Medical Education

Students, residents, and educators writing on KevinMD about how physicians are made: medical school, the match, residency, duty hours, supervision, assessment, mistreatment, and the path from student to practicing physician. Many contributors write while still in training, and many write anonymously. For a maintained record of what students and physicians have said about medical school since 2004, see Medical school: what students and physicians say, in their own words. For what residents and attendings have said about residency itself, see Residency: what residents and attendings say, in their own words.

Students who are the evangelists of family medicine for tomorrow

Allen Perkins, MD

Medical Education

June 10, 2011

Recently, I was in a meeting organized by the American Academy of Family Physicians in an effort to understand the lack of student interest in family medicine as well as to encourage brainstorming among those of us charged with facilitating interest on ideas that might work and be transportable.

I was with Bill Coleman from Alabama (among others) and was pleased to discover that we were ahead of the region. …

What it means to be sick as a medical student

Jessica Gold

Medical Education

June 8, 2011

For the first time since I have been in medical training, I got sick.

Not just the kind of sick where its a cold, or you know that its stress, but the kind of sick that does not go away and randomly comes up just to make you mad when you just want to have fun (like …

Tips for medical students entering intern year

Elizabeth Breuer, MD

Medical Education

June 8, 2011

As intern year winds down and all of the giddy 4th year medical students are shelling out 200 dollars to rent that a robe for one day of pomp and circumstance, all of us interns are impatiently waiting for the fresh meat to arrive.

Having just experienced every single emotion under the psychological rainbow this year, I am going to give a …

Students interested in primary care must survive hazing

Kevin

Medical Education

June 7, 2011

by Kimberly

Every one of us who practices family medicine has had to defend our chosen profession against a myriad of antagonists.

As mentioned in the post, Family Medicine is a Waste of Your Talent, we are sometimes told that we are too smart to pursue family medicine. Other topics range from salary comparisons between specialties to scope of practice. I’ve been told on many occasions …

Cancer in the gross anatomy lab

Jessica Gold

Medical Education

June 2, 2011

“I just want to learn the abdomen and the pelvis”, I thought to myself, while staring at our donor’s metastasized body. Nothing looked normal, tumor was everywhere, and for the 4th lab my group looked at each other, looked at the lab steps, and concluded it was going to be “just another day where we just … found what we could find and did … …

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Cancer in the gross anatomy lab

5 easy steps to become a better medical student

Aaron George, DO

Medical Education

June 1, 2011

I recently had quite a long conversation with a college senior that was just accepted into medical school for this coming fall.

As a rising fourth year medical student myself, I would like to think that I have navigated the waters of academia and figured out both efficient paths to success and avoidance of roadblocks and setbacks. …

Practical advice for medical students starting clinical rotations

Mary L. Brandt, MD

Medical Education

June 1, 2011

Here’s some advice to think about before starting clinical rotations during the third year of medical school.

Don’t sit in the back of the plane

The basic sciences are important to learn the vocabulary and grammar of medicine. Clinical rotations are different – it’s where you actually learn to be a physician. If you use the analogy of learning to fly, …

Why medical students should be closely observed with patients

Christopher Johnson, MD

Medical Education

May 31, 2011

I went off to medical school thirty-seven years ago.

For the era, I went to what folks regarded as a very progressive place. It had a curriculum that was quite revolutionary for the time. Among other things, we started having interactions with actual patients during our first year, rather than the third year, as was traditional then.

These days many, probably most, medical schools …

Doing the physical exam for the first time as a medical student

Jessica Gold

Medical Education

May 26, 2011

Armed with tools I have never used or seen before I entered a physical exam practice room for the first day of learning.

Having finished history-taking practices last semester, we were now beginning a new chapter, learning to take a head-to-toe physical exam. Before class began, we were told to read a book and …

How medical students are key to innovating in medicine

Aaron J. Stupple, MD

Medical Education

May 24, 2011

Why does health care seem to lag behind other industries in innovation?

There’s a temptation to manufacture reasons that don’t necessarily explain why health care has not seen the kinds of revolutionary changes evident in industries from computing and telecommunications to music and retail? People routinely marvel at how easy it is to manage their bank account these days, but they don’t appreciate continuing to wait hours in their doctors’ offices, …

Getting into residency: What medical students need to know

Kevin

Medical Education

May 24, 2011

by James Lamberg

When medical students are applying for residency positions, what do program directors care about most? This may become the ultimate question for many students on clinical rotations.

Thankfully, publications exist to help answer this very problem.

Unfortunately, many students are not aware of this published information. In a 2005 article from Medical Education Online titled “Residency Selection …

Transitions of a first year medical student

Kevin

Medical Education

May 23, 2011

by Kristine Casal

The moment you get accepted to medical school, you never really think about how everything is going to be different. You figure everything’s going to stay the way they are, with the exception of the inevitable long and laborious hours of studying day and night. You don’t think about how much time you won’t have …

The difficult road to becoming a doctor

Kevin

Medical Education

May 20, 2011

On May 15, 2011, 147 students embarked on their careers as doctors as they graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

One student, Jenny Rowland, who will pursue a career in Radiology and continue her training at Penn, shared her personal thoughts and emotions as she prepared to graduate.

by Jenny Rowland, MD

I’m not a typical PennMed student.

I’m 31 years old, and I …

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The difficult road to becoming a doctor

Going through Netter’s to teach medical students pelvic anatomy

Nicholas Fogelson, MD

Medical Education

May 20, 2011

I recently had the opportunity to go to the anatomy lab and help the first years go through the pelvic anatomy. What a blast! There is nothing like dissecting a cadaver to tune up one’s surgical anatomy skills, and helping young eager medical students through it is a great experience.

Prior to going into the lab, I spent many hours going through Netter’s atlas to brush up on the anatomy so …

The science of getting into medical school

Kevin

Medical Education

May 19, 2011

An excerpt from Med School Admissions Secrets.

by Jason Spears

There are currently 134 allopathic medical schools in the United States and you need to select approximately 20 schools.

You are not going to randomly pick, instead there is a system to getting into medical school.

The first step is ranking schools in the following manner:

Top-tier/Dream Schools
Competitive Schools
Safety Schools

Obviously, the top-tier med schools have high admissions standards based on MCAT and GPA. No …

Medical school starts with anatomy lab

Jessica Gold

Medical Education

May 18, 2011

When does medical school officially begin? Is it when you are given your white coat? When you sit through your first orientation activity? When you listen to your first lecture? Or when someone first mistakes you for a doctor?

While medical school commencement is truly is an amalgam of all of these things, the answer to this question is …

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Medical school starts with anatomy lab

Why doctors should pursue another degree

Scrub, MD

Medical Education

May 14, 2011

Becoming a doctor is a long and arduous process. Between taking pre-med courses, taking the MCAT, applying to medical schools, matriculating, then taking test after test after test until you take the big one (USMLE Step 1) before which you did questions all day long for weeks from a good USMLE question bank …

Medical students asking a patient about death

Jessica Gold

Medical Education

May 13, 2011

Like any kid who always wanted to be a doctor, I went to medical school to learn how to help people. Just wearing the white coat during orientation week had people looking at me differently, expecting me to know something more than I did just a week before. One of my classmates was even asked for …

Why medical students should go through a psychiatry rotation

Maria Yang, MD

Medical Education

May 9, 2011

“Psychiatry consult, returning a page,” she said, cradling the phone between her left ear and left shoulder. Digging around in her pockets, she eventually pulled out a half-sheet of paper that wasn’t already covered in barely legible writing and boxes marked with Xs. Her right hand clicked the pen and prepared to write.

“Hi, this is Cardiology,” the male voice on the phone said. Doctors tend to lose their names when they …

How skipping medical school lecture is preparing doctors for the future

Kevin

Medical Education

May 4, 2011

by Chris Chen

Recently in lecture, our professor wryly mentioned that in his many years of teaching, he had never seen so many laptops out as well as so many people taking advantage of the option to watch videos instead of attending class.

That was fine with him, he commented, as long as people were learning—although he was skeptical that students on laptops would learn as much, …