Thursday, August 12, 2004
Getting Into Medical School - Part 1
For all you pre-med types out there - we're not forgetting about you here! At least, I'm not.
I remember when I was a premed - all 8 miserable years of it - all I wanted was information. I never could seem to get enough of it. I read as much as I could about medicine, medical school, medical students. Believe me, publishers bank on that and make a lot of money because of it. I bought several books about medicine - "First, Do No Harm," "The House of God," "Mount Misery" to name a few.. all of them very good books, by the way. Another good one is, "Kill as few patients as possible." It's hilarious. Written by an internist of a certain background that I am not allowed to mention. You might be able to figure it out (inside joke).
Anyway, back on track here.
As I was saying, back then, all I wanted was information. That is still true, actually. I'm always asking "what's next?" So I thought I'd lay out a little timeline for you and try to explain some of the things that happen along the way. If I leave anything out, or you have more questions, please feel free to mail me any questions you may have.
Step 1: Go to college
* All medical schools require at least SOME college credit. Gone are the days when you could just follow a doctor around for a few years, ask some questions and strike out on your own. There is actually an educational process involved now (supposedly). The requirement is at LEAST 90 hours, most prefer a degree of some sort. Ivy league-type schools require a bachelors, most others you can get away with less, so long as you've taken the required courses and present a good package. The particular college doesn't matter. Go to your state college if you'd like and save yourself some money.
* Speaking of required courses, what are they? Biology - 8 hours* Chemistry - 8 hours* Physics - 8 hours* Organic Chemistry - 8 hours* English - 6 hours Calculus/Statistics - 3 hours (* = lab required)
* As you can see, there isn't really that much actually required for medical school - some 41 hours. Nothing you couldn't comfortably finish in a year and a summer session if you put your mind to it. The problem comes when you start looking at getting a degree.. that is more of a time investment. Most schools no longer have a "Premed" major. Now you must major in something else, like business, philosophy, engineering, biology, music, or theatre - you name it, and there has been someone with that degree go to medical school . They even let lawyers into medical school - the really sado-masochistic ones.
Step 2: Talk to your Pre-medical advisor
* Hopefully you've chosen an undergraduate institution that has a pre-medical advisory committee. If not, choose again. Just kidding, you can do it without a committee. That's the way they did it before there were committees. Everything was probably much easier back then too - no bureaucratic red tape that always comes with committees. Yuck. red tape. So much less tasteful than blue or green tape. Anyways, somewhere near the beginning of your undergraduate career, you need to speak with someone on this committee. If you don't have one, talk with your major advisor about who usually performs this duty at your institution.
* What to talk about: At first, you just want to introduce yourself and find out what is available. Some schools have very established programs with meetings and informative sessions. They will bring in speakers from different schools to talk about admissions, medical school life, etc. Some schools will have next to nothing besides a person sitting in a office playing the voice of authority - much like the Wizard of Oz: You never see him/her, but you know he/she is there...
* As your undergraduate career advances, you will need to stay in close contact with the above-mentioned person. Talk with him/her frequently about how your classes are going, what you're experiencing, ask any new questions you may have. At the end of every year or so, sit down for a formal session and talk seriously about how you've done and what you need to do to be a competitive applicant. This is a pain in the butt, but very worthwhile. The better you know your pre-med advisor, the better off you are in the long-run. Why? 1)They are your school's authority on medical school admissions. Presumptively, this person is keeping up with all the latest trends in the field. 2)This person will likely be contributing to a letter that will be sent to all the schools to which you apply. Wouldn't you rather have a friend writing about you than some schmoe you just met last week? Yeah, I thought so.
Step 3: Volunteer
* Please, oh please, oh please, oh please do something besides take classes and go to frat parties. Medicine is a very serious undertaking. You need to know what you are getting yourself into - the educational process alone will take at LEAST 7 years after you graduate from college. Of course, the educational process never really ends, but that's another topic altogether.
* Talk to your doctor - can you shadow him/her?
* Go to the ER and talk to the physicians there - can you shadow one or more of them? Maybe you could get a job as a tech
* Take an EMT course - that is great experience and will open some doors to you as far as employment opportunities...
* Have you met any other physicians while doing any of the above? Can you talk with them or perhaps shadow them as well?
* If you don't get the point I'm trying to make here, you need to have some sort of idea of what medicine is before you ever dream of applying. You may shadow a half dozen physicians and decide it's not for you at all.. and right there you've saved yourself about $120,000 (at least). What a bargain for a couple saturdays a month, huh?
Step 4: Take the MCAT
* All the courses listed above are only to prepare you for your worst nightmare - the Medical College Admission Test, or for those of us who know it well - the MCAT.
* As has been stated oh so eloquenly elsewhere, the MCAT does not test anything in the least bit relevant to medicine. Basically, it is a barrier exam to keep those not-at-all capable out of medical school. Most schools use 24 as their lower limit, but it varies widely from school to school.
* In a word, the MCAT is horrible. I've seen nothing worse - until the COMLEX, that is. The MCAT is an 8 hour exam that you usually have to take in a town about 80 miles away from your own on one of your 2 days off during the week, so you waste the other day driving the 80 miles so you can be there at 0700 to register without having to get up and be in the car by 0500. Yeah, what a pain. All this just to see whether you should even bother to apply this season.
Step 5: Apply
* So, provided you've done everything in the first 4 steps and have completed all the requirements for your pre-medical committee, you're ready to apply to medical school. This has recently been made quite easy by the incorporation of all the applications into a centralized program - AAMCAS (for Allopathic schools), AACOMAS (for Osteopathic schools), or TMDSAS (for Texas Schools) - ok, well only pseudo-centralized.
* What they will want is all your information regarding your undergraduate education, extracurricular activities, organizations to which you belong, leadership positions you have held, and any volunteer/publications/etc... You'll fill out endless forms and write endless essays, but in the end, it's all worth it.
* Hopefully, you have an idea of where you would like to apply.
stay tuned.. next time we'll talk about interviews and acceptance.... or not. ¶ 8:55 PM
I remember when I was a premed - all 8 miserable years of it - all I wanted was information. I never could seem to get enough of it. I read as much as I could about medicine, medical school, medical students. Believe me, publishers bank on that and make a lot of money because of it. I bought several books about medicine - "First, Do No Harm," "The House of God," "Mount Misery" to name a few.. all of them very good books, by the way. Another good one is, "Kill as few patients as possible." It's hilarious. Written by an internist of a certain background that I am not allowed to mention. You might be able to figure it out (inside joke).
Anyway, back on track here.
As I was saying, back then, all I wanted was information. That is still true, actually. I'm always asking "what's next?" So I thought I'd lay out a little timeline for you and try to explain some of the things that happen along the way. If I leave anything out, or you have more questions, please feel free to mail me any questions you may have.
Step 1: Go to college
* All medical schools require at least SOME college credit. Gone are the days when you could just follow a doctor around for a few years, ask some questions and strike out on your own. There is actually an educational process involved now (supposedly). The requirement is at LEAST 90 hours, most prefer a degree of some sort. Ivy league-type schools require a bachelors, most others you can get away with less, so long as you've taken the required courses and present a good package. The particular college doesn't matter. Go to your state college if you'd like and save yourself some money.
* Speaking of required courses, what are they? Biology - 8 hours* Chemistry - 8 hours* Physics - 8 hours* Organic Chemistry - 8 hours* English - 6 hours Calculus/Statistics - 3 hours (* = lab required)
* As you can see, there isn't really that much actually required for medical school - some 41 hours. Nothing you couldn't comfortably finish in a year and a summer session if you put your mind to it. The problem comes when you start looking at getting a degree.. that is more of a time investment. Most schools no longer have a "Premed" major. Now you must major in something else, like business, philosophy, engineering, biology, music, or theatre - you name it, and there has been someone with that degree go to medical school . They even let lawyers into medical school - the really sado-masochistic ones.
Step 2: Talk to your Pre-medical advisor
* Hopefully you've chosen an undergraduate institution that has a pre-medical advisory committee. If not, choose again. Just kidding, you can do it without a committee. That's the way they did it before there were committees. Everything was probably much easier back then too - no bureaucratic red tape that always comes with committees. Yuck. red tape. So much less tasteful than blue or green tape. Anyways, somewhere near the beginning of your undergraduate career, you need to speak with someone on this committee. If you don't have one, talk with your major advisor about who usually performs this duty at your institution.
* What to talk about: At first, you just want to introduce yourself and find out what is available. Some schools have very established programs with meetings and informative sessions. They will bring in speakers from different schools to talk about admissions, medical school life, etc. Some schools will have next to nothing besides a person sitting in a office playing the voice of authority - much like the Wizard of Oz: You never see him/her, but you know he/she is there...
* As your undergraduate career advances, you will need to stay in close contact with the above-mentioned person. Talk with him/her frequently about how your classes are going, what you're experiencing, ask any new questions you may have. At the end of every year or so, sit down for a formal session and talk seriously about how you've done and what you need to do to be a competitive applicant. This is a pain in the butt, but very worthwhile. The better you know your pre-med advisor, the better off you are in the long-run. Why? 1)They are your school's authority on medical school admissions. Presumptively, this person is keeping up with all the latest trends in the field. 2)This person will likely be contributing to a letter that will be sent to all the schools to which you apply. Wouldn't you rather have a friend writing about you than some schmoe you just met last week? Yeah, I thought so.
Step 3: Volunteer
* Please, oh please, oh please, oh please do something besides take classes and go to frat parties. Medicine is a very serious undertaking. You need to know what you are getting yourself into - the educational process alone will take at LEAST 7 years after you graduate from college. Of course, the educational process never really ends, but that's another topic altogether.
* Talk to your doctor - can you shadow him/her?
* Go to the ER and talk to the physicians there - can you shadow one or more of them? Maybe you could get a job as a tech
* Take an EMT course - that is great experience and will open some doors to you as far as employment opportunities...
* Have you met any other physicians while doing any of the above? Can you talk with them or perhaps shadow them as well?
* If you don't get the point I'm trying to make here, you need to have some sort of idea of what medicine is before you ever dream of applying. You may shadow a half dozen physicians and decide it's not for you at all.. and right there you've saved yourself about $120,000 (at least). What a bargain for a couple saturdays a month, huh?
Step 4: Take the MCAT
* All the courses listed above are only to prepare you for your worst nightmare - the Medical College Admission Test, or for those of us who know it well - the MCAT.
* As has been stated oh so eloquenly elsewhere, the MCAT does not test anything in the least bit relevant to medicine. Basically, it is a barrier exam to keep those not-at-all capable out of medical school. Most schools use 24 as their lower limit, but it varies widely from school to school.
* In a word, the MCAT is horrible. I've seen nothing worse - until the COMLEX, that is. The MCAT is an 8 hour exam that you usually have to take in a town about 80 miles away from your own on one of your 2 days off during the week, so you waste the other day driving the 80 miles so you can be there at 0700 to register without having to get up and be in the car by 0500. Yeah, what a pain. All this just to see whether you should even bother to apply this season.
Step 5: Apply
* So, provided you've done everything in the first 4 steps and have completed all the requirements for your pre-medical committee, you're ready to apply to medical school. This has recently been made quite easy by the incorporation of all the applications into a centralized program - AAMCAS (for Allopathic schools), AACOMAS (for Osteopathic schools), or TMDSAS (for Texas Schools) - ok, well only pseudo-centralized.
* What they will want is all your information regarding your undergraduate education, extracurricular activities, organizations to which you belong, leadership positions you have held, and any volunteer/publications/etc... You'll fill out endless forms and write endless essays, but in the end, it's all worth it.
* Hopefully, you have an idea of where you would like to apply.
stay tuned.. next time we'll talk about interviews and acceptance.... or not. ¶ 8:55 PM
