#medschoolapplicant

Hey.

If you found this blog post, there’s a likely chance that you’re a pre-med kid dragging yourself through your biology undergrad courses, or you’re possibly considering the pathway to becoming a doctor. Honestly, I am too, which is why I’m writing up this whole med-school-based storm. It’s totally jarring to think about the big-picture/long journey to get a medical degree–not to mention the competition among the best of the best–but if you can take it step by step and chunk up your larger aspirations into smaller, timely achievements, you’re already taking initiative to getting where you want to be! At the very least, you’ll understand much better how you’ll like the field of medicine and if becoming a physician is a good fit for you. This whole blog post might be some sort of “copium” for me to think I’m doing better than I am on the pathway to med school, but that will only mean that I have something to look back on to give me courage to keep on keeping on. Hopefully it does for you too! Here’s a deep-dive into what some scholars say about the pre-med community and the pathway to become a physician (all articles will be properly cited if you’re interested in them).

It’s Not All About Being A Good Applicant?

Communication is KEY

Another article written by Natalie C. Grecu (2022) talks about the importance of patient-physician communication. The goal of being a doctor isn’t just to be smart and be the medical expert. You’re dealing with literal lives and responsibilities at hand, and part of being an accomplished physician is to bridge pieces of medicine together for the patient and their families, as well as present it to them in a comprehensive, compassionate, yet understandable way to help patients make medically informed decisions. Grecu states, 

“...[the] objective was to introduce communication as a complex process involving more than bedside manner skills. This is intended to reverse the trend of students losing ‘patient-centeredness’ through increased exposure to patients during their medical training” (p.256)  

After all, it’s a patient’s right to their medical autonomy. The physician is a helper for their medical decisions, but Grecu boldly argues for the focus to be on the idea of patient-centeredness rather than just being a good-ol-pal. This was also defined in this article saying that, “Bedside manner is accomplished when doctors convey humanistic, compassionate, empathetic, and supportive care (Silverman, 2012; Weissmann et al., 2006)” (p. 256). This alone is simply not enough, however, to guide people through medical complexities. Therefore, students who can be trained to, or who can see a larger picture of a person as a whole rather than someone to treat will have leverage on administering comprehensive patient care. This is highly encouraged to be explored in one’s undergrad career, because it will be used in the medical school universe regardless if there’s a patient in front of you or not. Grades alone in university years do not teach one to be craftful at effective communication within healthcare, to round back to Horowitz's article about grades not being the main focus of a pre-med student.

It’s More Than Being A Physician

….But You Matter Too.

Everything so far has been about the livelihood of the patient, but it’s important to understand that pre-meds have to struggle to even get into med school. How are you even supposed to compete for a spot in med school? Where do you even get access to extracurricular opportunities? Where do you start? What if you don’t know how to get from point A to point B? To start the journey there, Victoria Street supports the notion that students should confide in academic advisors. Street, herself, is a pre-med advisor who wrote an article talking about how important it is for students to have access to career counseling. This article, outside of this blog, talks more about minority students having access to career counseling. However, the same concepts that she talks about can be applied to all students who may be struggling to navigate any pre-health undergraduate program.  She writes, “ Pre-health advisors are in a unique position to play a role in one of the earlier stages in development of future health professionals, placing them in the ideal role to impact the retention of students, particularly minority students” (p. 9). She then continues to support the role for pre-med student advisors in this passage:

“Increasing the level of support and resources at the undergraduate level could be essential as minority pre-medical students are preparing themselves to be competitive applicants for medical school. Capturing students early on in their undergraduate education through advisement, mentoring, and educational resources could allow more time, attention, and education focused on potential challenges they will face on the path to medical school.” (p.10)

This is essential that future physicians do receive the support they need, as it’s in their hands that the health of the world lay on. The pre-med pathway is academically challenging as we know it, and imposter syndrome is an epidemic to all those who take up the challenge. Without adequate support and self care to the future physician, burn out and uncompassionate healthcare will trickle down to patients they are responsible for. In order to help someone take a splint out of their eye, you have to take the beam out of yours.

All-in-all

Cohen, Pieter A. “The Red Hat : Academic Medicine.” LWW, July 2006,

journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/fulltext/2006/07000/the_red_hat.17.aspx. 

Doering, Alex, et al. “The Undergraduate Hospice Experience: A Way to Teach Pre-Med

Students the Importance of Compassionate Patient Care (S725).” Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, vol. 49, no. 2, 2015, pp. 420–420, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2014.11.206.

Grecu, Natalie. “Engaging Pre-Med Students in Field-Related Dialogue: Best Practices for

a Dialogic Approach to a Health-Specific Oral Communication Course.” Journal of Communication Pedagogy (Print), vol. 6, 2022, pp. 255–62, https://doi.org/10.31446/JCP.2022.1.19.

Horowitz, Gail. “It’s Not Always Just About the Grade: Exploring the Achievement Goal

Orientations of Pre-Med Students.” The Journal of Experimental Education, vol. 78, no. 2, 2010, pp. 215–45, https://doi.org/10.1080/00220970903352746.

Silverman, Barry D. “Physician behavior and bedside manners: The influence of William

Osler and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.” Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, vol. 25, no. 1, 2012, pp. 58–61, https://doi.org/10.1080/08998280.2012.11928784. 

Street, Victoria. Advising Minority Pre-Med Students: Perceptions of Pre-Med Advisors at

This post is in response to afailedhero's question "What do you think made your application stand out to UT Southwestern?" Keep in mind I don't know jack. The following are just my best guesses on why I stood out to any medical school, much less UT Southwestern.

Selection process

First off, I only applied to schools that I felt would give me the best shot. That meant staying locally, which for a Texas resident is a sweet deal. We have 9 schools here, 8 of which are public schools that are required to fill 90% of their classes with Texas residents. Plus they are conveniently all on one application and cheeaaaap. You know, relatively speaking. 

Numbers, numbers, numbers 

High numbers won't guarantee you anything, but you still need to aim high. I had a 30+ MCAT and *4.0 GPA (4.0 is not always better, I'll write about that later). UTSW averages around a 33ish MCAT and a 3.8sh GPA. Keep in mind there is a range, for my class the MCAT scores ranged from 24 to 42 and the GPA ranged from 3.2 to 4.0. In general though, a 30 MCAT and a 3.8 should get you a few interviews for any Texas school.

Essays and LoR

TMDSAS gives you the option to write 2 essays. I only wrote the one. Most people would highly advise you to not do what I did. Why then did I only write one? 3 reasons: I hate writing, I was in a time crunch, and most of all I didn't need to give them a reason to see how bad I am at the English language. I've never been particularly eloquent or articulate. Let it be known, it isn't a death sentence if you don't write ALL the essays.

Letters of recommendation (LoR). Super powerful! Don't underestimate what a good rec letter can do for you. I purposefully went in to certain classes knowing that I wanted a professor to write me a letter. I would sit near the front row, ask the occasional question (don't be a brown nosing suck up), and would stop by their office every now and then so they knew who I was. Almost any teacher will write you a letter, but you don't want that letter to be totally formulaic. Also it doesn't hurt getting the thumbs up from a currently practicing physician. 

Everything else

Numbers ain't everything, but you'll need them to get into the door, but it's the rest of your application that is going to seal the deal. Those seemingly pointless extras that many people seem to neglect is what admissions likes to look at to diversify their student body. 

The following were some of my extras:

Degree: Science degrees are the bread and butter of medical school applicants, but my degree is in international studies with a minor in Japanese. It really helped me stand out. Plus, interviewers liked talking to me about it.

Studied abroad my junior year to Japan

Volunteer experience throughout undergrad and during postbac (both non medical and medical volunteer experience)

Work experience undergraduate -- to pay for school

Scribe experience (technically also work experience)

Clubs: active in two clubs throughout undergrad (Japanese Exchange Club and Japanese Culture Organization)

Hobbies/Extracurriculars: show that you have a life outside of books. I draw, I read science fiction/fantasy, I play table top games. (I actually put down that I played 350+ hours of Dungeons & Dragons... yet not a single interviewer mentioned it). 

Leadership: I did a short stint in ROTC and I was entry level Japanese language TA

Sooooo there you go, the random stuff that I think made me stand out to medical schools and UTSW. 

Want more general advice?

Find a degree that you love, not one that you think will get you into medical school

You should definitely volunteer, but if you have 50 hours built up the summer before you apply to medical school then you aren't fooling anyone. Consistency is key. Medical > non-medical, but both are good. The former can just help show your understanding of the field, and your willingness to commit to it.

Work experience: If you don't have to that great, but having work experience can show a certain level of maturity. Personally I recommend being a scribe. It's a great experience. Not only do you get some great insight, but you will learn a lot. Plus you get paid.  

Clubs: Follows the same rules as volunteering. Pick a couple of activities and be consistent.

Hobbies/Extracurriculars: find a hobby, be happy, enjoy life.

Leadership: self explanatory I feel. Don't over do it.

Can you pick up a general theme? It's all about not over doing it and being consistent.

Good luck y'all!