Tag: Pre-Med

Survey Says! 1/3 of Penn Alums Entering Medical School Wish…

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Pre-health students — it has arrived!  Feedback from our survey of Penn alums who started medical school in 2010 is here and available for your reading pleasure in the Career Services library and in the pre-health advising waiting area (aka, the places where we keep “the stats”).  Here are some of the questions we posed to alumni:

  • What do you wish you had known before starting the application process?
  • Are there any specific courses you wish you had taken before starting medical school?
  • What pre-medical experiences best prepared you for medical school?
  • If you took time between undergrad and medical school, what did you do?

In addition to answering these questions, alumni generously provided detailed comments on about 36 individual medical schools with multiple responses for many schools (particularly Penn Med and Jefferson).

To warm up before reading the survey, get ready to hit the buzzer.  Here is the question (insert dramatic silence):  What do Penn alums, enrolled in their first year of medical school, wish they had known before they applied?  Survey says!  BING!  TO APPLY EARLY!  One third of those who returned the survey said they wish they had known to apply early.  And so I say to you, “Apply early!  It’s important!”   Some other popular responses were:  I wish I had known — applying to medical school is expensive…how important it is to know why you want to be a doctor…that medical school is very difficult…more about the curricula at different medical schools….

Alumni are always a great resource, those wise old Quakers!  There’s a great deal of helpful information in the survey from many different voices and we appreciate our alums taking the time to share their experience and insight with us.  Also, if you wish to connect with an alum, don’t forget the Penn Alumni Career Network, known as PACNet!

Professionalism and the Pre-health Student: Beyond “Please” and “Thank you.”

by Carol Hagen

We talk a lot about “professionalism” at Career Services and, on the whole, people seem to listen.  The email I receive is invariably gracious and thoughtful and I routinely conduct mock interviews with well tailored and poised applicants.  But what about outside the boundaries of “sincerely” and a clean white shirt?  The qualities of professionalism beyond the reach of Emily Post are also important, particularly for pre-health students.

"I'm a professional." http://my.aegean.gr/gallery

While working or volunteering in a clinical environment or research setting, it is vital that you conduct yourself in a professional manner.  Lapses in professionalism make a strong impression on faculty and staff, not only in terms of your personal relationship with supervisors and colleagues, but in maintaining clinical and research opportunities for other pre-health students. How eager is Professor X going to be to offer a lab position to an undergraduate after two people have quit when mid-terms came up?  Does the hospital need to give access to volunteers who bring their friends along with them to a shift or disregard other rules, all of them important?

Know that health professions schools take professionalism amongst their students very seriously.  Students are routinely written up by faculty when areas of concern emerge and studies have shown that medical students who demonstrate unprofessional behavior are more likely to receive disciplinary action from state medical boards down the road.  Unite for Sight has a super (and free) online guide to volunteer ethics and professionalism — read it!  Here are some important points to keep in mind:

  • Consider in advance whether the opportunity is a good fit.  It’s unfortunate when volunteers do not fulfill their commitment to serve because they find their time unsatisfying.
  • Show up on time, be polite, and ask questions when uncertain.  Follow all rules and procedures.
  • Be humble and open to all opportunities to learn.
  • Respect boundaries and your work environment.  Patients are not friends.  Flip-flops, for example, (and I do love them) are not appropriate or safe in the hospital or lab.
  • If you make a mistake, tell somebody.  It won’t be easy, but communicating errors is seen as a sign of maturity and professionalism.

Access to a professional research or clinical environment is a privilege.  Maintaining a positive attitude and open communication with your supervisors will help you make the most of your opportunity and ensure that others will do so in the future.

Clinical Exposure: The Unwritten Requirement for Health Professions Applicants

Health professions schools expect applicants to have had some exposure to clinical situations before applying. I often advise applicants not to expect interviews or offers of admission without it. Why!? Because it isn’t hard enough to meet the official requirements? And what is clinical exposure? What are schools looking for and how much is enough?

Reading about dentistry on the outside of the dental school isn't clinical exposure for this Penn pre-dental gargoyle. http://www.philart.net

For starters, this pre-health advisor sympathizes with the puzzlement over the term “clinical exposure.” I don’t care for it much and it always makes me think of those paper dressing gowns at the doctor’s office. If you come to Career Services for an advising appointment (and we hope you do), you are likely to hear someone use an elegant description like, “getting around sick people and doctors.” Working in a lab is not clinical exposure.  Even if the lab is at the hospital.  Even if someone in your lab is sick.  Clinical research might be clinical exposure.  If you are reviewing patient charts (which is a fine research opportunity, by the way), then no. Administering tests to subjects or recruiting subjects in the ER, then yes.  Examples of ways to obtain clinical exposure include volunteering or working as a: hospital volunteer in a patient area, EMT, hospice volunteer, clinical researcher interacting with patients/subjects, or volunteer in a rehabilitation or mental health care facility. Shadowing a physician, yes; however, while shadowing is great, few applicants gain many hours shadowing and taking a more active role as an employee or volunteer is recommended in addition to shadowing. Volunteering in high school?  Super, but you will want more recent experiences to put on your application. Eating a cheeseburger at the hospital cafeteria…no. Measuring your roommate’s gum recession…no. Dating a third-year med student…nice, but no.

So, why do schools expect this? What is the best thing to do and how much clinical exposure should you have? Health professions schools invest a great deal in their students’ training and they want people who are committed and have a very good idea of what lies ahead. They want applicants who are thinking beyond “getting in” and have considered their motivations, abilities, and general “fit” for the field. By spending time around patients, you demonstrate your curiosity about the field and, hopefully, gain a sense of the real rewards and challenges of working in health care. Most likely, either you will confirm your interest in the field and gain insight into the aspects you like the most or you may find that health care is not for you. Certainly, there are people who, through their clinical volunteering, considered alternatives to a medical or dental degree and are now happily working both in and out of health care.

As for how much, I am not sure you can have too much clinical exposure and it’s a good idea to think about it early — not as you are filling out your application. It takes some time to arrange clinical opportunities. Every applicant is different and some people will have years of clinical exposure and some will have months and they may end up as classmates at the same graduate school. Truly, I think the best clinical exposure is one that reflects your interests and where you made the most of your opportunity to help others and learn about the field. Whether you are asking patients to step on a scale, restocking bandages, or administering a questionnaire to a study participant, you will want to take in everything going on around you and reflect upon what you do and see. Your level of mental and emotional engagement will contribute to your thinking about your career. Also, the more you take in, the more you can share in your application essay or interview in a truly personal and reflective way.  So, expose yourself!  (In a legal, professional, and medically relevant manner.)

411: Rural Medicine

You probably know that rural medicine isn’t all tomahawk lacerations and rabies cases unless you’ve viewed too many episodes of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman (DQMW to fans), but you may wonder why you should think about it.  After all, many of you came to Penn to be in a big city and plan to stay in one.  But consider the following points:

  • You may have the option to do a clinical rotation in a rural area during medical or dental school.
  • You may speak too generally about the “projected physician shortage” and “underserved areas” in a medical school interview, revealing your lack of knowledge about current issues in the field.
  • You might apply to one or more rural medicine programs thinking, “Well, I wouldn’t mind living in the country (and the mean GPA looks promising)” — a less than compelling reason to apply.
  • Rural practice might be for you.  Dr. Quinn went to medical school in Philadelphia, but the frontier offered better opportunities.  Okay, she isn’t real (just real cool with her old-timey stethoscope); however, some people change their career plans after trying a rural rotation or residency.  And some of you may be interested in rural medicine programs, but should learn more about them before putting them on your application.

The AAMC’s January 2010 edition of Choices: The Careers in Medicine newsletter has a detailed profile of the field, from day-to-day life on the job to opportunities to train in a rural area in medical school.  Another excellent resource is the National Rural Health Association.

The Frontier Nursing Service’s Courier Program offers a clinical volunteering opportunity to spend six to twelve weeks in an eastern Kentucky community.  You can also find the program on Facebook and read blog entries written by a volunteer from Dartmouth.  Some Penn students have made their own arrangements to volunteer at rural hospitals and clinics close to home or near a relative.

Currently, the U.S. federal government’s National Health Service Corps offers up to $145k in medical school loan repayment in exchange for five years of service providing health care in an underserved area (not exclusively rural) and 50k for two years of service.  On Facebook?  You bet!

Sadly, the Bring-Back-Dr.-Quinn-Medicine-Woman movement on Facebook has burned itself out — choked on its own fervor — and will leave Facebook on October 1, but don’t let that stop you from checking out some of the links above!

Don’t…Don’t…Don’t Believe the Pre-health Hype

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I’m sitting in my office listening to a student and, after a brief pause,  am asked, “Um…I heard…are you applying to medical school this year?”  My response, as I recall, was something along the lines of, “[sputter, sputter, pick eyeballs up off floor] Who ME?  NO!  Good heavens, NO!”  The student, looking relieved and reassured, mentioned, “Well, I heard that…it didn’t seem right.”

Later in the afternoon, it occurred to me why someone may have thought I was making a major career change.  We had used my name as a “Jane Doe”-type place marker in a sample AMCAS application during a workshop.  I think a joke was even made at the time about my “application.”  But at least one person didn’t see the humor, which is perhaps understandable at the end of a busy semester.  It called to mind, though, the many times I’ve clarified other pre-health “rumors” in my office (as well as memories of hype man Flavor Flav, c. 1988).  For example:

“I heard you can go to medical school without taking science courses.”

“I heard that Penn Med doesn’t like to accept Penn students.”

“I heard you have to take the MCAT right after your sophomore year.”

“I heard that admissions is really only about your MCAT and grades.”

Admission to graduate school in the health professions is so competitive and the process so fraught with uncertainty, detailed information, and waiting, that it’s natural for people to talk.  To commiserate.  To worry.  To, er, suspend disbelief.

Gathering information is a vital part of pursuing a career in the health professions and going through the application process with confidence.  Be mindful, however, of the source of your information and consider whether it can be checked against another or more reliable source.   An internet forum for applicants can be a source of support and insight, but it can also be a breeding ground for false statements.  A family friend’s thoughts about admissions can be invaluable or, possibly, a little out of date.  A story about someone who surprisingly had ten interviews, or none at all, might say little about admissions in general or your particular application.  In fact, it may not be true.

Whether you’re starting out on your pre-health path or waiting for those secondary applications to arrive this summer, keep in mind that if something doesn’t sound right, it may not be correct.  Check your information.  Of course, your pre-health advisers are happy to point you to resources or share their perspective on those questions that don’t always have a right or wrong answer.  That is, if we aren’t busy filling out our own secondaries (don’t you believe it!).