Working as a Paramedic to Gain Clinical Experience

paramedic

Importance of Medical/Healthcare Experience as a Medical School Applicant

Healthcare is a broad field with multiple working parts that all accompany one another. Providers come from all walks of life and contribute a wide range of skills and abilities that each work integrally in order to provide a smooth patient care experience. Everyone that has any patient care responsibility can attest to the hardships—as well as the triumphs—that one faces while working in healthcare.

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Q&A with Dr. James Dahle, Emergency Medicine, Founder of White Coat Investor

Dr. James Dahle is a practicing emergency physician and founder of White Coat Investor, a website in which he shares what he has learned about personal finance management and wealth building.
Dr. Dahle graduated in 1999 with a BS in molecular biology from Brigham Young University before obtaining his medical degree from the University of Utah School of Medicine in 2003. Following this, he trained at the University of Arizona Emergency Medicine Residency Program and then served four years with the Air Force and the Navy, which took him across military bases on four different continents.

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Q&A with Jonny Kim, MD, NASA Astronaut Candidate

When the 12 members of NASA’s 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class report to Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX for their two years of training, two of them—Dr. Jonny Kim and Dr. Frank Rubio—will leave behind medical careers for the chance to explore the final frontier. SDN recently spoke with Dr. Kim about his nontraditional path to medical school and his transition from emergency medicine resident to astronaut candidate.
Dr. Jonny Kim started his career in the US Navy, where he trained as a Navy SEAL and completed more than 100 combat missions, earning a Silver Star and a Bronze Star with Combat “V”. He earned a degree in mathematics at the University of San Diego and his MD at Harvard Medical School. He is currently finishing the intern year of his residency in emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. At the end of the two years of astronaut training, Dr. Kim and the other astronaut candidates could be assigned to any of a variety of posts furthering NASA’s mission.

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Emergency Medicine: Can a Sizzling Hot Specialty Burn You to a Crisp?

Emergency physicians experience burnout at a rate of more than three times that of the average doctor and more than anyone else inside or outside of the medical field, according to a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine (1). The study surveyed over 7000 physicians in more than two dozen specialties and compared them with almost 3500 working adults in fields outside of medicine. More than 65% of emergency physicians reported burnout, compared to 55% of internists (the next crispiest specialty), and 27.8% of the general population.

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The Successful Match: Getting Into Emergency Medicine

 
There are 4,479 total residents training in approximately 150 ACGME-accredited emergency medicine residency training programs. Of these, 85.1% are graduates of U.S. allopathic medical schools, 9.0% are osteopathic graduates, and 5.7% are international medical graduates.1 Osteopathic students may also enter an AOA-approved emergency medicine residency program. In recent years, there have been over 40 such programs.2 Based on recent match statistics, emergency medicine can be considered to be a moderately competitive specialty.
We recently discussed the emergency medicine residency selection process with Dr. Jamie Collings, the Executive Director of Innovative Education and an associate professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. For many years, she served as the program director of the emergency medicine residency program at Northwestern. Over the past fifteen years, she has been heavily involved in advising students interested in pursuing a career in emergency medicine. Dr. Collings earned her medical degree at the Oregon Health & Science University, and then completed her residency at the University of Chicago.

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20 Questions: Gary Flashner, MD [Family Medicine]

 
Dr. Gary Flashner, MS, MD, ABFP is an emergency physician and Vice President of Medical Content for ExitCare, LLC.    He completed his undergraduate work at Muhlenberg College (Allentown, PA), Masters work at Penn State, medical school at Thomas Jefferson University, and residency in Family Medicine at Sacred Heart Hospital (Allentown, PA).    His 20 years of clinical practice and teaching endeavors (including 13 years of full-time work in hospital-based emergency medicine) were split between the eastern U.S. (Pennsylvania and Ohio) and California, including working at Yosemite National Park.

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