@duravative,
So, there are several red flags that I see based on what you just typed:
Part of being an effective clinical physician involves being able to communicate effectively, both verbally and in the written word (when you document your patient encounter in your clinical note) without a problem. You’ll have to do this for standardized patients in med school, on your clinical rotations, your Year 5 clerkships, the USMLE Step 2 CS exam, internship, residency, etc.
So while you may have been embarrassed/afraid, the only way to get over this challenge is to meet it head on, and not shy away from it, which might have been your first impulse. As a physician, you have to have a good listening ability, since you have to elicit a history from a patient by asking them questions. Medicine is not just drawing blood to get lab values and doing imaging scans which will give you the answer w/o having to talk to the patient. All these things: listening ability, vocabulary etc. only come with practice and more exposure – which most people get that exposure from being born and raised here and going thru school from Kindergarten to 12th grade, but in your case you will have to make up for as much as possible.
While research is a good flashy thing to have on a CV, it’s so much different than real clinical medicine. So it’s more the frosting on a cake, so to speak. It doesn’t mean it can’t be spun to a positive when it comes to explaining, why medicine. Contrary to what most students/premeds believe (even I didn’t know this as well), a lot of medicine done in hospitals, etc. involves working as a team, not as individuals, where care can be much more fragmented (and thus expensive). All the more reason that language skills are important. With the implementation of Obamacare, more and more care will be team-based, and less individual-based (like a solo private practice), save for very few specialties (Rads - although you do call consultants with findings, Derm, Ophtho, Path, certain subspecialty fellowships, etc. - which are just inherently individual) and even then these can change as well (like Interventional Radiology). This is much different than say Dentistry, where it’s much more individual-based, which is why most dentists are in a solo or group private practice.
Ok, so let me address your points:
-
Your grades later in your senior year will not impact your admission to the UMKC BA/MD program. UMKC (as far as I know) does not ask for mid-year grades, the way some universities do.
-
The last ACT that UMKC’s BA/MD admissions will take I believe is the last date before the November 1 date, so your December ACT date won’t be seen, honestly.
-
Often times for shadowing, at hospitals, you can ask their department for volunteers and they’ll let you know how shadowing physicians works, if they allow it. Much more often, at least at the high school level, people shadow private practice doctors. You can shadow your family physician, for example, and that person might know other doctors in other specialties who don’t mind kids shadowing them, and thus it’s more just networking and being connected to the right people. Honestly, that won’t help you now for UMKC’s program, obviously.
-
The interview format for UMKC’s BA/MD program has also changed. It has changed to the MMI (multiple mini interview) format. Other Bachelor/MDs might still be in traditional interview format. I am not sure if at UMKC it is 100% MMI or whether they have still retained some traditional interview characteristics as well. You can find books on the MMI on Amazon: One example - http://www.amazon.com/Multiple-Mini-Interview-MMI-Strategies/dp/1937978052/. But you can also Google “MMI” or “Multiple Mini Interview” along with the words “medical school”, here is one example from Googling: http://www.med.nyu.edu/school/md-admissions/mmi-faqs.
You’re not asking excessive questions at all and there is no need to apologize for that. That’s what College Confidential is for, and speaking for myself, I’m happy to answer any questions about the program, medical school, medicine, etc. in the best way I can, as I am sure others are also.
And don’t worry about not having prepared your CV for applying to BA/MD programs since the beginning of 9th grade. Most students in the early years are trying to get a good handle on getting good grades, then juggling good school ECs, as well as doing their very best on the ACT or SAT first, so you’re not as “behind” as you may think you might be.