Putting together a list of schools...

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>Hey CC,</p>

<p>I'm new to this particular board, so my apologies if my question's already been asked. I'm looking for help creating a list of med schools to apply to--right now I'm just reading through the MSAR, so I'd like some more ideas. </p>

<p>I'm looking for a school with a small class size (<150), emphasis on service and patient-centered care, early clinical exposure, and a sizable amount of small-group or problems-based learning.</p>

<p>Numerical stats:
GPA: 3.83, science GPA: 3.7, MCAT: 30 S (P-9, V-11, B-10). Currently attend University of Missouri (my home state), where I'm a bio major and have taken the hardest possible classes all along. </p>

<p>Medical experience:
-Founder of health-related nonprofit corporation striving to improve health literacy in Missouri; this program's model has been presented at conferences to health literacy professionals at the state and national level; patients are referred to us from 7 agencies serving medically-underserved populations in my town
-50 hours community service at an agency that serves pregnant teens, teen parents, and women in crisis pregnancies (role was to attend doctor visits with them, which led to the creation of the aforementioned nonprofit)
-100 hours of service on a medical mission trip to Costa Rica (set up and ran primary care clinics)
-400 hours shadowing (75% of that is split between 2 physicians, the remainder split between 4 more)
-400 hours prostate cancer research (exploring possibilities of bacterial therapies, presented twice, publication is in the works)
-300 hours clinical breast cancer research with one of the physicians I shadow</p>

<p>Leadership:
-VP of Mortar Board (national senior society emphasizing scholarship, leadership, and service--being chosen at my school is regarded as a very high honor)
-VP of Alternative Spring Break
-Recruitment Guide ("camp counselor" for incoming freshmen during formal sorority recruitment)
-Philanthropy chair for sorority (raised $8000, coordinated all volunteer activities there)
-Mentor for athletes, pregnant teens, freshmen in a leadership class, freshmen bio majors
-chosen for various leadership conferences
-chosen for selective leadership class</p>

<p>Employment:
-University of Missouri Med School (clinical breast cancer research)
-tutor
-waitress</p>

<p>Honors/awards:
-2 very selective leadership societies
-7 merit scholarships</p>

<p>Personal statement is very strong according to advisors who have read it, recommendation letters should be very strong also.</p>

<p>So...do you have any suggestions?</p>

2

<p>Wow 400 hours shadowing? You must have known them or had connections? It didn’t get old/boring over time? - considering you have no responsibilities and can’t get your hands wet.</p>

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<p>The 2 that I’ve done the most with are both oncologists–one surgical, one medical. I’ve enjoyed my time with them because they’re both very different–one’s old, one’s younger; one’s more radical, the other is more conservative–yet I’ve found that their similarities are what draw me to medicine in the first place: that they both care for their patients, hold academic inquiry to be of utmost importance, and are compassionate, diligent professionals dedicated wholeheartedly to advancing their fields. Spending a large amount of time with each of them has given me the opportunity to learn more than expected about their fields and has given me a huge insight into how medicine is actually practiced in a day-to-day manner; rather than just spending say, 8 hours with someone, I get to know their nurses, their aides, their residents and students, and with the nature of cancer treatments I get to know their patients too. Watching them think and process information or talk about cases is fascinating, and is much easier to do when you know about the doctors and the subjects they’re discussing. While I find oncology very interesting, I don’t think I’m drawn to it (at least right now). What these experiences have shown me is that I am definitely drawn to medicine and that I could very readily see myself as a physician. In my opinion, those kinds of things take lots of time to develop.</p>

<p>The other 4 have various specialties and I’ve spent 3 or 4 full days shadowing each of them. From that I gained some insight into other specialties, but by no means was it as transformative as my time with the oncologists has been. Perhaps you could say I found depth in my experiences with the oncologists, and breadth in my experiences with the others. Hopefully both will prove to be valuable!</p>

<p>PS: Another reason it didn’t get boring is because I do get to do stuff with them. Their clinics work in such a way that the resident interviews the patient and takes history etc then presents it to the attending. After getting to know attendings and residents, I’m usually the one who goes in with the resident and then presents the resident’s findings to the attendings. It’s a fun way to pay attention to the patients. Neither of them will let me “get away with” just asking them questions and receiving answers–typically they ask me questions right back or direct me to some other resource to find the answers to these questions on my own (for example, instead of just explaining to me what Clark’s levels mean for melanoma cases, he’ll have me look it up so we can discuss it). And I get a kick out of seeing the other sides of medicine–talking to radiologists or nurses or watching procedures, stuff like that–that doesn’t happen in a typical ambulatory clinic setting.</p>

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<p>What great experiences. Certainly gives you perspectives to write/talk about. My D had wonderful shadowing experiences, also. One of hers morphed into something that changed application categories from shadowing to medical volunteering. She did 3 docs over a summer- a cardiologist, a plastic surgeon, and a opthalmologist. Easily 400 hours (but I think she broke it down on AMCAS differently). Never boring. </p>

<p>I don’t know if these schools meet all your criteria but: </p>

<p>I’d look at Mayo and Cleveland Clinic as your big reaches. These two are very unique (think “fit-centric”). They could easily fill their classes with 4.0 40’s and choose not to. Truly great schools and you won’t find more patient-centered philosophies. </p>

<p>Iowa</p>

<p>And I may be yelled at (again) for rec’ing a Texas school but there is a very impressive female breast cancer doc/surgeon/researcher at a great school in Texas- UTMB. (pm me if interested and I’ll get the name from my D).</p>

<p>Your EC’s look varied and valuable. Your GPA’s are good to go. I don’t like that 9 but it is what it is. Apply wisely but broadly. And btw, I like your style. Good job. Sell it like you sold it here and you’ll have some successes to tell us about. ;)</p>

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<p>Loved it :)</p>

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<p>As I knew you would. ;)</p>

7

<p>Wow, what a great medical experience! I wish DS had 20% of your medical experiences. It is quite an accomplishment to have accumulated these experiences.</p>

<p>Although DS tried to put himself in a medical school research lab setting, his first few weeks might go like this: The post-doc I was assigned to gave me 5 papers that must be read before I would not get too lost in our discussion. So far I have finished reading four. The papers use the microarray/False Discovery Rate techniques I learned from my introductory statistics class, but I think I have better pick up another more advanced, more hands-on statistics book because there are still some concepts that are not covered enough in that introductory course. The mentor/post-doc hinted that he will likely ask me to do some programming work also later on (he sort of expects me to know this basic stuff as I am a science major), so I had better pick up some related programming book on my way home because I really have not done this for many years. During the interview with my PI, this post-doc is very strong in math and computer programming, so I could possibly learn a lot from him in this area. I also need to devote some of my time on learning the sophisticated equipment also. In my previous lab, also in a medical school research lab, I embarrased myself because it took me 5 times and cost almost $2500 (each time it took 1-2 weeks) before I had successfully grown the bacteria because I could not use the equipment skillful enough. My mentor/post-doc himself was also not xperienced enough to use this particular equipment – This is the reason why he needs my help to figure it out. It turns out only one or two most experienced researchers who had been in that lab for almost 5 years could help resolve my equipment problem. Volunteering in the hospital? It is a mixed experience. But at least I got to talk to some patients and nurses. Doctors there are not accessible at all as they are well too busy to talk to these volunteers— Compared to OP’s medical experience, DS’s description of his days will bore you to death.</p>

<p>Well… back to the topic: I am not as experienced as curm or MyOpinion, but I heard about SLU in your state. DS once was thinking about applying there. Is that school a good fit for you if you prefer not to go out of state?</p>

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<p>Thanks for the thoughts guys. Curm–I’ve just started looking at Mayo and Iowa, as both were “you might wanna check those out” from my advisor, so it’s nice when other opinions jive too. </p>

<p>I get the impression that stats-wise, I’m pretty average/good enough, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed that “good enough” really is…good enough. Seems that I’ll likely stand out with my extracurriculars and healthcare history, so I’m definitely on the hunt for schools that emphasize the types of experiences I have and aren’t too concerned with 4.0/40s. </p>

<p>mcat2–if your son’s still an undergrad I’d be happy to PM you more details about how I got involved with the things I do; perhaps they would help him. And SLU’s a great school (plus I’m from St Louis) so it’s definitely on my list. From a stats perspective, I think SLU and schools like it would fit me well. It’s just hard to know if I’ve done anything that makes me desirable to schools who statistically speaking I’m at the lower end of their ranges. </p>

<p>Luckily I’m a pretty good writer and have reflected very much about this range of activities I’ve done, so that should help me with secondaries. And I’m actually really looking forward to choosing schools–I’ve worked hard as an undergrad and am thrilled that this process will probably be fun and exciting as long as I keep my spirits up.</p>

<p>Yesterday my little sister said “isn’t it cool that you’re watching your dreams come true?” Yes, it really is!</p>

9

<p>DS is no longer an undergraduate. (He really missed those years. He was sad when he found out he could not log onto the school’s web site any more the day after the commencement. If he is allowed to do so, he will not hesitate to be an undergraduate there for another two years.)</p>

<p>He is doing some medical research for a PI now. I heard he has also restarted some kind of volunteering (something about helping the poor.) After the school starts in september, he will likely be more involved on the volunteer front. This is because the club he has been involved with for 3.5 years tends to be very active on this front. He also volunteered in the oncology department before. He had chances to interact with many very ill, even dying, patients there.</p>

<p>He is out of state, so I really do not know much about his day-to-day activities which may or may not be related to medical school applications. Some of his lab members are also premeds. He probably can learn more about “how to be a premed” from them also. For some reason, he seldom got involved with any official “premed club” while he was an undergraduate. Many premeds seem to obtain the experiences through that kind of club.
Thanks!</p>

10

<p>Suggestion - you can add Dean’s / President lists to honors.</p>

11

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<p>It is not a bad thing to list Dean’s/President’s lists but in reality all you are doing is filling up space. These recognitions are based strictly on GPA and semester grades, so anyone with a 3.5 or 4.0 (depending on the school) will make either of these lists. And because most premeds have GPAs in that range, it becomes a rather generic honor…</p>