Medical students and health professional know the importance of teaching others to stay healthy, especially when it comes to the prevention of many chronic conditions like heart disease or obesity. But knowledge is not always enough and doesn’t always result in self-care. The long hours, massive amounts of studying and high levels of stress that are the norm for medical school can make it difficult to start or maintain the good habits that will keep you healthy during your med school years. However, there are important reasons for doing this–and many simple habits that can make it happen.
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Learn about medicine and how to become a physician in our articles for pre-medical students (including the MCAT), medical students, resident physicians, and practicing physicians.
Marriage and Medical School: The Pros and Cons of Balancing Both
Updated January 9, 2022. The article was updated to correct formatting and minor grammatical errors. … Read more
Q&A With Physician-Author Dr. Richard Friedman
Dr. Richard Friedman is a professor of clinical psychiatry and a psychopharmacology clinic director at Weill Cornell Medical College, where he focuses on mood and anxiety disorders. In addition to his research, Dr. Friedman has interests in mental health policy and psychiatric practice, and is a classical pianist and long-distance swimmer. He graduated from Duke University in 1978 with a degree in physics before graduating from Robert Wood Johnson Medical School – University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in 1982. He has written for The New York Times science section since 2002, and recently became a contributing opinion writer in 2015. He has also written for The New England Journal of Medicine, The American Journal of Psychiatry, and The Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Friedman graciously agreed to talk with me over the phone. This interview has been edited and condensed.
A Guide to MCAT Preparatory Courses
One of the most pressing issues facing prospective medical students today is the choice of … Read more
Chronicles of Med Student: A Summer to Remember
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to meet some of our incoming first years at a meet and greet event. They came in with wide eyes and big smiles, just waiting to sink their teeth into medical school. Their curiosity always got the best of them, and my classmates and myself were bombarded with questions like “What’s it like?” and “Do you have a life?”. I remember feeling that way one short year ago (and yes, even though our school year is a stretch of eleven months, it does feel short). One of the questions that they should have asked but didn’t is what they should do this summer.
Your Pathway to the White Coat: 7 Tips for Writing Your AMCAS® Personal Comments Essay
The AMCAS application to medical school asks for a lot of information about yourself. It … Read more
How to Skillfully—and Successfully—Revise Your AMCAS Personal Statement
Nowhere else on your medical school application will you have the chance to represent your personality and goals as strongly as you do in your AMCAS personal statement. Your personal statement is one place to which schools will turn to understand who you are separate from your MCAT score and GPA.
For those individuals aiming to submit their primary AMCAS applications in June or early July, revising your personal statement throughout May is essential to crafting an application that represents your unique attributes as a future physician, as well as what you will bring to your medical school class. Use this checklist as you revise to ensure that you are covering all that you must in order to submit a successful personal statement.
Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Students With Disabilities in Medical School
Updated December 1, 2021. The article was updated to correct minor grammatical errors and to … Read more
Q&A with Physician-Author Dr. Matt McCarthy
Dr. Matt McCarthy is an assistant professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and an assistant attending physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. He graduated from Harvard Medical School and went on to complete his internal medicine residency at Columbia University Medical Center. Before that, Dr. McCarthy graduated from Yale University with a degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, and then spent a year in Minor League Baseball. He wrote about his stint in baseball in Odd Man Out: A Year on the Mound with a Minor League Misfit. The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician’s First Year is his most recent book, and details the trials and tribulations of internship year. Dr. McCarthy has published in USA Today, Sports Illustrated, The Atlantic, Slate, Reuters, Deadspin, and Stat. I sat down with Dr. McCarthy at an Upper East Side café to pick his brain. This interview has been edited and condensed:
The MCAT: A History and Current Overview
In 2014, the American Association of Medical Colleges announced that the MCAT 2015 would be … Read more
How to use a Pea Plant to Increase your USMLE, COMLEX, and Shelf Exam Scores
Studying for the boards overwhelms most people. The sheer amount of information to know is … Read more
The Top 5 Ways to Improve Your CARS Score Today
For most pre-meds taking the MCAT, the CARS section proves to be one of the biggest obstacles standing between them and admission to the medical school of their dreams. The CARS section is a highly artificial environment, unlike any test you’ve ever taken before. It can be difficult to know where to begin and what steps to take to improve your overall CARS approach. Everyone and their mother seem to have an opinion about how to do well on the CARS section, opinions that often contradict each other as often as they agree. To make matters worse, unlike the other sections of the MCAT which play to the inherent strengths of pre-meds, hardly anyone starts off with a CARS score in range of where they’d like to be on test day. Fear sets in, and the “you’re not going to get in” gremlins starting chanting their mean-spirited slogans; all because of one stinking section.
Minorities and the MCAT
The MCAT looms large on the horizon of many would-be medical students – and there … Read more
The Dangerous Devolution of Physicians into Technicians
Reposted from here with permission. As I sat in my institution’s white coat ceremony this past fall, … Read more
What the Adcom Sees (and Thinks) About Your Multiple MCAT Scores
MCAT History
Back in the olden days (like prior to 2007), the MCAT was only offered a few times a year, and test-takers took the paper exam with a No. 2 pencil. There was also a restriction placed on the number of times you could take the exam in a single year, as well as in your lifetime.
Today, the MCAT is offered 17 times a year with the following limitations on how often an applicant can take it:
– Three times in one year
– Four times in two years
– Seven times in a lifetime
It’s become increasingly common to take the exam, retake it, and then sometimes retake it again before applying to medical school.
5 Study Tips for the USMLE Step 1
1. Set a goal
As the saying goes, “being begin with the end in mind.” Before you begin preparing for the USMLE Step 1, you should consider where you are with your knowledge base and your score, as well as what your goal target score is. To determine where you are starting from, you should take a practice test. Online prediction calculators use your scores on question banks and the USMLE practice test to estimate how you will do on the actual Step 1 exam.
When setting a goal, consider that 192 is currently the minimum passing score for USMLE Step 1, and 229 was the national average in 2014 (the most recent year for which data is available). However, depending on the specialty into which you desire to match, you may have to aim for a significantly higher score. If you’re not sure what specialty you want to pursue, you’ll want to score as high as possible, though you probably want to do that anyway. This is a table summarizing average USMLE Step 1 scores by specialty in the 2014 Match.
How to Succeed in Physiology: The Course, Step 1, and Beyond
Physiology is different! If you’re in the midst of learning physiology, either in a traditional or systems course, you’ve noticed that it feels different from biochemistry and anatomy. There are several reasons. First, the stakes are high, as physiology is inextricably the basis for medicine; learning physiology has long-lasting, downstream consequences for understanding pathophysiology and clinical medicine. And physiology is the underpinning for Step 1, so learning it well in your courses is essential. Second, physiology cannot be memorized (and you’re good memorizers!). Physiology must be understood, and understanding can’t be rushed. You’re learning concepts and principles, rather than isolated facts, and you’re challenged by the hierarchy of concepts, interconnections, and recurring themes. Last and oh so important, you must make peace with graphs, equations, and calculations, since they are the language of physiology. Rather than concede up front that “I don’t do graphs,” it’s best to find a system for translating the mathematical side of physiology into something intuitive that speaks to you!
5 Steps to a Better CARS Score
The Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) is one of the most well-known entrance exams in all of higher education. It is known for many things: difficulty, length, bizarre scoring systems, and the breadth of subjects covered – everything from basic human psychology to nucleophilic substitution reactions to electrical circuits to the life cycle of plants are fair game on this test. The test is designed to look for several basic abilities and aptitudes of medical school applicants; among these are problem-solving skills, basic grasp of scientific knowledge, and understanding of human relationships. One aptitude that the MCAT particularly focuses on is the ability to quickly synthesize large amounts of information and data and make decisions based on the conclusions; this skill is extremely valuable for physicians in medical practice, but also important for students to succeed in medical school. This skill is tested on each section of the MCAT, but is also almost the sole skill tested on one section in particular: Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills (CARS), formerly known as Verbal Reasoning.
Question & Answer with Physician-Author Dr. Damon Tweedy
Dr. Damon Tweedy is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center and a staff physician … Read more
Chronicles of a Med Student: Reaching Out
I’m sorry, I can’t—I have to study. These are words that have become so routine to me that I barely have to think about them before they come out of my mouth. Ugh, how has it become so reflexive? I was worried that this would happen, at least in the first two years of medical school when I would spend more time with my computer and books than with actual people. The sad thing is that whenever I have a free second, it’s not really a free second because I just find myself wondering if I should be doing something at the moment instead of thinking about making plans with friends I never see anymore. And these are not only the friends I’ve made this year. Sadly those I neglect most are generally the friendships I’ve cultivated over many years.