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Session 32

We had a great response to Session 31 - 8 Pieces of Information Every Premed Should Know that we thought we would add follow up with medical school tips for this week.   These are the 7 things that we thought you should know entering medical school and as you go through med school to increase your chances of whatever residency you want, maximize your time and enjoy yourself.

Allison and I talk about 8 key pieces of information that every student going through the premed process, whether in high school or in college, should know.

Dr. Saguil now works at the 'Military Medical School,' located in Bethesda, MD, right outside of Washington, D.C. USUHS has been around since 1972 and has graduated 5000 physicians. It is an allopathic (MD) granting degree. USUHS is part of the AMCAS application which is used to apply to the majority (except for Texas) allopathic medical schools.   USUHS doesn't charge for applying! But that doesn't mean you should apply, just because it's free. You should truly have an interest/desire to be part of something bigger/something other than yourself.   1/3 of students have some prior association with the military, ROTC, Academy or prior active service.

Dr. Zubin Damania, a.k.a. ZDoggMD, is a hospitalist, healthcare visionary and internet personality. He was grateful enough to sit down and talk to me for a little while about his path to medicine, some of his struggles with his career and the exciting stuff he is doing with the Downtown Project in Las Vegas, NV.  Dr. Damania grew up in a dual physician household, and went into medicine just to "spite" his parents. He followed this path into medicine because he liked science, was good at taking tests and had an aptitude for taking tests - which he now says are not good reasons for going into medicine.  Dr. Damania talks about how he mostly saw the negative side of medicine as he grew up with parents as physicians, which he thinks helped in proving to the admissions committees that he truly knew medicine was what he wanted to do.  One of the most disturbing things Dr. Damania said near the beginning of the interview - that he actually liked the process of being premed, getting into medical school and going through it. Maybe we should call a psych consult for him?! He actually finished his undergrad at UC Berkeley in 3 years and found medicine a "nice change of pace." If only we could all see it that way!

In our interview today I talk to Dr. Mike McInnis, Chief Educator at Doctors in Training, a small company that focuses mainly on USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Exam) and COMLEX (Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination) board prep for the medical student. We talk in-depth about the USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 board exams.   One of the most important things about the USMLE Step 1 is that it one of the main determining factors in your residency application. Similar to a great MCAT score giving you an opportunity to go to the best medical schools, an excellent USMLE Step 1 score will give you many more opportunities when you are applying to residency. Think of the most competitive residency programs like the most competitive medical school. Typically the students that score the highest on the Step 1 will have the best opportunities to get into the best, most competitive residencies.

Liza Thompson started working with premed students 20 years ago. She has worked with directly with non-traditional medical students during that time with two different postbaccalaureate (postbac) programs at Goucher and Johns Hopkins. She now runs an advising company for medical school applicants and postbac applicants called Thompson Advising.   We've covered some non-traditional student stuff before. If you haven't seen those posts and podcasts, check out the links in the main article.   We talk exactly about what a postbac program is, the different types of post-bac programs and some tips on selecting one. We also discuss do-it-yourself (DIY) postbac programs.

Session 26 is a great interview with Patrick and Jonathan, two 3rd year DO (Osteopathic) Medical Students at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine. They wrote A Brief Guide to Osteopathic Medicine which is published on AACOM.

 

They thought there was a gap in the understanding of what osteopathic medical school is and they wanted to fill that gap.

 

We talked about what their friends and families reactions were when they were admitted to an osteopathic medical school. An initial reaction that Jonathan's family had was for him to wait or go to medical school overseas.

 

We also got into a discussion about the recent post that I wrote about if we even needed a DO degree. Patrick respectfully disagreed with my argument that osteopathic physicians should stick to primary care so they can practice OMT.

 

The biggest thing we talked about was this amazingly helpful guide that they wrote. One of my favorite parts was the 6 Myths of Osteopathic Medical School.

With medical school winding down for 4th year medical students, and the thought of being THE doctor on the wards looming large in most minds, we thought we would put together a list of the top 5 keys to being a successful intern.   If you have any other thoughts on what it takes to be a successful intern, let us know in the comment section below!