able to make this dream a reality. Year by year, the application pool for dental schools has become more competitive, and selection committees have a more difficult time choosing the best candidates. As the number of applicants increase, it has become more vital to stand out from among other applicants. Strategically planning your undergraduate years can significantly increase your chances of acceptance at your dream dental school. Looking back at my experience, this is the advice I would give a friend to maximize the experience and overall results to yield the best outcome.
Get a Top Score on the MCAT for Less Than $300
Many MCAT prep companies will try to sell you on the idea that you need to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on a fancy prep course with all its bells and whistles in order to get a top score on the MCAT, but this just isn’t the case. We carefully analyzed the experiences of students that scored above the 95th percentile on the MCAT and looked for patterns in their preparation, and our analysis revealed that the students who performed well weren’t 
necessarily the students who spent the most money on a prep course. In actuality, top scorers use a variety of low-cost resources. And this actually makes perfect sense. Think about it. Every MCAT prep company has a single (likely slightly inaccurate) perspective regarding the most important concepts to know for the MCAT. By preparing using a variety of materials, you will gain several perspectives on the material, which when combined together provide you with a much more accurate picture of the MCAT.
Improve Your CARS Reading Speed by Quickly Finding the Main Idea
The CARS section of the MCAT Exam can be really scary. It’s not that you don’t know how to read. The problem is that you don’t know how to read critically, and that’s a whole different way of analyzing a passage. Trying to decipher a CARS passage with the same skills that you use to read a science text is like trying to play tennis with a golf club. You need different tools, and the first tool you need to help you read faster and have a clear understanding of a passage is a basic knowledge of Rhetoric.
How To Keep Calm and Succeed on the DAT
This article originally ran on ASDA’s blog, Mouthing Off, on July 20, 2016.
Is the DAT stressing you out? You’re not alone. Preparing for the DAT is probably the most intimidating part of the dental school application process. But don’t get lost in counting cubes or memorizing reactions! Below are tips on how to succeed at the DAT and stay calm at the same time.