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Interview with a 56-Year-Old Medical Student

In Session 11 I talk to Kate. She recently turned 56-years-old, and is a 3rd year medical student at West Virginia School of Medicine. AMAZING! You can read a profile that she wrote for us already here.

 

Kate shares with us her story of switching from a biology major, focusing on premed, to nursing and how at age 50, she got the itch to go back to school to become a physician. One of the decisions that helped her make the decision to switch to nursing was the cut-throat culture of the premed (I'm hoping to change that here!).

10 Books Every Premed Should Read (While Not Studying!)

Below is a subjective list of the 10 books every pre med student should read (or anybody for that matter) prior to going to medical school. The list covers everything from attendings, residents, interns and even medical student stories.   If you have a book that you read that you think should be added to the list, leave a comment below.

2014 MCAT Dates

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the organization that administers the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) has not yet released the 2014 MCAT Test dates.   The 2013 MCAT Test dates were released at the beginning of October, and I would expect something similar again. So keep checking back here, and we'll update this as soon the test dates are available.

Interview with Columbia Postbac Premed Program

Session 10 of The Premed Years brings you what I hope is the start to many expert interviews involving deans of medical schools and deans of postbac programs.

These experts are the reason I started the podcast. These are the people that have the most up-to-date information, the most unbiased information when it comes to helping YOU on your path to becoming a physician.

For Session 10 I interviewed Dr. Victoria Rosner. She is the Associate Dean and GS Coordinator of Academic Affairs at Columbia's Postbac Premed Program.

Interview with WhiteCoatDO.com Publisher Ryan

Ryan is an MS1 (1st year medical student) and is at Western University College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific. He blogs at WhiteCoatDO.com and his old website is PracticalPremed.com. He studied microbiology at UC Santa Barbara and shares how his undergrad classes has helped him in medical school.

Ryan talks about the transition from undergrad to medical school and how he’s studying 8 hours a day. He had heard from others about how much there was to study, but he never believed it. Now he’s living it! We have a brief discussion about some recent news about some medical schools offering 3 year medical school curriculum.

Interview with Non-Traditional Pre Med Torray

Session 8 of The Premed Years brings another great story from a non-traditional pre med student. Our first non-traditional interview was with Russell during Session 6. If you are still unsure about what a non-traditional student is, check out our interview with Rich from OldPreMeds.org during Session 5. Like Russell, Torray has been teaching for the last decade as an English teacher. He talks to us about how some poor pre med advising during his undergraduate career led him AWAY from medicine. Then some health problems, as often the case is, lead him to rethink his career path.

Reader Profile: KH (55 year old MS3!)

If you're interested in contributing to this series, then drop me an email. The series can be a very valuable source for readers and I need a steady stream of new ones to keep it going.   Next in the series is MedicalSchoolHQ reader KH. She answered my questions (in red below) as follows:  

Please tell us a bit about yourself (include where you are in your path to becoming a physician).

I'm someone who has always been interested in medicine. As an undergrad, I majored in biology/pre-med initially. When my GPA was about 3.25, I thought that was hopeless for medical school, and I transferred after my junior year into the junior year of a bachelor's degree nursing program. So after 5 years, had a BSN degree (with SOME of the premed prerequisites). Worked as a nurse, mostly ICU/Cardiac Surgery ICU for 13 years then went to graduate school to become a certified nurse-midwife (I'd gotten certified as a childbirth educator some years before while having my own children so there was SOME tie-in). Worked with a family practice doctor in rural Tennessee at a National Health Service Corps site (they had paid for my MSN in nurse-midwifery). Then moved back to my home state where practicing as a midwife was difficult at the time. Ended up teaching nursing for about 7 years before deciding to go to medical school. Now I'm a 3rd year medical student, at 55 years old.
10 Traits You Need to Succeed in Medical School

10 Traits You Need to Succeed in Medical School

The Premed Years has reached 7 episodes! In this podcast I have a special guest co-host, my wife, Allison Gray. As of the publishing of this podcast, she is a Senior Neurology Resident in her last year of residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. You can read more about her in our About page.   We received a very personal email from a reader describing her own struggles and her dream of becoming a physician; she also asked some important questions, and we wanted to answer her question and make our answer available to everyone, so we did a podcast about it.

New Class of 2012 AAMC Data is Available

One of the biggest complaints that I have when I browse around the web looking at pre med advice is that there is a lack of TRUE data, a lack of REAL statistics in the advice being given.   Every year the AAMC, the main body behind allopathic medical schools, puts out amazing data showing the breakdown of applicants and matriculants to M.D. medical schools.

Interview with Non-Traditional Pre Med Russell

In the 6th installment of The Premed Years I had a great conversation with Russell. He is a non-traditional student, 35-years-old and a schoolteacher with a wife and 3 children. He decided to pursue a career in medicine late in life and is now accepted to Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine! We discussed the path to music that Russell originally took in life and some of the struggles he had when looking for information and connections in the medical field. Russell shared his experience building a DIY Post-bac program without really knowing what a Post-bac program is. We also talk a lot about Russells experience during the interview process at both D.O. and M.D. schools and he shares why he thinks D.O. schools are more open to the non-traditional student.