college major for med school

<p>So im starting in community college this august (this will be my first year of college) and transferring into a 4 year college then applying to medical for sugery, my question is other than maintain a high GPA what should do to better my chances of getting into a really good med school, my top choices are duke medical aschool or johnshopkins, both have really good sugery programs, my top specialties are !. neurosugery 2. plastic sugery 3. trama sugery. I would really like some good advice on the path I should take from college to med school any advice is welcome. Thank You </p>

<p>1) While it’s wonderful to aim high, please realize that gaining an acceptance at any US med school is an achievement. Every year 60% of all applicants are rejected at every single school they apply to. You also need to know that unlike undergrad education, med education is pretty flat–meaning there is very little difference in program quality. All US med schools teach the same exact curriculum and all the students take the same exact national standardized exams. When it comes to being eligible for competitive residencies (like plastics, neuro surg and trauma), it’s what you’ve achieved in med school (grades, research, clinical honors, recommendations) and your national exam grades that are important–not where you got your medical degree.</p>

<p>2) You’re getting way, way, way ahead of yourself in picking out specialties already. Until you’ve completed your clinical rotations during med school, you have no idea if you’ll want to be a surgeon or if you’ll eligible to be a surgeon. Neuro surg and plastics are among the most competitive specialties there are and only the top 3% of med students nationally qualify for them. Trauma is a subspecialty of surgery–this means you need to complete a 5 year general surgery residency first then apply for a 2 year fellowship in complex surgical procedures. </p>

<p>So here’s my advice (and I have 2 kiddos in med school, one of whom just finished a 5 week trauma surgery sub-I)</p>

<p>— get as many A grades as possible in all of your classes. It’s especially important to get As in your science and math classes.</p>

<p>— get involved in a community service. You should ideally have a long-term involvement with at least one program.</p>

<p>— find some physicians who are willing to let you shadow them and do so. Try to shadow several different specialties and in a variety settings. (Private practice, academic hospital, large group practice, public health clinic, rehab hospital, etc)</p>

<p>— start volunteering in settings where you will come into contact with patients. This can be a hospital, stand alone clinic (like Planned Parenthood or Healthcare for the Homeless), a rehab hospital, a nursing home, a group home for individuals with disabilities, EMT/ambulance service.</p>

<p>— get involved with clinical or basic lab science research.</p>

<p>— work/volunteer as TA or tutor if you have the opportunity to do so. </p>

<p>— take on leadership roles within your activities</p>

<p>— develop interests/hobbies outside of medicine/science. (Admission committee don’t want science drones–they want real people with a variety of interests.)</p>

<p>— work on your communications skills. This includes interpersonal “people” skills, as well as speaking and writing. </p>

<p>thank you so much my focus right now is getting A’s and kepping my gpa high, and focus on getting into med school</p>

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<p>You do not apply “for surgery” for med school. Everyone learns the same thing in med school. You just apply to med school. </p>

<p>You would apply for specialties later…and who knows where you would get matched at. </p>

<p>And…all US MD schools are “really good”. </p>

<p>I’m also thinking for going for neurosurgery I know I am way early, even more than who started the post, and that I can change my mind… but I was thinking about what should be the major better to aim at if i want to go to med school, to be a neurosurgeon…? Any advice in what major I should take?</p>

<p>@nrub98‌ I would major in anything that you enjoy. You will take pre-med requirements in college that cover everything you’ll need to know for med school and for the MCAT. Nowadays, there really isn’t a specific major you need to do. There are people who major in social sciences and arts like psych, sociology, history, English, music, art, etc. and still get into med school. Really, it’s most important to major in something you truly enjoy and have a passion for, whether that be a hard science or something on the humanities side. Keep in mind that the MCAT is changing to facilitate social sciences though, so it wouldn’t hurt to take some classes like psych. As others have said, you don’t need to worry about specialities yet. It’s great that you want to be a neurosurgeon, but I wouldn’t worry about that until you are in medical school.</p>

<p>@bamboo17‌ thank you very much.</p>

<p>Forget planning for specialty as of now, way way too early.
More so, “plastic sugery” - is the MOST selective specialty, period. Nobody, no Medical student can plan on it until they have a Step 1 score in their hands and that Board exam is usually taken after 2nd year at Med. School. So, relax and focus on tasks at hand. I am not sure about your reasons for going to CC. If the reasoan is financial, the CC route by far not even close to being the cheapest. You may have other reasons though. The best, cheapest and shortest way is to attend the 4 year UG on good Merit award. There are plenty of UGs both public and private that offer a great package, including close to full tuition (for ALL 4 years) to a top caliber HS student. If you are pursuing pre-med, I assume that you are one in this group. </p>

<p>I don’t know where you’re getting the idea that no medical student can plan for plastic surgery. One can certainly plan to do well on step1, do a lot of related research as a medical student, and aim for plastic surgery. You don’t need to get a 245 before deciding that you want to do X specialty. As long as you put in hard work and aren’t a complete idiot, any specialty is possible.</p>

<p>“One can certainly plan to do well on step1, do a lot of related research as a medical student,”
-EVERYBODY plan to do well on Step 1, no exceptions.
NOBODY has an opportunity to do a LOT or research as a regular medical student. To accomplish that, you either take a gap year, be in very few 5 years Medical Schools (I know only one) or be in MD/PhD (are you up to spending 8 years more in school in a program that is harder to get into than MD program?)
You are correct, “You don’t need to get a 245 before deciding that you want to do X specialty”, if you want to get into plastics, you need HIGHER than 245, 245 most likely will not do it for either plastics or derm, 245 might be close to average at some schools.</p>

<p>“I don’t know where you’re getting the idea that no medical student can plan for plastic surgery. One can certainly plan to do well on step1, …plastic surgery. You don’t need to get a 245 before deciding that you want to do X specialty. As long as you put in hard work and aren’t a complete idiot, any specialty is possible.</p>

<p>“One can certainly plan to do well on step1” is the same as how all premed students “plan” on going to med school. Of those countless students who actually get to where they submit a med school app, just under 60% of those do not get accepted anywhere. So much for planning/hard work. Planning/working hard to get a Step 1 over 245 is one thing, but like applying to med school, planning/working hard does not actually equal getting a score above 245, or better than approx. 85% of all med students who as a group tend not to be idiots (complete or otherwise). </p>

<p>It’s really smart to plan ahead but sometimes the best plans go awry as reality tends to get in the way which is why it’s somewhat useless for a college student to be zeroed in on any particular specialty.</p>

<p>^^Its like a lot of kids “plan” to be the president of the United States or become Bill Gates… How many are successful or even close to is the question. Plastic surgeon is lot easier but before you get there, its just a target.</p>

<p>It seems plastic surgeon is hot world wide. Just came back visiting Asia, the friends over there were complaining that their son went through the training of a plastic surgeon and could not open his own practice because limited business licenses.</p>

<p>Teh only reasonable plan for anybody who starts college or anything in theri lives is to plan to do their best and nothing short of it. However, it assumes that everything that is gong on in you life concurrently with your plan at getting As in your classes, everything should also be taken care at your very best. This includes, but not limited, to your job (most pre-meds work), your internship, your friendship, your social life, your family relations, your volunteering, your many other interests that you do not want to neglect, not in UG, because later you will have to neglect them, if you make it to Med. School, you will not have a choice. So, let’s be reasonable and plan resonably. And planning to be accepted at plastics residency is NOT a resaonable goal for somebody who just staring college. Take care of your goals at your current stage in life, otherwise NOTHING will work out, I can wholeheartedly guarrantee you that, nothing at all. Yep, got to take those baby steps before run track at Olympics, there is no other way and comparison is very valid, although it may be less plastic surgeons out there than Olympians. </p>

<p>Plenty of people match into plastics even without a 245. If there’s an average, that means there are people below the average. I know a few people who matched into plastic that had sub 245 scores. You talk as if you are an expert on residency matching. Are you a PD? Are you a resident? Are you even a medical student? Your daughter going to medical school does not make you an expert on this subject. 13,460 posts in and you still live vicariously through her life- saddening.</p>

<p>rainbowbrite</p>

<p>The OP, a newly starting college student at a community college, posted a question asking for any advice regarding his future plans to go to med school and post med school. The responses he got seemed to recommend focusing on the now (getting into med school) and tended to recommend planning for post med school later. You saw nothing wrong with planning for the future now and initially proffered your opinion. Nothing wrong with offering differing opinions. The posts then seemed to trend back to the idea of the need to plan for now v post med school.</p>

<p>Then you posted again your opinion again. To clarify what an expert is: one can be qualified as an expert by their knowledge, skill, experience, training or formal education. You don’t need to be a MD, a PD, a resident, or a med student to offer their opinion in this area. Whether to take or leave someone’s opinion would be for OP to decide. I would however argue that someone with 13k posts might qualify as an expert in this area. The other part of your second post was an unprovoked, unwarranted personal attack on someone trying to answer OP’s question. I don’t tend to see these attacks often in this forum. I do see them regularly on SDN. The wording of your last opinion reads like someone who was recently banned from SDN for launching similar unprovoked, unwarranted attacks on people who disagreed with him and was labelled a ■■■■■. Are you this ■■■■■ just posting here?</p>

<p>rainbow,
attacking others here is NOT the pupose of CC at all. the purpose is to share our experiences and mine is saying that 245 is not enough for plastcs or derm, yours is saying that it is enough. Are you always attcke everybody who happen to have a different experience, that is interesting approach in life. Yes, D’s life is a very important in my life but so is her brother’s and my grandkids and my full time job and my H. and many of my hobbies. Soory to dissapoint, but she is not the only thing in my life. I also apologise wholeheartedly for making you sad, the goal of my life is to make everybody around me happy, not sad.</p>

<p>Luckily, when it comes to matching statistics, you don’t need to be much of an expert - a lot of the data is available: <a href=“http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/chartingoutcomes2011.pdf”>http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/chartingoutcomes2011.pdf&lt;/a&gt; For plastics, start at page 230/268 (as adobe numbers them)</p>

<p>The mean step 1 score of the 74 students who matched into plastics is 249. There were 15 people who matched with a score below 240, in contrast to the 48 students with scores below 240 who didn’t match.
46% of them are AOA (the medical student honors society - think PBK for med school) In other words, roughly half of plastic surgery residents come from the top 10-15% of medical students.
53% come from the top 40 medical schools (in terms of NIH funding)
The average number of pubs, abstracts, and posters is 8
12.5% have an advanced degree other than an MD (e.g. PhD, MS)</p>

<p>So feel free to plan on it, but absolutely don’t bank on it. Have college friend of mine who is currently a vascular surgery resident at one of the big 4 hospitals in NYC after failing to match into plastics. He came into med school knowing he wanted to be “some sort of surgeon,” busted his ass for Step 1, got a score that allowed him to throw his hat in the ring, then gave up literally everything else in his life except the gym and his rotations to try and get as many honors as possible. Somehow managed to set up a monthly tennis game with his plastics PD, and then sure enough - still doesn’t match to ANY plastics program in the country (and as you can see from charting outcomes, the average plastic surgery applicant applies to two specialties so they have a backup. To have a combined gen surg residency/vascular surgery fellowship program as your backup shows the caliber of student he was).</p>

<p>MountSinai- If you want to look at it that way, then nobody should “plan” to go to medical school because the chance of acceptance is around 50%.</p>

<p>The only way anyone can be a plastic surgeon is if they PLAN on it from the get go. You’d have to have tons of research/connections with plastics residents. You arent going to get in WITHOUT planning. That said, having a plan doesn’t mean you wont fail. Sucks for your friend, though.</p>

<p>“the medical student honors society - think PBK for med school”
Thank you, I’m well aware of what AOA is.</p>