<p>Just so everyone knows, I won't be on the board that often over the next three weeks as I am in York NE on a surgery rotation...the house I'm set up in doesn't have internet access (but it's free! and all the hospital food I can eat...)</p>
<p>Awesome BRM! I hope you have blast. After you are back please share with us your experiences on the surgery rotation. Thanks.</p>
<p>what medical school are you in bigred?</p>
<p>hospital food is awesome...i dunno why people dont like it lol</p>
<p>University of Nebraska College of Medicine.</p>
<p>We're required to do a 3 week primary care block in rural Nebraska (with some exceptions for people w/ families who can stay in Omaha). Either that or some sort of other clinical activity like going abroad. They're pretty lenient really on what it is, just so long as you do something for a good length of time. Because of the interest people had in surgery, they set up a number of surgical blocks for those that want to do them.</p>
<p>Today was jump right in. Helped with a couple of colonoscopies and then clinic. Watched a lot of ultrasounds and a fine needle aspiration of breast cyst. Tommorow is a full day of surgery in some other towns - carpal tunnel release, upper GI scope, a D&C, and some others. Probably won't get on for a while after today.</p>
<p>god that sounds so interesting and fun</p>
<p>I don't think colonoscopies are all that fun...</p>
<p>Or gastro scopes... or gynecology in general...</p>
<p>How fun is medical school? I heard it is really stressful and medical students have no sleep. It's just info I heard.</p>
<p>Med school is not fun...but today was awesome...I scrubbed in on 6 different surgeries today, and in the morning got to do a lot of suturing. I'm going home now to practice my stitching...</p>
<p>in general, do you find medical studies more stressful and more time-consuming than pre-med/college studies?</p>
<p>Wow, that's pretty awesome! </p>
<p><em>and hospital food, mmmm</em></p>
<p>How do you compare stress/time of med school to your pre-med studies? (bluelemo q. bump)</p>
<p>WAY more time consuming...but I didn't study ridiculously hard in college (I probably should have though). My motto in undergrad was "no wasted effort"...why get a 98% when a 93% is just the same (my school had A- worth 3.67) and that 5% allowed me to go out on Thursday night.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in medical school I feel guilty a lot of the time if I'm not studying. Part of it is that my school gives grades out based on a z-score and standard deviations, so you are in direct competition with your classmates. However, there is also a lot more information covered as well, so it takes longer to learn.</p>
<p>ummm, so what if one graduates with the higest GPA in medical school? I mean I know grades are important for pre-med students because they need it to get into a med school. Do you need high GPA from medical school to get a residency program at a good/prestigious hospital or something?</p>
<p>
[quote]
so what if one graduates with the higest GPA in medical school?
[/quote]
I don't really understand what you're asking.</p>
<p>Med schools don't really have ABCDF grades, so calculating a GPA would be hard, but that's a technicality.</p>
<p>3rd and 4th year grades (usually in a format that includes some combination of "Honors/High Pass/Pass/Marginal Pass/Fail") do of course matter. Board scores and the interview are pretty impt.</p>
<p>So just a little bit more...since it's the weekend and all (spent it with a bunch of friends from undergrad)</p>
<p>Friday was in on a lower bowel resection which was pretty cool. Nearly 4 hours on the table. </p>
<p>The worst part of the experience is getting "pimped" on a continual basis - basically peppered with questions all the time. I realize that I'm learning a lot, and it's what I'll get in the future during clinicals, but it's frustrating to have to constantly be thinking about things and not remembering stuff I've learned...at least there is no grade for this.</p>
<p>colonoscopies are fairly boring...it's kind of like a video game though to some extent. And they pay the bills, that's for certain. I'm sure that it's something that a surgeon in a big city doesn't have to face. Being in a small town (8000) has been a very different experience for me. It's been eyeopening, but has definitely cemented for me that I don't want to live in a small town.</p>
<p>As for the hospital food comments...Big hospitals like UNMC (my school) have great food...this small hospital...not so much. The desserts are pretty good, but I definitely have chosen making a PB/J sandwhich at my house over some of the offerings at the hospital.</p>
<p>You know, when you say "pimped", I thought doctors would offer to have you work for other doctors in exchange for favors... i.e. "I'll loan you this med student to disimpact your patients if you'll cover my call shift next Friday."</p>
<p>bigred and bluedevil: it's great that you take the time to answer questions and post on this forum.</p>
<p>A question for you on MCATs: did you take time out away from college to study for the MCAT, say for a whole summer, or did you just study on top of your regular college class load? It seems a little difficult to schedule that dedicated study time in...</p>
<p>I studied over the summer, taking Kaplan. </p>
<p>The whole timing issue is one of the few things that BDM and I disagree on (really I think it might be the only thing we continually clash on). It centers on how late one is able to submit the AMCAS application. Given that the MCAT is going to a computer based format in 2007 with more testing dates it's going to be less of an issue, but in general BDM thinks that you must have the AMCAS in by the 4th of July, while I think that before September 1st is sufficient though one should try for August 1st if at all possible. (I personally submitted my AMCAS in October...it didn't seem to affect my process, but then again I wasn't applying to that many private schools or that many highly competitive schools).</p>
<p>The best advice is that one should take the test when they are going to be able to do their absolute best on it. Some people thrive under the pressure of having everything all at once. I even think that it's better to put off applying for a year if someone feels that they need to use an entire summer and take the test in september or something.</p>
<p>I went with Kaplan. If you give yourself a lighter courseload for semester 6 (2nd semester junior year) it's probably do-able, but you also want a lighter courseload in semester 7 for interviews, so that doesn't leave you a lot of time.</p>
<p>I went with summer after semester 4 (after soph year), and found that that worked best. With the multiple testing days, Jan. after semester 5 may also work well.</p>
<p>And yeah, I vote for July 4 at the latest, and June 9 if at all possible. (No earlier than June 7, though.)</p>