Session 175

In today’s episode, Ryan co-hosts the show with Allison, as they talk about the things they wished they would have learned in medical school, about being a physician and taking care of patients that most medical schools don’t cover, for reasons that four years are not enough to cover everything and that some of these topics can’t be taught and have to be learned through experience. Let’s dive into the discussion.

9 Things We Wished Medical School Taught Us:

1. Nutrition

• It’s a big failure that nutrition is not being taught in school
• Cardiovascular diseases are the number one killers and diet plays a huge factor
• There are all these diets out there but there are no sufficient data available.

2. How to be a doctor

• Medical school doesn’t really train you to become a doctor, residency does.
• The first two years are focused on body and illnesses; 3rd and 4th year spent on the wards
• Yes, you will learn things like diagnosis, patient care, assessment and a plan, and working in a team, but your first day as an intern is a very different experience than when you’re on the ward as a medical student.
• A huge variability in 4th year across the country. A wrong time to explore that being an elective time.

3. How to properly code

• You’re being paid as a physician for coding
• Getting exposed to coding outpatient
• Learning how to circle codes is very, very important

4. Pronouncing a patient dead

• Allison got to pronounce someone dead during her first week as intern
• Pronouncing a person’s death is always a poignant experience

5. Value-based care

• Understanding that everything you do has a dollar amount
• Medicare rewarding physicians who are saving money

6. How to manage sleep deprivation

• Learning how to best take care of yourself physically
• Running the risk of being sick, depressed, and even suicidal
• Being sleep-deprived for having a baby is a totally different thing!
• Giving people tools and ways of learning how to manage that

7. Healthcare policy

• Understanding how things work in our government
• How Medicare laws get passed
• Understanding your place in the whole system

8. Quality improvement

• Learning how to always try to make things better and increase efficiency

9. Patient safety

Some pieces of advice for premed students:

Be informed as early and as often as you can be.

Links and Other Resources:

Do you need help with your interviews? Go to medicalschoolhq.net/mockinterview and Ryan can help you prepare for it where he will take you through the interview process.

For more great content, check out www.mededmedia.com for more of the shows produced by the Medical School Headquarters including the OldPremeds Podcast and watch out for more shows in the future!

If you need any help with the medical school interview, go to medschoolinterviewbook.com. Sign up and you will receive parts of the book so you can help shape the future of the book. This book will include over 500 questions that may be asked during interview day as well as real-life questions, answers, and feedback from all of the mock interviews Ryan has been doing with students.

Are you a nontraditional student? Go check out oldpremeds.org.

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Hang out with us over at medicalschoolhq.net/group. Click join and we’ll add you up to our private Facebook group. Share your successes and miseries with the rest of us.

Check out our partner magazine, www.premedlife.com to learn more about awesome premed information.

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Email Ryan at ryan@medicalschoolhq.net or connect with him on Twitter @medicalschoolhq

Tweet Allison @allison_mshq or send her an email at allison@medicalschoolhq.net.