Medical School

Students, educators, and physicians writing on KevinMD about medical school: admissions and what they select for, the cost of tuition and the debt it leaves, the curriculum and what students say it does and does not teach, Step 1 and the test-prep industry, pass/fail, mistreatment and depression in training, the match, Caribbean schools, and what should change. Most contributors are students writing while still in school, many of them anonymously. For what physicians have said about paying off that debt and the money decisions that follow, see Physician personal finance: what physicians say about their own money, in their own words. For a maintained record of what students and physicians have said about medical school on KevinMD since 2004, see Medical school: what students and physicians say, in their own words. For what physicians and deans have said for and against affirmative action and diversity in admissions, see Race and medicine: what physicians say, in their own words. For what international and Caribbean graduates have said about the Match and visas, see Immigration and medicine: what physicians say about immigrant doctors and immigrant patients, in their own words.

I am just a medical student, I am not a doctor yet

Amanda Xi, MD

Medical Education

May 13, 2012

This morning started off like any other. I parked my car, walked into Starbucks and pulled up my iPhone app while waiting in line. The usual suspects were already there — the elderly fellow that always flirts with the baristas, the business man with his freshly pressed suit and the tired-looking mother. As I approached the counter, I ordered my usual summer morning beverage and went through the motions to …

Shorten medical training by 30% without sacrificing quality

Kenan Omurtag, MD

Medical Education

May 13, 2012

As a teenager in the mid-late 1990s, my father, an engineering educator, and I would talk about the ills of the healthcare system and how physicians lost control of healthcare: primarily because they concentrated on medicine rather than the forces changing healthcare delivery. I realized this was due to an outdated medical education system and reforming it might actually improve healthcare in this country. That was my Sputnik Moment.

Since graduating …

Doctors need to understand what it means to be a patient

Samantha Kass

Medical Education

May 10, 2012

Shortness of breath. I felt it for the first time while running on June 21st, 2011. I had just been rejected from my first choice medical school a few days prior – post-interview, the worst. I took it as a personal affront. They didn’t like me, my personality. I wondered how I had come off – fake, phony, artificially enthusiastic maybe. Maybe they didn’t think I was up to their …

Will a shift to longitudinal experiences improve medical education?

James Haddad

Medical Education

May 3, 2012

As a medical student who just completed this third year of training, I took special interest in Dr. Pauline Chen’s recent article about Harvard Medical School’s “Integrated Clerkship” – a program that eliminates traditional block-style clerkships and asks students to follow a panel of “up to 100 patients” longitudinally over the course of a year in order to emphasize continuity of care and the humanistic aspects …

Speak to a patient as though you were speaking to your grandparents

Rushil Patel

Medical Education

May 2, 2012

It’s hard to believe that nearly 1.5 years ago have elapsed since my first-year orientation to medical school. Much of it seemed protocol with session after session on rules and regulations, but I vividly remember the few hours spent outlining standardized patient encounters and how my assessments over the next four years would be based on my interactions with a complete stranger. As alien as that idea sounded to me, …

Why the physician shortage is worse than you think

Karen S. Sibert, MD

Physician

April 26, 2012

Only a generation ago, medical students thought about what specialty to choose simply in terms of what interested them most. All doctors made a comfortable income; money wasn’t a primary motivator. There was a sense that cardiac surgeons or neurosurgeons could make more than most other physicians, but in fairness their training was much harder and longer. Internal medicine was held up to us as the most prestigious and intellectually …

Dissecting a cadaver cannot be replaced by technology

Drew Kotler

Medical Education

April 19, 2012

I was browsing the now famous mini-lecture website, TED.com, when a certain video caught my eye. The presenter began by naming the various pitfalls of anatomy dissection such as its high cost and noxious chemicals. He whirled through a short demonstration using his brand new Automage Table, a 3D touch screen rendering of the human form. In his virtual dissection, he quickly and effortlessly revealed various organs and vessels. He …

The residency journey is just getting started

Allison A. Greco

Medical Education

April 16, 2012

Every career has that one question that is notoriously hated by all. For nurses, that question is, “So, why didn’t you want to be a doctor?” For teachers, it’s questions about the age-old adage, “Those who can’t do, teach.” For medical students, that question is, “So, do you know what you want to do?”

It’s not that people who ask medical students about their career plans are ill-intentioned or nosy; in …

Fixing health care includes reforming medical education

Patricia Salber, MD

Medical Education

April 12, 2012

I had a chance to “moonlight” in the internal medicine “drop-in” clinic at the Kaiser Medical Center in San Francisco while I was finishing my residency and endocrinology fellowship at UCSF. I was superbly trained in in-patient care and there was no IV or PA line that I couldn’t put in with my eyes closed. I was comfortable taking care of really sick people and thrived on complex, acute cases. I knew …

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

Anonymous

Medical Education

April 11, 2012

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 …

The future of medicine for aspiring young doctors

Edwin Leap, MD

Physician

April 11, 2012

March 29, 2012

Calhoun Lecture Series
Strom Thurmond Institute, Clemson University

Thank you for the invitation to speak tonight. I’m very humbled to stand before you. And what a delight to speak to people who are neither bleeding, intoxicated nor asking for Percocet! And in a setting where no one will burst through the back door on a stretcher!

As you know, I’m an emergency physician …

How I scored a 257 on USMLE Step 1

Michael Frazier

Medical Education

April 7, 2012

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

Each moment with a patient is a privilege

Rich Joseph

Physician

April 5, 2012

I recently worked a shift at one of the free, student run clinics here in Palo Alto. Compared to a previous shift a while back, today was quite calm with a manageable flow of patients. In fact, the number of volunteer hands far outnumbered the number of patients so I wondered if my services were even necessary.

Should I duck out early to go work on one of the four problem …

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Jake McClure

Medical Education

April 4, 2012

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 …

The real doctors will see you in the morning

Samuel Wasswa-Kintu

Patient

April 4, 2012

“Wait, you said you’re a medical student?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I will be seeing a real doctor though, right?”

“Yes, of course!” I smiled, then attempted to defuse his frustration with a quip about getting two opinions for the price of one.

He didn’t laugh, understandably. He was only 25, built like a linebacker, draped in a backwards hospital gown that exposed his unfamiliarity with this environment, among other things. Yet he was here …

Skills primary care doctors of the future will need

Peter Alperin, MD

Physician

April 3, 2012

By 2015, according to the American Association of Medical Colleges, the U.S. health care system will be short approximately 30,000 primary care doctors. Yet, everything we read says that primary care physicians are the linchpins of the new (really rediscovered) coordinated care models being talked about by health care policy cognoscenti. What gives?

Since the mid-1990s the number of medical students pursuing a career in primary care has been on a steady, sinking decline, …

Why I’m not hiding social media from residency interviews

Danielle Jones, MD

Social Media in Medicine

April 2, 2012

As Match Day for the Class of 2012 quickly fades into the background and residency applications for my class begin to appear on the horizon, I find my classmates starting to disappear from Facebook and other socially-oriented websites.

“Are you taking your blog down for application and interview season?” someone innocently asked, “I mean, some program directors just may not appreciate the social media involvement as much as you do.”

The question, …

The cutthroat pre-med culture needs to change

Roheet Kakaday

Medical Education

April 2, 2012

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 cursor blinked in anticipation.

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 …

A medical student reflects on the clinical year transition

June-Ho Kim

Medical Education

March 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 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 …

Medical School

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