It’s a question that reverberates in the minds of premeds around the country.
If you have a choice between multiple medical schools, should you go to the cheapest medical school available, or should you go to the more prestigious, more expensive medical school?
MD vs. DO vs. Caribbean
I think it is worth the investment to go to a U.S. allopathic (MD) school if at all possible.
It’s an unfair bias, because every medical …
Two recent posts highlight the problems facing many medical students today.
The first was by an anonymous rising fourth-year student who has come to the conclusion that going to medical school was “a terrible, terrible decision.” It ended with a comment that medical school “is not fun. It’s jarring, scary, disappointing and absolutely depressing.”
The second was by another anonymous student who described how miserable he (or she) has been …
In recent years, there has been a push across medical schools to change the grading scale towards that of a pass-fail system. The appeals of a pass-fail system to me were obvious. Instead of worrying about my grades as I had in college to maintain an adequate enough GPA to get into medical school, I believed that merely passing would lessen much of the pressures I faced as an undergrad.
Those …
I’m a default crier. I happy-cry, stress-cry, romantic-comedy-cry, regular-comedy-cry and, apparently, I even doctor-in-training-cry.
Crying is a tough response, especially for someone who wants to take care of sick patients. My default reaction poses challenges for my future career. I had my first taste of this when a patient actor brought me to tears. An actor? That’s ridiculous, you might think. It was all pretend and yet, I broke down. I’m …
Once a minor hurdle on the road to Match Day, the USMLE Step 2 CK is now required by many residency programs before ranking applicants. For those with low Step 1 scores, Step 2 CK is even more critical, as it represents a student’s only opportunity to compensate for Step 1 performance. I was happy with my Step 1 score but planned to take Step 2 CK well before applying …
Your partner’s residency is hard for you both, but it is possible to both survive and thrive throughout it! Finding happiness and success while your partner is in residency comes down to a handful of simple lessons, at least in theory if not in practice.
1. It’s your residency, too. It’s a simple but powerful departure point: residency is both your partner’s job and a significant period in your life together. Your …
I was a four-year-old kid when I was about to begin my first day of school. I was born and raised 20 kilometers away from the big city in a small rural area with minimal essential amenities — schools, roads, and hospitals. Like all other kids, it was a momentous occasion for me to start my first day of school, and I remember how exciting it was.
As I started to …
“Why are you in seminary?”
As a “non-traditional applicant,” I was asked this question on every medical school interview four years ago.
I’ve come to learn that seminary training engenders stereotypes and mythopoeia. My mentors knew this, and advised me to have examples ready related to the importance of being trained in fields that both study the human condition and provide the skill set necessary to critically assess paradigms.
Some interviewers appreciated the …
I’m about two-thirds of the way through my 3rd year of medical school, and I have hit my wall. I have become so fed up with the set up of medical school. I think a decent amount of this comes from the fact I am on my 6th week of an eight-week surgery clerkship (an area of medicine that I literally have zero interest in). I’m tired of waking up …
Physicians face a host of challenges in practice, but the one that looms largest is often this — they don’t know everything.
It would be tempting to think that they do. As patients, we want them to. We want our doctors to tell us that they know what’s wrong and how to fix it. Medical mysteries are fun on television, but in our real lives, they’re profoundly unsettling and can have …
During the first week of medical school classes, we visited the anatomy lab. As far as I can remember, I had extremely mixed feelings on that day. I felt the thrill of taking my first baby steps towards my medical journey blending with a certain feeling of fear. Was I afraid of the pure existence of cadavers in that gloomy, long and hall-like room? Or was it the fear of embarking …
Performance appraisals are an integral part of an organization’s assessment of employee and trainee standing. Management and human resource literature is full of analysis and debate regarding how to best rate subordinates. Regardless of evaluation system utilized, some of the common goals of individual appraisals are to monitor progress, identify areas for growth, set goals, guide development, provide and elicit feedback through open communication, and document issues that may require …
As a medical student, I have big shoes to fill. I feel that void in my foot-space at all times. These shoes are expensive, and they are monstrously huge. We’re talking circus-clown, Shaquille O’Neal, Andre the Giant shoes. I feel awkward in these size 24s. I’m stumbling and scuffing them, but I’m not even close to calling it quits. These shoes are staying on. I am trying as hard as …
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“I can’t do this anymore,” Mary* said to me after morning rounds.
As third-year medical students, this could have been in reference to a number of things: 5 a.m. rounds, practice sutures, 14-hour days, the list goes on. Though I later learned Mary was simply referring to living.
An article recently published by JAMA showed depression or depressive symptoms among medical students was as high as 27.2 …
For patients, being patient can be the most difficult part of receiving health care. For some, this ends in the waiting room, but others, unfortunately, anxiously await insurance approval, test results, surgery, transplants, and sometimes — even death.
However, in medicine, patients aren’t the only ones who need patience. It’s important that physicians learn to be patient as well; something that is much easier said than done for many type A …
I was taught anatomy and physiology by a pediatrician-turned-professor who found in academia an opportunity to meld his love of medicine with a propensity for the performing arts. His lectures were scripted and theatrical, and he gifted a generation of students with an awe and understanding of the human body that would serve as the foundation for hundreds of medical careers. Because he was a physician, ours was one of …
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I watched the young woman across from me wrap the soft stretch of fabric around her face. She folded a part of it that hung close to her ears and loosened it slightly, put her fingers slowly under the fabric and experimented with how much room there was. Would a stethoscope earpiece fit through each side easily? She unwrapped it again. Repeated the same finger test.
She had chosen a light …
“Are you a left-sider or a right-sider?” my classmate asked with a puzzled look during an end-of-the-year dinner among first-year medical students. I was confused. He repeated himself then answered. “Do you sit on the left or the right side in class … that’s right; you sit on the right.” He then mentioned that everyone present was a “right-sider.” Nearly everyone was white.
For the past 18 months, we sat in …
Someone who I care about deeply messaged me today: “I think I’m done with surgery.”
This person, a surgeon, feels like his potential is elsewhere. There are more opportunities, different challenges, and fulfilling experiences in other places and he is ready to explore.
I told him that he inspires me.
But I am in medical school. So how could someone leaving the medical field be inspiring to me?
Because inspiration does not come from a job description or a fancy …
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Walking up to the admissions desk I knew the routine. I stretched out my arm for my hospital band. A name, a number, and a doctor were what defined me during my many hospital stays. It was simple; my brain was too large for my skull. Brain surgery after brain surgery has occupied my life for many years, all while I have been studying to become a doctor.
I …
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