Medical education

2,303 articles · Since 2007

Articles, page 100

Use social media for MCAT help and to get into medical school

April 11, 2012Apr 11, 20126

How many students enter college and immediately proclaim that they are “pre-med?” Often this declaration is accompanied with an already well thought-out choice for his or her future specialty. This incredible ability to see into the future must be hereditary, as I have had 3 or 4 different parents tell me about how their kids are going to have to choose between medical school A and B, and/or how Johnny …

How I scored a 257 on USMLE Step 1

Michael Frazier

April 7, 2012Apr 7, 20129

If you are a second-year medical student, there is one thing on your mind at this time of year: Step 1. Although scary, there are things that you can do to help calm your anxiety and get your best score.…

Set a goal

In my opinion, before you start really preparing for Step 1, you should have two things clearly in mind: where you are with your score and where you want …

Read more…

How I scored a 257 on USMLE Step 1

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Jake McClure

April 4, 2012Apr 4, 20125

In my first week of the 3rd year surgery clerkship, I was introduced to some of the "Rules of Surgery." For example, "All bleeding stops eventually," or, "Everyone doesn't need to die with an incision," and even "The enemy of…

In my first week of the 3rd year surgery clerkship, I was introduced to some of the “Rules of Surgery.” For example, “All bleeding stops eventually,” or, “Everyone doesn’t need to die with an incision,” and even “The enemy of good is better.”

Boarded for this particular afternoon was a pancreaticoduodenectomy (the Whipple procedure), which for students is known to be a must-see operation if given the opportunity. However, the night …

Real physician voices, twice a week

Free, and one click to unsubscribe.

Reducing training will diminish the status of physicians

Karen S. Sibert, MD

April 3, 2012Apr 3, 201220

If Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel gets his wish, tomorrow’s physicians won’t deserve to be paid as well as physicians today because they won’t be as well trained. Dr. Emanuel, a brother of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a chief apologist for…

If Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel gets his wish, tomorrow’s physicians won’t deserve to be paid as well as physicians today because they won’t be as well trained.

Dr. Emanuel, a brother of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a chief apologist for the Affordable Care Act, is the lead author of a startling opinion column in the March 21 Journal of the American Medical Association. He argues that there is “substantial waste” in …

The cutthroat pre-med culture needs to change

Roheet Kakaday

April 2, 2012Apr 2, 201215

I eyed my chat screen with a good amount of suspicion. A friend of a friend who I had rarely spoken to had initiated a chat conversation with me with the opening line “How are medical school apps going?” The…

I began to think about possible ulterior motives that she, another pre-medical student, could have had. Perhaps she just wanted to use me as a comparison for …

Reducing industry support of CME has unspoken consequences

Derek Warnick

March 29, 2012Mar 29, 20128

I have worked in continuing medical education for 12 years and the argument over industry support of CME has grown tired and wearisome. Truth be told, I’m sick of it. I have always been a staunch defender of industry support of CME – and still am, for the most part – but listening to the same old arguments on both sides of the issue has become akin to the Elmo …

A medical student reflects on the clinical year transition

June-Ho Kim

March 21, 2012Mar 21, 2012

So this is what it feels like to have a rush of adrenaline in crisis—a potent mix of excitement and panic. I yelled out the patient’s name and shook him. No response. The only sounds were the shuffling of the…

So this is what it feels like to have a rush of adrenaline in crisis—a potent mix of excitement and panic.

I yelled out the patient’s name and shook him. No response. The only sounds were the shuffling of the sole nurse at the foot of the bed and the electronic hum of the myriad medical machines decorating the room. I slammed my fingers into the patient’s carotid arteries. No pulse.

As …

Residency directors and board certification can work together

Thomas Pane, MD, MBA

March 21, 2012Mar 21, 2012

Residency directors have a challenging job. They are entrusted with selecting young doctors and training them over the course of several years. Newly graduated medical students are thereby turned into internists, surgeons, radiologists, pathologists and the like. Fellowship directors build upon this foundation with extra training, setting the stage for these graduates to become clinical experts in their respective fields.

The Maintenance of Certification (MOC) process adds an additional and continued …

Should medical schools be mandated to teach nutrition?

George Lundberg, MD

March 20, 2012Mar 20, 201216

Doctor, do you know a lot about human nutrition? You said "yes?" Congratulations, if that is true. But I suspect that South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson's infamous quote "you lie" is applicable. American medical schools traditionally have done a horrible…

Doctor, do you know a lot about human nutrition? You said “yes?”

Congratulations, if that is true. But I suspect that South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson’s infamous quote “you lie” is applicable.

American medical schools traditionally have done a horrible job with their curricular treatment of clinical nutrition. University curricula are controlled by the faculty and, when the faculty don’t know or care much about a topic, it often gets short shrift.

I …

When medical students first deal with death

Dr. Irma Faruqi

March 20, 2012Mar 20, 20124

Very few are as starkly aware of the transience of life as those working in the healthcare profession. We are expected to be, for want of a better word, immune to it; as if each death we face is somehow a vaccine that will eventually, with regular booster doses, provide us with enough immunity to be resistant to the Grim Reaper.

We spend years studying, arming ourselves with pages and pages …

Reflections on the Match: Improving the interview process

William Bain

March 16, 2012Mar 16, 2012

We are sorry, you did not match to any position. – NRMP Staff Despite more than one-quarter-million dollars in tuition and expenses at a top-notch medical school, several of my classmates received that stark e-mail on Monday. Most quickly began…

We are sorry, you did not match to any position. – NRMP Staff

Despite more than one-quarter-million dollars in tuition and expenses at a top-notch medical school, several of my classmates received that stark e-mail on Monday. Most quickly began the SOAP (the new “scramble”) to find an unfilled position. Although many factors influence whether a medical student finds success in The Match, this week’s results suggest to me that the …

Heed the 4th year medical student spoils

Nonmaleficence

March 16, 2012Mar 16, 20122

Looking back on the first three years of medical school, it’s hard to imagine living through the endless days of studying again. Weekends were spent cooped up in the library and there were countless holidays that I wasn’t able to spend with my family. Instead, they were spent memorizing indecent aspects of the human anatomy and performing DREs on strangers. There are better ways to get to know a person …

What medical education can learn from homeschooling

Anonymous

March 10, 2012Mar 10, 201235

My wife and I met in medical school. Both of us went "straight through" from high school to college to med school. So, like most of you, we are as educated as it gets. But when our daughter reached "school…

My wife and I met in medical school. Both of us went “straight through” from high school to college to med school. So, like most of you, we are as educated as it gets.

But when our daughter reached “school age,” we decided to homeschool her. My son, who is two years younger, followed in his big sister’s footsteps, so we are now homeschooling both of our children.

Unlike our traditional paths …

How working as a scribe prepared me for medical school

Steven Krager

March 7, 2012Mar 7, 20122

After undergrad, and before starting medical school, I worked for two years as scribe in the emergency department. I followed emergency physicians and completed their charts as they saw patients. I would also remind the physicians of various tasks to…

One of the reasons I wanted the job was to gain experience in medicine, first as a …

Residency interview tips from a Chief Resident

Gopi J. Astik, MD

March 2, 2012Mar 2, 20124

I never realized before how much work goes on behind the scenes to prepare and conduct these interview days, but I sure do now. As a Chief Resident, I schedule residents to attend the applicant dinners, lunches, and tours, and to spend time with the applicants our lounge. This makes the actual interview days go by much smoother, because two of us are present at all times to speak to applicants and answer any …

Reaching the pinnacle of medical education

Jordan Grumet, MD

March 2, 2012Mar 2, 20122

Suzie remembers what it felt like to be fifteen. She can still hear the creek of the steps leading to the third floor and the quaint finished bedroom that housed her grandmother that fateful summer. Originally, Grandma was set to…

Suzie remembers what it felt like to be fifteen. She can still hear the creek of the steps leading to the third floor and the quaint finished bedroom that housed her grandmother that fateful summer.

Originally, Grandma was set to move into the small room next to Suzie’s parents. But after his first night in the attic, Billy refused to set foot up there again. So Dad lovingly wrapped Grandma in …

6 reasons why applicants fail to get into medical school

Jessica Freedman, MD

February 28, 2012Feb 28, 201213

Every year medical school applicants feel confused and in the dark about why they have been rejected by medical schools. They do not understand what they did wrong or what they need to do differently when they reapply. Whether you are a premedical student trying to make sure to “do everything right” or a medical school applicant who has not yet …

Reward or punishment in medical training

Christopher Johnson, MD

February 17, 2012Feb 17, 20129

Like many of my colleagues, I teach and supervise students, residents, nurses, and respiratory therapists. I’m also the medical director of a PICU. Overall, I’ve been teaching and doing administration for over 30 years. And, like most of my colleagues, I never received any formal instruction at all in how to do these things. To some extent I got help from my own mentors, primarily by watching what they did, …

Reporters and doctors are more similar than you think

Joyce Ho, MD

February 12, 2012Feb 12, 2012

One of the things I have come to really enjoy and appreciate is the opportunity to interview the subjects of my articles and multimedia pieces. In a way, being a reporter reminds me a lot of being a physician-in-training – both roles require me to go into a room, learn an individual’s story inside out, and present the learned information for a further goal.

In my Public Issues Reporting class, the …

Conflicts of interest don’t always involve money

Andreas Laupacis, MD & Karen Born, PhD

February 10, 2012Feb 10, 20122

Conflicts of interest in medical research are extremely common - one recent study found that 52% of the experts involved in developing clinical practice guidelines for the management of diabetes in the United States and Canada had a financial conflict…

Conflicts of interest in medical research are extremely common – one recent study found that 52% of the experts involved in developing clinical practice guidelines for the management of diabetes in the United States and Canada had a financial conflict of interest. Although doctors and researchers often declare financial conflicts of interests when they make presentations and publish papers, there are many who argue that declaring financial conflicts is no longer …