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.
All in the Family: A Profile of Family Medicine
Central to the skillset of every physician is the differential diagnosis; this is the process by which new patients are evaluated to establish the most likely diagnosis. Similarly, the first clinical year of medical school is like a differential for each student, except instead of a medical diagnosis, students are seeking to determine which specialty they will choose. This column explores this differential: experiences from each rotation by a current third-year student.
My first day on Family Medicine might be the best depiction of the specialty: my clinical preceptor and I moved between our three clinic rooms, barely able to keep up with the 20+ patients that had appointments. We saw a patient following up on depression with new-onset low back pain; a middle-aged woman with a classic urinary tract infection; a husband and wife geriatric wellness visit; an adult woman with diabetes; a 9-year-old with strep throat; and a few cases of sinus infection to round out the day. By the end, I was exhausted and wondered how I would ever learn everything that my preceptor knew about such a wide variety of disease processes and patients. By the end of the rotation, I was still nowhere near his level or my other professors’ – years of residency and clinical experience still separate us – but had at least developed a sense of how to manage many of the common illnesses, and feel that I have a good understand of the breadth and variety of family medicine.
Dentistr-e Sports: The Intersection of Dental Training and Video Games
Originally published in Contour, March 2017, the magazine of the American Student Dental Association. Learn more at ASDAnet.org/contour.
During a state visit in 2011, Barack Obama was greeted by Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who then handed him a video game. “The Witcher 2” was developed in Poland, and Obama explained it as “a great example of Poland’s place in the new global economy.” The list of video games name-dropped by a head of state is, not surprisingly, short. Most media outlets didn’t report on the gesture, but its impact was tremendous in the gaming community.
Time Away From Formal Academics Can Enhance Application
Whether or not a student should take a “gap year” (or two) often comes up during our conversations with applicants to medical school. Based on MedEdits’ experience working with students, we find that gap years are becoming increasingly common and that this extra time away from formal academics can enhance a student’s candidacy.
The Association of American Medical College’s (AAMC) 2016 Matriculating Student Questionnaire (MSQ) reports that the age of matriculants continues to rise, with 60.6% reporting that more than a year had passed since graduating from college, up from 57.9% in the 2014 MSQ. Matriculation data from colleges of osteopathic medicine show that the average age at matriculation in both 2015 and 2016 was 24.
A Med Student’s Guide to Becoming a Physician-Scientist
When medical students start to think about areas of practice to specialize in once they graduate, the area of medical research can sometimes be overlooked in favor of more traditional practice areas such as internal medicine or surgery. However, for some doctors-to-be, the pull towards such research is strong and it is an important part of the healthcare system, as the discoveries that such scientists make can have an impact on techniques used to improve patient care and outcomes.
This article covers the work and scope of physician-scientists as well as educational pathways these professionals pursue in order to undertake their important work.
Things I Didn't Realize About Medicine Until I Became a Physician
Recently SDN member medinquirer noted that it’s common for premed students to learn about medicine through shadowing, volunteering, working in related fields, etc. But surely, said medinquirer in his post, there are things you don’t realize about medicine until after you become a full-fledged, practicing physician. What are those things? Here are some of them of them, as shared by members of the SDN community:
SurfingDoc:
No one teaches you about billing, prior authorizations, etc. until to have to do them. There is no real “education” in those endeavors, but they are part of the system and a requirement of the job.
The Undifferentiated Medical Student Podcast: Your Virtual Mentor for Choosing a Specialty
What is the Undifferentiated Medical Student podcast? Give us an intro.
TUMS is an interview-based podcast about choosing a medical specialty and planning a career in medicine. Many medical students feel lost when it comes to picking a medical specialty and planning their careers (myself included). There are many reasons for this (and some I personally faced):
-they are overwhelmed by the number of options
-they may feel they don’t understand enough medicine yet to start the discussion
-they don’t have a mentor
Balancing Medical Education and Parenthood
One thing most people will agree that medical education and parenthood have in common is … Read more
Not a Single-Species Affair: How Non-Human Life Impacts Human Medicine
As a first-year medical student, I lived near a veterinary program. The comparison often made—by both med and vet students, as well as community members—was that med students studied humans, whereas vet students studied everything else. Of course, in its practical aim, medicine is exclusively about people. We undergo a serious study of human biology so as to meet the responsibility of caring for other human beings, and the central challenge of medicine is matching that knowledge to the unique experiences of our patients. We should be careful, however, not to underestimate the importance of non-human life for that purpose. As a scientific endeavor, human medicine is predicated on knowledge of many different types of living things, whether we consider the ecology of our bodies or the pharmacology of our cures. Moreover, the humility of its practitioners stems from recognizing the mutual dependence of human life and the rest of the biosphere. In short, medicine is a multi-species affair.
A Look at the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP)
Even the most confident and competent students feel anxiety as Match Week approaches: “What if … Read more
Where to Apply to Medical School: Factors to Consider when Making Your School List
If you’re applying to medical school this year, you’re probably starting to think about what school you’d like to attend. Many students are encouraged to apply broadly, and on average, applicants apply to 16 medical schools. While the right number of schools is different for everyone—you may apply to more or less—a good rule of thumb is to only apply to the medical schools you would attend if accepted. This will save you time and money overall, even if it means doing more research before the application cycle begins.
4 Strategies for Students Reapplying to Medical School
In an ideal world, your first attempt at applying to medical school would also be your last. You would apply, receive several interview invitations, and at least one acceptance letter.
However, for many medical school hopefuls, applying to medical school does not result in an acceptance, and as the rejection letters pile up, it can be difficult to determine how to regroup for another application cycle. Ostensibly, you submitted the best application that you could, so how can you improve in the future? What was that original application lacking?
Learning from Thought Leaders in Healthcare: DocThoughts Founder, Nirmal Gosalia
What is DocThoughts? Give us an intro.
DocThoughts is a media platform that interviews thought leaders in medicine and produces 5-minute films. DocThoughts gives the healthcare community an insider’s perspective on topics that you won’t necessarily learn in the traditional teaching settings. We talk to experts such as deans, executives, and physicians about their stories in a personal and informal atmosphere.