Q&A with Med Mentor Michael Le - August 19, 2020UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine MS2 student Michael Le joins us for a laid back Q&A Session!
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"Things to do: Protect gpa, everything else comes later. Do some form of research for a bit, even if it's just to figure out you don't like it. From the beginning think about what you want your story to be for med school - do you want it to be research focused? teaching? underserved communities? Also, save up money to apply, figure out things you like to do outside of medicine, and HAVE A BACKUP FOR NOT GETTING INTO MEDICAL SCHOOL CAREER WISE Things to NOT do: Overload freshman fall semester and tank your gpa, tell people you're pre-med, be hypercompetitive, focus only on medicine, apply Caribbean (Extremely high risk. Their business model these schools are for-profit depends on washing out a huge % of their class, leaving people on the hook for big loans they have no chance of paying back. Even if you make it through, you're now an international medical graduate at a significant disadvantage when trying to match for residency.)" - Anonymous MS2 Student When going into med school and realizing you aren't doing as well as you hoped, recognize that: 1) Your competition has changed. This is no longer college. You’re in a much higher tier of academics, competing against an intelligent group of people. In college you may have been in the top 10%, but you must realize that your medical school is made up entirely of that top 10-20%, so naturally you may not stay in the top 10%. One of the most important things to do in medical school, and one of the hardest, is to not compare yourself to other students. You have no idea about their background, their interests, or how much they actually study (many students lie about this!), so you have no way to accurately measure yourself compared to them. 2) You’re not studying efficiently. In medical school, you will often find that studying more does not mean studying better. Each course requires a slightly different method of studying, and you’ll have to figure that out as you go along. For example, Biochemistry involves a lot of rote memorization. If you try and get by in Physiology with rote memorization alone, you will fail. The courses at the beginning of M1 are usually much easier so that you can start to learn how to study. 3) You’re just an average medical student. Don’t worry about it! M1 and M2 performance does not always correlate with how good of a physician you are. Some students do poorly in M1 and M2 and then crush Step 1. Some students do poorly in M1 and M2 and then do incredibly well in M3 and M4. 4) You haven’t adapted yet to the long hours of studying. Studying requires endurance, and it needs to be built up. You cannot magically go from studying 4 hours per day to studying 10 hours per day. Try tools like TimeCycler and apps like SelfControl to help keep you in line while studying. Make sure you schedule breaks and that you take them. Study when it’s study time and relax when it’s break time. 25 minutes on and 5 minutes off, or 50 minutes on and 10 minutes off tend to be the most popular times for studying and taking a break (respectively). 5) Other problems include things like not spending enough time understanding the concepts, not spending enough time memorizing important details, etc. Mnemonics are very helpful in medical school, but should not be used as often as humanly possible. For most topics, try understanding concepts and committing things to memory first before making up crazy mnemonics. Pharmacology and Biochemistry probably have the largest amount of mnemonics out there. ""Please, for the love of god, go to office hours and form relationships with your science professors, even if you don't really need extra help in the class. You need to have at least 2, sometimes 3, letters of recommendation from science professors! I didn't decide on medical school until the end of my junior year, and that really screwed me over in terms of letters. Get those letters locked down early! |
"Don’t apply to any school that you wouldn’t be happy attending. Make sure to make an educated decision via MSAR and their admission websites, consult current students if possible. Check out the town that your school(s) is/are located in before making a final decision (if you’re fortunate enough to have multiple A’s). Go and check out housing units in person before you sign a lease. Pictures can be very deceiving. Once you’re accepted, take time to relax, do stuff you love, see family/friends, try to get new skills to take with you to med school (cooking, working out, meal prep, learn Anki via YouTube videos and messing with the app). Interviews aren’t as scary as they seem. The interviewers want to see you succeed and aren’t out to get you (at least from my experience last cycle). Take care of yourself. Don’t skip out on stuff you like to do in place of additional studying/prep/app writing. I stopped working out for about 2 months while studying for the MCAT and it wrecked my stress relief and I gained some lbs. The 60-90 minutes I “saved” each day by not working out (including time to drive and change clothes) was not worth it in the long run." - Anonymous MD "Develop those interview skills early. Of course they help with med school interviews, but they'll come in handy when applying to research labs, finding jobs, getting positions, or just making connections in general. Plus it's one of those skills that will come in handy in almost any profession you end up choosing. This is especially true for us folks who are not natural interviewers. Stats and ECs open doors, but it's up to those interview skills that help you step through." - OMS-1 "I wish I knew that medical school requires consciously scheduling/making time for things, people and hobbies you love. I’ve had to be very mindful to prioritize self-care, as it can easily slide amidst the buttload of work and hectic schedule" - M-4 Student "Do it once and do it well:
"Geographical bias is real, apply heavily close to where you are living. Take an upper-level biology course if you can, some schools even require them (UC Irvine, looking at you). Make sure you have sociology/psychology something-or-other on your transcript, especially for DO schools. Pursue your hobbies with intensity and make it part of your brand Apply DO. Apply DO. Apply DO. At least a couple. Apply to at least 50% 'realistic' schools for your scores and background. When it comes to secondary applications, if you don't qualify for fee assistance at AMCAS, but are hard-up for cash, just explain your circumstances and ask the programs if they could waive the secondary fees. Many will." - OMS-2 "I wish I knew how expensive it is. I'm not even talking about tuition." |