Welcome to Healthcare 5.0: A Conversation with David M. Carlisle, MD, PhD

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At this year’s UC Davis Pre-Health Conference, the concept of innovation was on everybody’s minds and lips. There’s no denying that this is an exciting time to be in the medical field; between new technologies, healthcare reforms, and an increasingly global society, things are changing at a rapid pace.
With all this newness and excitement, it’s easy to forget the reason so many of us go into medicine: to help others. And while the topic of his conference keynote was “Healthcare 5.0”, when SDN sat down with David M. Carlisle, MD, PhD, the focus was on caregiving in the most traditional sense.

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Chronicles of a Med Student: One’s Not Such a Lonely Number

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Chronicles of a Med Student

Medical school is becoming routine to me now—which is great. I’ve finally found my rhythm after a few months and feel comfortable with my learning style and studying methods. And it keeps me busy enough during the workweek. I try to accomplish most of my studying during the week so that I have the weekends to not study and actually have a life. But here’s the thing: my study habits don’t necessarily line up with those of my peers, which can leave me with some long weekends. Instead of wondering if am covering all of my bases (or if I’m forgetting to do this reading or that reading), I take a break. I can’t possibly study all the time, so I’m forced to have confidence in myself to do well. I understand that I sound quite crazy complaining about having free time, because who–especially a medical student–has ever done that?

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The Medical School Interview: They Aren’t All The Same!

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“What kind of interview will it be?”
This is not a question applicants ever asked 10 or 15 years ago but often do now. Every year, more medical schools now conduct Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI) while most still conduct “traditional” one-on-one interviews. A few medical schools also conduct group interviews with either groups of students who are interviewed together or several faculty who interview one student together. Therefore, when thinking about the medical school interview process, it’s important to be aware of what you might encounter on the interview trail.

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How To Get Great Letters of Evaluation for Medical School

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Letters of evaluation are a vital component of the medical school application process. Since many applicants have high levels of academic achievement and robust extracurricular experiences, it is important for students to obtain outstanding letters of evaluation. Below are several key points to remember when requesting such letters:

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Q&A with Physician Writer Christine Montross

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Dr. Christine Montross is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and the Director of Counseling Resources at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. She works as a staff psychiatrist at Butler Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. Before attending medical school at Brown, Dr. Montross graduated from the University of Michigan with a Master of Fine Arts in poetry, and undergraduate degrees in French and Natural Resources.

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Difficult Interview Questions: Learning To Hit A Curveball Out Of The Park

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difficult interview questions

By Michelle Finkel, MD with CrispyDoc

You put your heart and soul into your compelling, charismatic personal statement; you showcased your accomplishments and drive to succeed in your activities section; and you demonstrated the endorsement of respected faculty allies in your letters of recommendation. Now your hard work has paid off and helped you get a foot in the door: You’ve been invited to interview at your dream medical school or residency program.

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Five Things to Consider in Choosing an MCAT Prep Course

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With the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) undergoing major changes in 2015, the first revamp in over two decades, aspiring medical students are faced with new uncertainty in how to prepare for the crucially important exam. Many students are turning to dedicated MCAT prep courses to supplement their self-directed studies, only to be stymied by a market crowded with many alternatives. Here are some important questions to ask when selecting an MCAT prep course.

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10 Things to Expect Your First Semester of Research

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Even if you have previous lab experience from a high school or college lab class, the first few weeks of a new research experience in a professional research lab will have its challenges, surprises, and probably be quite different from you expect. It might take a few weeks before you feel at home in the lab, but it will happen if you stick with it and commit to learning everything you can about your research project. To help you prepare for your new adventure, here are some things that await most undergraduates at the start of a new research experience.

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The Ultimate Student Loan Repayment Guide for Doctors

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$176,000.
It’s a number newly-minted physicians or those in the process of becoming a doctor should know.
No, it’s not the average salary of those in the medical field or the cost of an average physician’s home.
It’s also not something fun like the price you can pay for a new Audi R8 when you graduate from medical school (although that would be super nice.)

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Chronicles of a Med Student: Time for a Reality Check

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Chronicles of a Med Student

I was about to burst with excitement the minute I started medical school. I’m pretty sure I was actually giddy: like so many other pre-meds, I had dreamt of the day when I would finally put my pretty white coat on and actually start learning about things I cared about (that’s not to say everything I’d learned previously was useless—it absolutely wasn’t, but it wasn’t what I wanted). It felt like the longest road just to get to this point and I couldn’t even begin to fathom what was to come. It really was like the journey had ended…instead of just begun.

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3 Ways to Prepare for the USMLE Step 1 Exam

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The USMLE Step 1 exam is arguably one of the most important tests in a medical student’s career. While a student’s score on Step 1 is taken into consideration amongst many other factors, the score still plays a major role in determining a student’s competitiveness for residency in certain specialties. After all, once a student has applied to a specialty, his or her Step 1 score will partially determine which types of institutions he or she will have the opportunity to interview at. Below are three general strategies to help you prepare for the USMLE Step 1 exam:

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Book Excerpt From 11 out of 10: "Prince Albert"

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I used to be an Emergency Medical Technician at a very busy Emergency Department. Given that about 70% of all patients that walk in the front door just need little more than a bandage, my job was to treat those low acuity patient under the supervision of a NP/PA or MD/DO. Simple things like removing sutures, bandaging wounds, and assisting the providers in more complicated or invasive procedures. I have three kids that liked to stick stuff where it didn’t belong when they were toddlers and I became quite adept digging things out of ears and noses. Naturally, I became the go-to person for removing foreign bodies and resolving foreign body entrapments in our Emergency Department. I have extracted a ton of weird stuff from ears and noses– things that I didn’t think were possible to get in those spaces to begin with. I had a very high success rate and was generally trusted to be able to handle almost any situation that presented itself.

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Attend a Pre-Med Fair – Connect with Admissions Officers and the AAMC

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Why attend a pre-med recruitment fair? Pre-med recruitment fairs are great opportunities to learn about applying to medical school, admissions requirements, and resources all in one place! You’ll be able to engage with medical school admissions officers and representatives in person to learn about specific opportunities at their schools. You will find a variety of medical schools, programs, and associations, like the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges), that have a wealth of resources to support you on your path to medical school.

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20 Questions: Jeffrey M. Whitaker, DPM, FACFAS

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Dr. Jeffrey Whitaker knew at a very young age that he wanted to be a doctor, though his specialty remained uncertain until he discovered podiatric medicine as an undergraduate pre-med student. Having graduated Magna Cum Laude with his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from California State University-Long Beach, he later completed a second Bachelor in Cell and Molecular Biology with San Francisco State University, followed by the successful completion of his Doctor of Podiatric Medicine degree from the California College of Podiatric Medicine, which is now Samuel Merritt University. Dr. Whitaker graduated from the DPM program with Honors, ranking 4th in his class, and completed his three-year foot and ankle surgery residency with Western Pennsylvania Hospital, in Pittsburgh.

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Chronicles of a Med Student: We’re All In This Together

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Chronicles of a Med Student

Walking into my first day of medical school was a little like walking into my first day of kindergarten (if my memory does not fail me). Everything was brand new: I was being exposed to a new way of learning in a new environment, where people had new expectations of me, and where I was going to start from square one and build up a new circle of friends. I had carried the same set of friends in grade school and though I thought initially that college would’ve felt like this on my first day, it didn’t. I had a lot of friends from high school go to the same college as me, so it just felt like we were hanging out in a new place. And again college is very different from medical school in more ways than I can put into a coherent list. Starting medical school was unlike any other start in my life (besides kindergarten, of course). What if I had forgotten how to make new friends from scratch?!

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Choosing a Specialty: The Generalist vs. the Early-Committer

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Many students arrive at medical school with a bias that their liberal arts education has instilled, namely, that they should survey everything before deciding on their specialty. Before medical school, students matriculate at colleges that pride themselves on providing a diverse exposure to a variety of subjects: Computer science majors experience the canon of Great Literature before pursuing a life of code, and English majors can take “Physics for Poets.”
For a generalist student sampling from the buffet of medicine, it can be jarring to sit in lecture next to a classmate who declares on the first day of school that she intends to become an orthopedist. These early-committers appear to have whittled down their choices from day one. They magically become apprentices to a faculty member in their chosen specialty by the first quarter, have a publication by their first year, and seem to possess an intuitive roadmap for applying to residency that the generalist cannot read.

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