5 Physical Therapy Settings to Explore Before Applying to PT School

by
physical therapy settings

When you’re planning to apply to physical therapy school, you may or may not have an idea of what you’d like to do once you actually become a PT. Sure, there are plenty of articles out there reminding you of what a great profession physical therapy is, and they’re mostly right! But the majority of the media paints the same picture of what a physical therapist is: a smiling, perky young lad or lady, absently stretching a faceless leg.

The reality is that the physical therapy profession is so much more than stretching people’s legs in a generic outpatient orthopedic setting. (Outpatient ortho is what those pictures represent, by the way, but the pics don’t come close to representing the actual excitement of clinic life). A PT can help to improve the functions—and the lives—of everyone from children with developmental disabilities to active older adults. Physical therapists work in schools, adult day care facilities, gyms, and nursing homes, and they treat people with everything from sprained ankles to acute heart conditions.

Read more

What treatment should be administered for this patient’s rash? | Figure 1

by
A 28-year-old woman presents with a one-week history of a slightly raised erythematous lesion on her chest. She has been experiencing fatigue and joint pain since taking a walk through the woods in eastern Massachusetts earlier this month. She is 33-weeks pregnant and is otherwise well. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test comes back negative for Lyme antibodies.

Read more

How To Get More CARS Questions Right

by
Get More CARS Questions Right

One of the questions that we hear most often from students is “How do I get more answers right on MCAT CARS practice passages and in the exam itself?” That’s a critical question because your score depends totally on how many questions you answer correctly in the time allotted. When you look at the methods described in most MCAT CARS practice books, they give you a lot of tips and tricks on how to answer questions. And when you learn these tips and tricks and use them on practice passages, the first thing you notice is that they don’t work very well. You’re still getting a lot of wrong answers.

Why is that? It’s because these methods are anecdotal rather than scientific. Think of it this way: when a patient comes to see you with a serious medical condition, are you going to use tips and tricks to treat her?  No, You’re going to use your basic knowledge of medicine combined with your reasoning ability to do a proper diagnosis and treatment.

Read more

How Nontraditional Students Benefit Traditional Students

by
surgical specialties

In both high school and college, we get used to our peers being our age. Everyone turns the same age in the same range year after year. This makes it easy for friendships to form based on common interests and just being in the same stage of life. After college, however, most of our paths can diverge in a variety of different ways. Many of my non-preprofessional school friends got jobs and are even buying houses now. Others went straight into medical school, and still others waited a few years and lived out their lives before going back to school to study medicine. I think that is actually one of the most interesting and beautiful parts of medical school: the diversity in age and experience.

Read more

Family Strife, Chuck’s Pro-Life, & the Ebola Bureaucracy Knife

by

Our own Claire Castaneda won first place in the Carver College of Medicine’s Carol A. Bowman Creative Writing Contest for Medical Students, and her piece caught Dave’s eyes and heart.  She talks with Aline Sandouk, Melissa Chan, and Tony Rosenberg about the dynamics of family strife and the pressure they can exert to follow one career path over another.  Meanwhile, Aline expresses her feelings on being left behind by her original classmates as she continues her MD/PhD studies.

Read more

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Dyspnea and abdominal pain—how would you manage this patient?

by

A 66-year-old male with a history of hypertension presents to the emergency department with dyspnea and sharp abdominal pain radiating to his back. On examination, his blood pressure is 180/120 mm Hg. A CT scan demonstrates the findings seen here and laboratory testing indicates that his renal function is preserved. Which of the following is the most appropriate next step given this patient’s likely diagnosis?

Read more

When To Write What: Strategically Navigating The Medical School Application Timeline

by
application timeline

With so many deadlines and moving parts to med school apps, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. In this article, we’ll discuss how to be strategic about when you write what. At the end of this article, we’ll give a sample timeline that you can use. We will focus on the AMCAS app, but a lot of our advice is applicable to other application types as well.

Our motivation for writing this article is that we have too many friends who didn’t get into medical school because they applied late. It’s heartbreaking to find out you didn’t get in because of something so avoidable. We don’t want that to be you.

Read more

Do You Recognize This Triad?

by

25-year-old male presents to the emergency department with headache, retro-orbital pain, and diplopia when gazing to the right. He had visited an urgent care clinic with right ear pain two weeks earlier and had received a short course of antibiotics. After some initial improvement, he became increasingly unwell before presenting today. Otoscopy reveals purulent discharge in the right ear canal and a CT scan demonstrates the findings seen here. Which organism is most commonly responsible for this patient’s likely diagnosis?

Read more

Parenting Fails, Pro-Life Wins, Free Laser Gifts

by

It’s time for a change, whether we want it or not.

Oh, gosh. It’s Kaci McCleary and Amy Young’s last show as co-hosts. Irisa Mahaparn and Teneme Konne join them to discuss their impending moves to Colorado and Minnesota. Also, they lament Iowa’s new Fetal Heartbeat Bill and what some observers believe will be an associated collapse of OB/Gyn in Iowa should the law go into effect. But life goes on, and Amy–a relatively new parent–talks parenting fails. Luckily for her little Sammy, and sadly for his own children, Dave has her beat. And listener Corey reaches out on Facebook to tell Dave he’s wrong. Shocker.

Read more

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Ignore the National Rankings and Make Your Own School List

by
school list

Yes, we said it, ignore those national rankings! You’ve probably already heard this, and you know deep down it’s good advice. But let’s be honest, it’s easier said than done.

We try to remind students not to put too much emphasis on a school’s average GPA or MCAT scores and instead to look at their mission statements and focus on what matters most to them. Medical schools each have different values and goals, and it’s important to ensure your own interests align with the medical school. Remember, you’ll be spending at least four years there! Whether it’s the school’s commitment to primary care, the research opportunities available, programs or clubs related to your interests, or a particular class size or format that is a good fit for your learning style, it’s always a smart idea to consider a broad range of factors. This worksheet can help you assess different factors for each school you’re considering applying to.

Read more

Should I Reapply to Medical School?

by
should I reapply to medical school

Each year after the medical school application cycle is complete, thousands of medical school hopefuls are left without an acceptance to an MD or DO program. The number of students who didn’t receive an acceptance is large enough that the AAMC keeps data, broken down by various criteria, on how many people made or didn’t make the cut each year.

If you are in the unfortunate position of having received a rejection notice from every school to which you applied, you may be asking yourself if reapplication to medical school in an upcoming admissions cycle is worth the effort. Do you have a reasonable chance of getting into medical school? Are the less attractive aspects of your application ones you can fix? While the decision about whether to reapply to medical school is a personal one, considering the following criteria may help you gauge whether you are likely to be successful in subsequent admissions cycles.

Read more

Emily Silverman, MD, and The Nocturnists

by
Emily silverman

A live stage show featuring the stories of healthcare providers is now a podcast.

The day-to-day of internship, residency, and an MD career doesn’t allow much time to process the effect it’s having on the practitioner.  Rushing from one patient to the next, putting out the fires even while drinking from the firehose, and being selfless in service to the patients’ needs means that one’s own stories are buried, neglected.  More and more, however, medicine is acknowledging the need for practitioners to examine and tell their stories so that they can learn from them, teach their lessons to others, and show colleagues that they are not alone.  In 2015, Dr. Emily Silverman was in her second year of her internal medicine residency at UCSF.  She found herself with a little more time following her frenetic intern year, and with her own stories that had gone untold and unexamined.  She started to write, first in a blog she called The Nocturnists.  Then, in 2016 she organized the first live storytelling session with her colleagues.

Read more

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

You, The Doctor’s Spouse

by
Medical Spouse

Welcome to the new you—“The Doctor’s Spouse.” Yes, you have had your own identity up until this point, but now you are not only a Mrs. or Mr., you’re a Doctor’s Mrs. or Mr. Once people discover this about you, whether it’s intentional or not, their perspective and assumptions of you will change.

Some spouses won’t mind this change and will embrace it. Other spouses may initially feel uncomfortable and judged. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, I invite you to acknowledge this new role you have (whether it’s welcome or not!) and prepare yourself to navigate the world under this umbrella. You can use this situation to discover more about what you really want for yourself and your family and then create an authentic life based on your values, priorities, and desires, not on society’s expectations of a doctor’s family. How? Let’s dive in!

Read more

Q&A with Dave Etler, Administrative Services Coordinator

by
Chris Diem

By Jacob Adney, MD Candidate, Saint Louis University School of Medicine

Mr. Dave Etler is an Administrative Services Coordinator at University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. He is also co-host of the Short Coat Podcast, which discusses the current events, social aspects, and people in the thrilling and exciting torrent that is the medical field. He was born in Massachusetts, raised in Falmouth on Cape Cod, and is the intensely proud father of two and husband of one.

Read more