When I give that advice to pre-med students, I say it knowing full well that they'll respond to that advice the same way I did - by spending a bit of time learning about medicine, being fascinated by the great parts, and pretty much completely whitewashing any challenges that come up without ever experiencing what they are like:
"Being on call and getting to sleep at the hospital after a full office day sounds exciting!"
"Having a patient stop breathing and everyone looking to me for a decision sounds like it would be a thrilling challenge!"
"Not seeing my wife and family because I am spending 16 hours a day studying sounds like an honourable sacrifice!"
And some of them last well into med school: "I can't wait to have a pager!"
It's not necessarily Mr. Eager McPremed's fault. A large part of it has to do with the fact that it is so hard (especially in North America) to get experience shadowing physicians one-on-one, let alone living the life of a physician day in and day out with full office days and on call nights.
Another reason pre-meds tend to brush off the difficult parts is because the pull towards the pursuit of medicine is so strong, especially when the pre-med student has the capability to succeed in it. It is so hard to be honest with yourself and walk away from a career path that impresses everybody you tell about it.
When you tell someone you're thinking of applying to medical school, the look on their faces, the eyebrows going up, the subtle gasp, and the inevitable story of their friend's nephew with an A+ average who now works for a drug company because he didn't get in after four times applying to med school gives you a feeling as addictive as some drugs. ..and coming to the point where one realizes that a life of medicine is not for them would mean having to give up the dream and everything that comes with it... including the look on peoples faces when you tell them.
I had this in mind the other day when I read a Starbucks cup quote, only the second one to ever make an impact on me (the first one that ever impacted me I read the day of my med school interview, ask me about that one some other time):
The Way I See It #26
"Failure's hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever." - Po Bronson, Author of "What Should I Do With My Life"
That's why I have frequently recommended reading medical blogs, which have a great way of showing all sides of medicine if direct experience can't be obtained. I have also often recommended Ifinding's series of blog posts, the Don't Become a Doctor Series.
Hopefully reading those will encourage medical school hopefuls to realize that getting into medicine is an extremely serious decision that should be fully investigated before it is pursued.
It might sound like I'm regretting going into this. I'm not - I've just come to a challenging part of the journey that makes me stop and be thankful for what is driving me and giving me the motivation it takes to get through this. It also makes me feel really, really sorry for those people who are going into medical school for superficial reasons, like the money, their parents' wishes, or that look on peoples faces... beacuse when they get to the rough patches, I really don't know how they'll keep putting one foot in front of the other if that's all that is driving them. If those are the driving reasons, and not something deeper, spare yourself... dragging yourself through this gauntlet just isn't worth it.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Make sure you know what you are getting into... [part two]
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Make sure you know what you are getting into... [part one]
One of the pieces of advice I was given as a pre-med, and that I frequently give to pre-med students (it's #7 on my Top 10 list of advice for pre-med students) is,
That was ringing quite loudly in my mind when I started my call shift the other night. I had had a busy week in surgery. There were some really long days of showing up on the ward at 7am then a full day of office then going straight to the hospital at 5pm and seeing emergency patients and eventually taking them to the operating room and getting home well into the wee hours of the morning... with a full day in the office after that.
Most of the surgeries were routine, but some came with the emotional stress of having to tell a patient and their family they had a 50% chance of dying on the operating table, and a 50% chance of us opening them up, finding that we could do nothing, and closing them up to face their death within the next few days. (One patient's response to that speech? "Bloody hell." Yeah, no kidding.)
I also had a long academic half-day full of lectures on things that I need to know but had no energy to learn, that also went late into what was going to be my evening relaxation time.
I had to try and fit in studying for my two upcoming exams in between all that, and then on top of that I tried hard to make time to get some exercise and spend some quality time, either on the phone, online or in person, with the people in my life who mean a lot to me. And no, there was no time for going to my buddy's poker game, watching the Leafs get their butts kicked (I haven't watched one game this season!), an afternoon round of golf, or any of the other things I would have enjoyed doing that resemble this "having a life" thing I've heard so much about.
As soon as I finished work in the surgeon's office for the last day of this tough week, I headed to the hospital to get my pager and start call - and within five minutes of my call shift starting, my resident and I had five patients to see, all of whom were pretty sick. Just as we were trying to figure out who to see first, the pager went off two more times. We didn't get a break longer than ten minutes until 2am, when I got a bit of sleep before the pager started going off again (getting a bit of sleep means it was a lucky call night).
I'll admit when all those pages were coming in right at the start of the shift, I was feeling the stress of the whole week on top of having a lot on my plate all at once, and I fell into a rut I find myself in once every year or so when all the negative thoughts come rushing to me. I find myself seriously asking if I am in the right place, if I made the right career decision, if I will ever be able to treat patients on my own, if I really knew that medicine was like this before I invested all that effort and money into pursuing it.
Fortunately, the five minutes the resident gave me before I had to meet up with him on the ward was just enough time to break down, almost re neg on my no-crying policy, and beg for some strength from heaven.
Fortunately, God was listening and obliged. And all in all it ended up being a really good call shift. For me, that means a night with some varied, useful cases that are important for me to learn how to manage, and with some good opportunities for me to see patients on my own, evaluate their situations, and develop a plan and present it to the resident for their approval and questioning. We triaged those first cases well, and got through them and all the other calls throughout the night, and put off studying for just a few more hours in order to do those therapeutic things like write this post and sleep in late for the first time in a while.
Friday, September 05, 2008
The real first day of medical school... a moment six years in the making.
I told a group of first-year pre-med students today, "The moment I'm at right now is where you want to be."
True, they all want to become doctors, so technically the moment they really want is med school graduation.
But what I'm talking about is that the learning I'll be doing this year - on the wards, seeing patients, learning medicine - that's the learning they wish they were doing this year.
Unfortunately for them, they are a long, long way away from this moment, and the learning they have to go through now is very different.
For them, they have to take courses in intro biology, biochemistry, organic chem, physics, a whole degree's worth of courses... the MCAT... the application process including interviews and admissions...and then two years of medical school which are fun and exciting and horrible and challenging and gruesome and interesting all at the same time.
All in all, at least a six-year process...one that many of them might not make it through... and yet all they really want to be doing is learning how to take care of sick people in the hospital.
I know that it will only be a couple of months before I'm burned out from the day shifts, the night call, and the studying in every spare moment around those shifts, but right now, I'm so excited to start.
I had to keep myself from showing up to shadow at the emergency department tonight, after the doc orienting us this morning told us we could drop in anytime. Maybe I should wait until orientation week is over, I told myself.
Finally, we get to do what I signed up for.
Finally, there is a light at the end of the tunnel... only two years until I graduate.
Finally, it's starting to feel for real.
And talking to people who are six years of hard work away from this moment reminded me of what it took to get here, and made me appreciate it so much more.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Job Title: Medical Student / "Health Remedy Engineer"
Job duration: Full time (approx. 168 hours/week, some additional overtime required)
Job location: Local university and all hospitals in a 3-hour radius, including some national travel in Year 4 (not compensated)
Advancement potential: significant
Experience: Will train
Required equipment (Textbooks, etc.): Supplied by employee (not compensated).
Term length: 4 years
Duties & Responsibilities:
- Learn all common diseases and conditions and how to diagnose and treat them
- Work well with people pushed to their extremes (and become one yourself)
- Successfully pass frequent extensive examinations
- Deal with life-threatening emergencies with a calm, cool head
Qualifications:
- Must have university degree (or nearly completed one), preferably a Ph.D. or M.Sc.
- Excellent GPA
- Vast array of extracurricular activities
- Olympic medals and superhuman powers helpful but not necessary
- Sense of humour is the common denominator noted among survivors of this position
Skills and Abilities:
- Ability to stay awake for days on end
- Ability to be on call (sample schedule of a night on call)
- Ability to memorize large volumes of data
- Ability to take verbal abuse and harassment in stride
- Ability to deal with human remains in a respectful fashion
- Be familiar with the following computer applications: MDConsult.com, UpToDate.com, CMA website, provincial medical association website, patient care database, X-ray viewer software, university website, course websites, patient logging websites, PDA software such as Epocrates, Archimedes, Merck Manual, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, university tuition payment website, Solitaire
Compensation:
Hourly Wage: Starting at -$10,000, increasing to -$55,000, dependent on campus of emploment (no raises, and yes, that's correct, you pay us).
Benefits: 10% "student discount" at local pizzeria upon surrender of employee ID card. No dental, health or other benefits.
Scholarships: Some, available only to the people who are smarter than you
Application procedure:
Applications due date: September
Notification: May
CV: Include all details of employment and extracurriculars, being sure to account for every moment of your waking life. As well, include a contact person for all items on your CV that we can phone to ensure you are not making these things up.
Please note this is a very competitive position and that only successful applicants will be contacted. We thank you for your interest and hope you are insane enough to apply.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Why should pre-med students read medical blogs? Because they'll help you get into medical school.
One of my biggest mistakes as a pre-med student was not taking advantage of the online medical blogging community. Not every medical student can live beside a doctor for every moment of every day for a month, waking up for every midnight page, to learn if being a doctor is something they would be interested in doing. Reading blogs, however, can be a great substitute for that. You will better understand what being a doctor involves - the good and the bad. You'll learn about the incredible privilege it is to be a physician and the most exciting moments in the OR. You'll also learn about the patients that some doctors want to strangle, such as drug seekers, the patients whose treatment suffers because of drug seekers, and about the other side of those annoying patients from some enlightened physicians and residents who go beyond their frustrations to see these patients for the sick people they are. You'll learn from the mistakes of medical students and read what residents wish they had done differently. You'll read about the anguish that physicians go through when their patients sue them for seemingly nonsensical reasons (some with happy endings). And then you'll be able to think about whether or not you're cut out for those types of things. You'll know for sure if medical school is right for you You'll learn the horrible parts about medical school... and be able to make a more informed decision as to whether or not you think you'll survive. Medical blogs provide amazing insight into what medical school is like, an idea of what medical school exams are like, and how it feels when it's all over. You'll learn what being pimped means and how med students react to it and the subtle, unspoken rules involved. Of course, there's nothing like actually going through it, but you can save yourself years of stress from applying and trying to succeed in medical school if you decide it is not right for you - medical blogs can even help you figure out if maybe you shouldn't be a doctor. You'll learn about how doctors interact with other professions What does a nurse practitioner do, and how do their domains differ from what a doctor does? Before I was in medical school I didn't know anything about interprofessional politics, turf wars, and the potential for amazing things to happen when there is collaboration between doctors and other professions. That's why if you're pre-med, reading medical blogs goes beyond reading just physician blogs. You can read blogs by doctors of every specialty (ER doctors, urologists, surgeons, GPs, oncologists...), medical students and doctors in training from all around the world, nurses of every specialty (ER Nurse, nurse anaesthetist...), other health professionals such as respiratory therapists, and other health care professionals such as medical research blogs, healthcare law, policy, and ethics blogs... and the list goes on. Medblogs can give you a perspective on how these different professions work together in the same problem - see, for example, the story Perspectives, written in three parts: part I by a cop, II by a paramedic, and III by a nurse. As well, by learning about other professions, you'll have a better idea of whether or not their scope of patient care is more along the lines of what your career interests are. You'll learn more about the perspective of a patient Whether or not this helps you get into medical school, this is crucial to becoming a good doctor. There are some fantastic patient blogs that will provide you with fantastic insight into what it is like to live with an illness from many perspectives. Some blogs contain lists of ways to deal with certain patients...a great way to improve bedside manner. Some blogs even have the rare, heart-wrenching glimpse of reading the entire journey of what it is like to be diagnosed with, fight, and even lose a battle with an illness (one of the most memorable blogs I have ever read). Reading stories like those when I was pre-med would have done nothing but amp up my motivation to work hard, so that I could make it to the point where I could meet unbelievably inspiring patients like that in real life. You'll get a chance to have conversations with medical professionals ...which can be a hard thing for pre-meds to arrange face-to-face. Through med blogs, though, you can get involved with the profession in a unique way - by engaging in discussion, leaving comments and e-mailing blogging doctors, I have benifited from get 'face time' and advice from physicians that I could never get elsewhere or in such a short amount of time. You'll get a better idea about medical controversies Did you know some medical professionals don't think fibromyalgia isn't a real disease? or that there are many schools of thought on lyme disease and whether it is over- or undertreated? Reading blog posts on topics like this, and the often inflammatory comments that follow them, will help you learn about such controversies. Better yet, you'll learn how to answer those dang ethical questions Bloggers write about ethical situations all the time. Even if one comes up in your interview that you never heard of before, by reading about many other real-life situations, and reading the comments that other readers provide, you'll become a star at answering those intimidating ethical questions. Check out the Wall Street Journal's Health Ethics Blog posts, or, believe it or not, a Bioethics Blog exists. If, like me, you prefer stories to the more theoretical ethics discussions, though, check out posts by clinicians on ethical dilemmas. Your MCAT mark will triple. Okay, maybe only double. And no, that's not a guarantee. But it might go up a little bit if you find some advice on the MCAT that relates to you, like whether or not you should take an MCAT class. So you're sold now, right? How does someone start reading medical blogs? If you've stumbled upon this post and want to give medical blogs a try, but you aren't sure where to start, check out Vitum's Guide to Medical Blogs for Beginners! Do you have any other advice for pre-med students? You bet. Send a cheque or money order to... just kidding, it's all here. This post was a year in the making... hope you liked it! Use the comments section to let me know if there are any other ways you think reading medical blogs helps pre-medical students!
My excuses not to were stupid. I didn't read medical blogs for the same reasons that I didn't watch medical shows - it wasn't long into a show that I started getting reminded how much I wanted to be in those medical situations, and then I would inevitably end up feeling guilty for watching TV instead of studying.
In retrospect, though, by avoiding blogs I made things a lot more difficult than they needed to be. That's because reading medical blogs can dramatically improve your chances of getting in to medical school.
You'll do better in your interview, improve your essay, learn more about the life of a doctor and whether medicine is right for you, and you could even improve your MCAT score.
You'll do better in your interview
All great speakers use stories to make their speeches memorable and engaging - the same goes for good interview subjects. You'll find this if you critique your friends' interviewing skills, which is one of the most helpful things you can do to prepare for the interview (something that should not be overlooked)...unless they tell you a story that captivates you, you'll tune out within seconds.
A lot of medical blog posts are stories...some of which are extremely well-told. Try as I might to be a fantastic narrator, the sad truth is the further you get from this blog, the better the stories get. Check out the story Memorable Patients, Part 4 at Surgeonsblog for a stunning example.
By reading medical blogs, you'll get in the habit of reading medical stories... and if you tell the really good stories to your friends, you'll also get lots of practice, so when you tell stories from your own medical experiences, your listeners will be captivated. And that is exactly what you want your interviewers to be!
You'll write a better essay
Unlike medical admissions committees with admissions essays, people don't read blogs because they have to. So, even though many bloggers say they may mostly blog for themselves, they usually try to make their posts engaging enough that people will read them...and return for more. If you start to figure out what makes a reader interested in a blog, and can apply it to your essay, you'll be well on your way towards making your essay stand out from a pile of 2,000 admissions essays. Check out some of the most popular medical blogs, as ranked by edrugsearch, which have readers always clamoring for more stories, such as the ones by emergency room nurses, paramedics, and surgeons.
Wait...there's more! Beyond the technical side of being a better interviewee and essay writer, reading blogs will also help you with the content. This comes from a number of things, such as knowing for sure what medicine is all about and if medicine is right for you, and being able to explain to the admissions committee why you are sure of this. Just think about how well-researched you'll sound if an interviewer asks you if you're sure medicine is right for you... and you are able to give them succinct reasons with clinical examples to answer their question. Reading medical blogs can help you do that.
You'll know for sure if vitum medicinus (a life of medicine) is right for you
Sunday, January 06, 2008
"I have never understood why medical schools have twenty year olds learning medicine."
While my age has been posted on this blog ever since it began over a year and a half ago, only recently have some commenters drawn attention to my age:
"Blogger, one question for you. How on earth did u get in to med school at 21? What was your life style like from high school through undergrad? " - anonymous
"I have never understood why medical schools have twenty year olds learning medicine. They have gone from high school to undergraduate to medical school and have absolutely no life experience. Of primary importance are the marks of the applicants; all else is secondary." - fossildocBefore I begin I'd like to thank the many, many people who brighten my day every time they post a comment on this blog. Even if you don't agree with me (or my medical school's decision to accept me, perhaps, in an indirect sort of way?)...no offense taken. Keep 'em coming!!
It's interesting hearing this perspective when, first of all, I am by no means the youngest person in my class. Most medical schools publish statistics of their admissions class, which show that the average age is usually in the mid-twenties but the youngest person is often 20 years old on admission (and sometimes younger).
This is by no means the extreme, however. In some schools in Quebec, students are admitted to a five-year med program after only being out of high school for two years. And in the United Kingdom, students are admitted to a six-year med program straight out of high school.
Secondly, I sincerely agree with the fact that life experience is important. Personally, I took a year off and worked in a completely unrelated field and travelled between my undergrad degree and the start of medical school. I gained so much perspective in this year.
And not only is this my personal opinion, but many med school admissions committees would agree. If a spot comes down to two applicants who are equal on paper in terms of their academic qualifications, the applicant with more life experience will always be the one finding the thick envelope in their mailbox.
While fossildoc may have been right twenty years ago, and many schools retain a minimum mark cut-off, today it's no longer true that med schools admit students based primarily on their marks.
And as a result, the amount of life experience in my class alone means the people in my class are all fascinating and there are so many whom I admire for various incredible reasons.
In addition to life experience though, medical adcoms look for something even more important: maturity. Maturity is an important factor in medical students and indeed physicians and you'd be hard pressed to find a school that admits someone whose immaturity compromises their professionalism.
Given all that, however, I can empathize with these readers who question how young medical school applicants are. I submitted a forum post a while ago after being frustrated at the immaturity of some of my classmates:
"Most of the 3rd years in my class have demonstrated immaturity at one point or another, more so than the people who got in after 4 years or took some time off after graduating. By immaturity I mean anything from showing disrespect by talking loudly in lecture to uncontrollable giggling and crude comments during the genitalia examination clinical skills video. ... If it were up to me, based on what I have seen, I wouldn't allow 3rd years to get into medical school at all."Needless to say I pissed off a lot of third-year applicants with that last statement, and in retrospect it was a bit extreme, but a) ruffling feathers on the interweb is fun and b) the number of mature young students compared to the number of immature young students - from my impression - is miniscule.
But while the ratio is low, the presence of a distinction demonstrates a point: the maturity of an individual cannot be inferred from their age. In other words, just because a student is young, doesn't mean they're immature. There are some students in my class who have stunned me when they revealed their age, because based on their maturity level, I would have guessed they were five years older than they actually are.
And that's the point I'm trying to make. Unfortunately I couldn't have said it as well as worriedandwaiting, who summed this topic up really nicely in a statement on that pre-med forum, and with whose comment I'll close:
Are you a better doctor because you're 25 or because you're 35? That question has no correct answer. Age is not the factor. Who you are as a person is what matters. It is your life experiences that define you as a person, so try to maximize this opportunity to grow as an individual. As we all know, some 21 year olds already have a lifetime of experience, while some 30 year olds still think like teenagers. It all depends on the person.
Friday, October 05, 2007
Studying Scared
What does it take to get Vitum off his butt and into study mode?
Good intention? A desire to do well?
Try fear. Plain, simple fear of failure. That's all it takes.
Unlike last year, when around this time I was enjoying how slack I thought medical school was, this year is different. Not just for me - I've noticed that a lot of people who took it easy early in the semester for the last two terms are turning up at the hospital & university study rooms on the weekends / evenings. And I've got three things that are giving me enough fear to get me studying scared this early into the semester.
1. Life around finals time sucks.
First of all, now that I've been through a year of medical school, I'm more aware of what it involves. I know how hard I had to work when last year's finals were approaching. I spent entire days and entire weeks studying with few breaks. Seeing few friends outside of med - and even friends in med - was not an option, and how the only thing that kept me going was the thought that "if I don't work my butt off, I'm gonna fail." I don't want to be going through that again come finals at the end of this term, so I'm studying now. Hopefully, as a result, around finals I'll feel a bit more prepared and the stress level will be a bit lower.
2. Finals are gonna be brutally hard.
While that should be reason enough to get my nose in the books, there's another reason. If there's any truth to what the third-year students say, my finals this year are going to be tough... much harder than last year.
That could be because for some of our units, the course directors have decided that providing us with lecture notes and lectures that cover all the topics that will be on the final are ineffective strategies for teaching physicians, and so we're expected to do a lot of reading from a variety of sources outside our lecture material. That's intimidating... as is generally the case with medicine, there's not enough time to learn everything, which means I can only hope that which I've learned is enough to get me through.
3. I don't want to fail and have to repeat second year!
In addition to those first two reasons, there's something else. There are a few people in my class this year who are repeating second year. Their reasons for doing this span a wide range - personal reasons, lots of stuff going on in their lives, MD/PhD students who are doing bits of the program at different times as their classmates, and not doing well enough academically last year.
Despite the fact that I don't know the individual reasons that these people are in my class, every time I see them around I think of the last reason. Yeah, it's hard to fail out of med school, and if I do fail a few courses I'll be able to repeat the year, but the third reason I'm getting my study on is because the last thing I want to be doing next year is repeating second year. Med school is a long time and I'm excited for the clinical part of medicine, which doesn't happen until next year. I would hate to be stuck in another year of PBL and our physician and society course.
The funny thing is, I'm sure this year will be a lot like last year in that it seems 90% of the class is scared of failing, but 99% of the class ends up passing. I think it's because we former pre-meds are used to undergrad exams, which we would routinely go into feeling like we knew all the material. Med school exams are scary because there's no way you will know all the material... and getting your 60% for a pass is much harder and requires much more knowledge and understanding than getting a 95% in undergrad.
There's a few people I've talked to that are afraid of third year. Rightly so - from all accounts 80-hour work weeks, being on call all the time, and having the stress of working with attending physicians, seeing patients, and trying to figure out where all the equipment is - let alone knowing how to use it - will be stressful enough. But I'm not even thinking about that yet. I just want to get through second year.
By the way, Happy Thanksgiving, y'all. That's right, it's Thanksgiving weekend in Canada. (early holiday, our soaring currency, our pristine health care system...bet you want to move here now!) Seems like everybody is doing family stuff this weekend, but since school is so far from the family - and since the 'rents are coming out here in two weeks - I'll be going to a friend's house for the festive meal. He's a master in the kitchen and I'm looking forward to it.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
New to medical blogs? Vitum's Beginner's Guide to Reading Medical Blogs
Over a year ago, I discovered the medical blogging community, and the amount I've learned from it has been incredible. I linked to my first blog through an online medical forum, found a series I enjoyed (the Don't Become a Doctor series on Incidental Finding's blog), and started reading every post in that series. I was captivated. I loved the humour, the point-blank honesty, and the impact the blog made on me.
I wanted more. But I didn't really have a clue about where to begin reading more medical blogs. I somewhat stumbled through blogs for a while, here and there learning neat things about being a blog reader that I wish I'd known sooner. It would have been nice to know them right from the start - to read them in some sort of concise, brief overview guide. So, after a year of being involved in the medblog community and somewhat 'knowing the ropes' by now, I've decided to put a guide together myself. Here it is.
WHAT IS THE MEDICAL BLOGGING COMMUNITY?
If you're reading this, you've obviously had some experience with the medical blogging community - this is, after all, a medical blog.
You may not be aware, however, how broad the scope of the medical blog community really is - it took me a while to figure it out. Medical bloggers include, to name a few:
There is so much content in the medical blog community that it might seem overwhelming at the start. So, where should you begin?
FINDING INTERESTING POSTS
There are many genres of medical blog posts - humour, drama, law / politics / policy, research - and any one of these genres can contain any type of content - stories, instructions, commentary, helpful advice, or interesting links.
Just Browsing?
If you're just browsing, and you are interested in a recent digest of the best posts of the medical blogosphere regardless of the topic, you should definitely check out a blog carnival. The authoritative medical blog carnival is Grand Rounds (hosted here in July 2007) - here's a list of past and upcoming Grand Rounds hosts. Other medical blog carnivals include Change of Shift, which has a focus on nursing blogs, and Medicine 2.0 which focuses on the combination of Web 2.0 and medicine.
Looking for Specific Topics?
You may already have an idea of the genres you enjoy, or, more specifically, individual topics within those genres. If that's the case, here's how I recommend finding great posts: Good ol' Google.
Two Ways to use Google
Google is a great way to find individual posts on specific topics that are of interest to you, but you might not have known there are two ways to find great posts on Google.
The first way is using the regular old Google.com, but including the keyword "blog" (for example, searching 'medical student blog') - this will sort blog posts by relevance, listing the most linked-to and relevant posts. However, this will show websites that aren't necessarily blogs - news stories, forums, etc.
The second way is to use Google BlogSearch. It works just like Google - the difference is, it only searches blogs, and the results you get tend to be very recent (usually posted that day or week), rather than sorted by the number of links to each post.
FINDING INTERESTING BLOGS
You'll find that as you read interesting posts, you'll really like the author's sense of humour or perspective, and you'll look up more posts on that blog. Like me, you might find that you'll read all the archives of a few blogs you really enjoy - every post that blogger has written.
Blogrolls
So how can you find new blogs by blogger, rather than each individual post? Again, blog carnivals are a great way to do this, but another great way to discover new blogs is to check out the blogroll on the blogs you enjoy. Most bloggers have a blogroll - a list of links to other blogs. You'll notice my blogroll in the right-hand column, under "Vitum bloggicus" - it's a list of bloggers that I have been influenced by, and enjoy reading on a regular basis, to the extent that I thought my readers would enjoy them as well - so I figured I would post the links.
Blog Ranking Directories
There are directories that rank blogs by topic - the Healthcare 100 from eDrugSearch and the Medgadget.nl ranking are lists of blogs ranked according to a number of different criteria, which will let you find popular medblogs. These will also help you get an idea of the who's who of medical bloggers, the more famous ones such as Kevin MD and Over My Med Body.
KEEPING UP ON ALL THE BLOGGY GOODNESS
The Amateur Blog Reader
An amateur blog reader finds a blog or two they enjoy, and then they'll bookmark them or try to remember the title. Every so often, they'll use their bookmarks or Google to find those blogs again, head to the sites, and catch up on the latest reading.
If they're lucky, the blog user has posted something interesting since the reader last checked. Otherwise, there might not be anything new. But the downside is, if you go to a blog that hasn't been updated the last few times you checked, you'll get frustrated and could even throw a tantrum, and you might not be inclined to visit it as often.
The Intermediate Blog Reader
That's how I read blogs for almost a year. Then something amazing happened. After countless tantrums, I realized that more advanced - or perhaps just smarter - blog readers make the blogs do the work: instead of you going to a blog to find out if it's been updated, let the blog come to you.
One way to do this is to sign up for an e-mail subscription to a blog that you like. Some bloggers are considerate enough to offer the ability to have new posts e-mailed to you (clearly if I put it like that, I offer this option to my readers). This is good for people who only want to keep track of a couple of blogs.
The Advanced Blog Reader
If you're interested in more blogs than just a few, you might want to consider signing up for an RSS Feed Reader such as Google Reader - almost every blog offers their posts in regular updates through a feed you can subscribe to. I took a long time before I started using a feed reader... and every time I look back I wonder why I waited so long. This way, I can keep track of a few dozen blogs without having to check them so often - I just go to my feed reader and new posts show up whenever they've been written.
SUPERCHARGE YOUR MEDBLOG EXPERIENCE
Perhaps the best thing about medical blogs is you can play a huge role in the content you're reading. Almost every blog contains the capacity to accept and display reader comments, and most bloggers have contact information available so you can contact the bloggers directly - use these! Contribute to the discussion and increase the quality of the blogs, and you'll improve medical blogs for yourself - and everyone else.
THE LATEST MEDBLOG GOSSIP - CONFIDENTIALITY AND ETHICS
If you're going to hang out in the medblog community, you might as well know about the latest gossip. A major event that had repercussions throughout the medblog community recently has been the disappearance of a couple of bloggers due to patient confidentiality issues. Both The Flea (former Best Medical Weblog winner) and Barbados Butterfly ended up getting attention in the mainstream media (such as ABC News) after they found that medical blogging is hard to mix with getting sued or working in certain hospitals - both of them suffered consequences such as being forced to settle their lawsuit or being suspended from work.
The events sparked lively discussion, and some medical bloggers posted reactions lamenting the loss of the bloggers, and were reminded to be more cautious to keep patient confidentiality an extremely high priority.
Rob from medbloggercode.com was kind enough to comment on this post and point out the Healthcare Blogger Code of Ethics, a development in the healthcare blogging community that deserve mention in any med blogging guide. The Code is designed to hold medical blogs to a high standard when it comes to the nature of medical blogging, and its goal is to provide benefit for readers and bloggers alike.
THE NEXT STEP - START YOUR OWN MEDICAL BLOG?
Soon you might find that you've got so many things to say in the comment sections of other blogs, that you realize you should start your own blog. Blogger and Wordpress are two awesome, free sites that will get you started on your blog.
THE END
That's all I've got for now. Maybe over the next year I'll find just as many tips about medical blogs. Feel free to ask questions about medblogs, or post your own tips for new medical bloggers in the comments below.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Top 10 List: Pieces of advice for pre-med students
Overheard during the interviewer lunch break at my med school's interview weekend: one old doctor to another - "The very first student we interviewed blew us away. She'd summited Mt. Kilimanjaro, competed in the Olympics, and was an honours student with incredible research experience and publications. You know, if applying to medical school was like this back when I applied, I don't think I'd be admitted."
Getting in to medical school is tough. In Canada, less than 30% of students who apply each year are admitted to a school, and on an individual basis Canadian schools accept as little as 3% of the people who apply (that's more competitive than some Ivy League schools in the USA!) (source). That's not counting the thousands of students who wanted to be doctors when they started their undergrad degree, and had to face the realization that thanks to things like the MCAT and the competitiveness of the pre-med world, and perhaps the odd slack semester or difficult year, they would never even make it to the point of applying for medical school.
Here's some advice I would give to any pre-med student applying to medical school, though non-pre-meds might find it interesting as well as it might give you a unique perspective into the mind of a pre-med student. I wrote this list assuming you know all the basic info - what the MCAT stands for, what an application involves, and the like, though keeners at any level of their training - high school, college, or university - might find this useful as well. Given that, what I've written below something I hope every pre-med could have the chance to read before they apply to med school.
10. Have a backup plan...
This is one of the hardest thing for pre-meds to do: plan what you'll do with your life should you not 'get in' this year (or ever). Why's it so hard? It just sucks to think about the fact that you might not be accepted. But, you can't put your eggs all in one basket... you need to be realistic and know that even some applicants with the highest marks aren't accepted anywhere. Nothing is for certain. So, have a backup plan if you don't get in this year... and also consider what you could do with your life should you not get in at all. This might even mean considering taking a 'pre-med' degreee other than biology, since you don't need a biology degree to apply; if the only job you'd be interested in doing that you can get with a biology degree is medicine, you might want to do something else.
9. ...but don't give up if you don't get in your first time.
It's turning out more and more now that getting into medical school is more about learning how to "play the game;" because it's such a crap shoot, anybody who doesn't get in their first time applying would be stupid to throw in the towel right away. Even if you didn't get an interview, go to an advising session if any of the schools you applied to offer one, and give it another go.
8. If you do get in, don't do anything the summer before you start classes.
Seriously - don't work. Travel, but only for part of your summer, since travelling around can be stressful and you want to have time to veg. Give yourself at least a few weeks to sit around like a bum and do nothing, maybe see some friends that you won't be able to hang out with when things get busy. Let me put it this way: you now only have a couple of summers left (unless you chose to apply to a 3-year program!).
7. Know what doctors do before you decide you want to be one.
It would be devestating sacrifice so much energy, effort and free time just to keep up in the pre-med rat race and realize later on that medicine isn't for you, so learn what a doctor does - not just daily, but learn what the lifestyle is like, the stress level, the impact on family life. How? A few ways: you can read books and biographies about physicians, you can shadow physicians where you live, or you can go to a developing nation and volunteer your services at a medical clinic or hospital. The third one shows commitment and could have much better opportunity for clinical exposure, thanks to different policies on liability; though if you do that, please make sure you're going to a place where you can actually contribute and not just be watching or being a pain, and remember that some med schools actually use the length of time you spend away as a 'filter' for resume padding; a former dean of admissions in Canada, as quoted in a newspaper article: "only the affluent can spend six months in Africa volunteering at an AIDS clinic. ... it's become sexy to put stuff like that on an application.... but they're not necessarily going to get extra points for it."
6. Know what other health care professionals do before you decide on medicine.
What does a perfusionist do? What's within a Respiratory Therapist's scope of patient care? Did you know that there are nurse anesthetists? How do you know that you want to be a doctor, not a nurse? As well, getting to know other health professions will help you respect other health care professionals once you start working with them. Finally, it will add depth to your understanding of your own motivations if you can be positive that you want to be a doctor, and not some other type of health care provider. Following #4 (below) can play a huge role in satisfying this, but make sure you still get the chance to see what these people do in real life as well. From my experience, anyone in these professions is more than happy to tell a future doctor what their job involves, if they're approached with interest and respect.
5. Don't kid yourself: Training to become a doctor is one of the most difficult things you can do.
Even though it may appear easy at first, when finals come around (even in first year) you will realize that you've never done anything more difficult, more demanding mentally, intellectually, and emotionally. It will take over every minute of your free time and you will have to set aside time usually devoted to family, friends, and yourself; literally my entire days the month before finals was wake/study/sleep, even though in undergrad I never had to study very much for most courses. The only people who don't feel this way around finals are the ones who have spent their entire semester studying, literally every day and weekend, or are exceptionally brilliant - and there will only be 1 person of the latter kind in your class so chances are it won't be you. And that's just first year. For third year, add all that stress to being on call, having to deal with patients, nurses and doctors daily, having a pager go off while you're sleeping, and having to study for finals in the midst of all that. In all honesty, I've always said that the only thing I can think of that is more demanding and draining than becoming a doctor is boot camp, and boot camp only lasts 12 weeks. However, that was until I read about a U.S. Marine turned doctor, who discusses "How Residency is Different from the Marines" (scroll down to find it). Even though he says the Marines was harder, training to be a doctor must be pretty hard in order to even deserve the comparison.
4. There is much value in reading the online medical blogosphere.
See my post titled 'why pre-meds should read medical blogs,' then for a place to start, check out my 'guide to medical blogs for beginners' . Here, though, I'll just list a couple of the several reasons. You'll see from jaded residents and medical students just how hard med school can be (try reading the Don't Become a Doctor series on iFindings' blog, as an example). You'll learn what being pimped means and how med students react to it and the subtle, unspoken rules involved. You'll hear about the most exciting moments in the OR, what it's like to be sued and sued again, learn from the mistakes of medical students and read what residents wish they had done differently. As well, you'll learn more about different health care professions if you take the time to read their blogs, fulfilling piece of advice #6. Beyond that, medblogs can give you a perspective on how these different professions work together in the same problem - see, for example, the story Perspectives, written in three parts: part I by a cop, II by a paramedic, and III by a nurse. And, you'll get involved with the profession in a unique way - by engaging in discussion, leaving comments and e-mailing blogging doctors, you can get 'face time' and advice from physicians that you might not get elsewhere.
3. Make sure that going into medicine is your own decision.
Are you doing this because an expectation has been imposed on you by your friends or family? Is this a dream you once had that has now faded, but it's just too hard to tell everyone that you are switching career plans? If you do go into medicine just to satisfy someone else's plan for your life, you are going to hate yourself, and you'll have nothing to keep you going when you have to give up everything for medicine.
2. Marks come first. You can always add volunteer activities after you graduate; you can't go back and increase your undergraduate GPA.
You don't want to look back on a year or a degree and say, "Those marks don't reflect my true potential...I wish I would have worked harder." My dad has told me over and over again of a man he knows who wanted to get into medicine, but when it came down to applying, his GPA was too low because he'd had more fun than study time in his first year of university. More than a few times I've been having conversations with people who say "My brother / cousin / friend tried to get into medical school, but couldn't..." and often it ends up being a GPA issue. Some people end up having to take a master's degree just so that their undergrad marks aren't considered... they have to work extra hard to make up a first semester where they played more billiards and pranks than studied, or a year when they didn't figure out that they understand organic chemistry until the last week.
1. Be 1000% sure that medicine is what you want to do.
...and make sure that you've completed #7 so that you are making an informed decision. Please do not go into this profession if you aren't completely and utterly sure that this is what you want to do. You'll only end up hating yourself for it, and if you stay in the profession, everyone around you will hate you, too.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Question for Vitum: Should I take a MCAT course?
Despite the narrow topic of this post, hopefully it will be entertaining for those of my readers not even considering medicine, due to my random attempts at humourous comments throughout. Those who have taken the MCAT, well, post a comment with your experience.
Every so often I get a question from pre-med students, and here's another one. I've gotten it a few times, so in a combination of laziness (I don't want to have to repeat myself 100 times) and desperation for attention (by directing the asker here instead of e-mailing him back, this will get my blog 1 more hit) I figured I'd post my standard answer here, with aforementioned random attempts at humourous comments throughout.
Q: Should I take an MCAT review course?
- Scotty, my very capable pre-med buddy. I'm rooting for ya.
Ohhhhh the dreaded M-word. I hated the MCAT and am exceedingly glad that it is behind me. In the spirit of the cliché that putting together a medical school application is like a several-year process of 'jumping through the hoops' (GPA, reference letters, application, interview, extracurriculars, volunteering, additional items to make the application well-rounded)... the MCAT is one of the higher, slightly more intensely flaming hoops. I would much rather take a five-second polar bear swim in dilute hydrochloric acid and succumb to a quantity of international scorn and jeers such as Bush goes through in a day, then repeat that ordeal of studying, preparing, writing, waiting and waiting for results, and going through dehydration from my three-week-long cry session when my marks did arrive. (I didn't do that bad, actually, so I only had to take it once. Praise Allah.)
A bit of background, first. For those who aren't aware, companies such as Princeton Review and Kaplan have a business plan stemming from the incredibly brilliant idea that someone had one day: "I bet people pursuing their life dreams and ambitions would pay money for help." In that spirit of taking advantage of the vulnerable, they charge exorbiant amounts of money to help people who will do virtually anything to 'get in.'
(For those who really aren't aware, the MCAT stands for the 'Medical College Admissions Test' and is an 8-hour ordeal, usually preceeded by months of studying, testing your knowledge in general biology, chemistry, physics, organic chemistry, essay writing skills, and reading comprehension.)
Actually, test prep companies are not as bad as I just made them sound. Their courses are based on years of experience, they can indeed prepare you well, and in fact, on their websites they also have a lot of really good, free resources for admisison to many professions, which might give you an idea of what the application process is like or if it's right for you. For example, thanks to them, just now I was able to learn in 30 seconds that unlike the MCAT for med schools, for many law schools, an applicant's LSAT score accounts for over 50% of the admissions decision. There you go: something I didn't know before, but will be useful should I come to a career crisis in 2 or 20 years (unlikely. I'm happy where I am). The more you know.
So, my answer? Well, here's the short answer: In general, I'd recommend it and I'm glad I took one. But, it is expensive, so it depends.
That ambiguous response is unfortunately the best I can offer. Everything here on in will be basically serve to reiterate that. Sorry, but unlike scientific questions, there is no absolute, universal answer... okay, that was a little joke for people who are quite aware of the fact that there seem to be rarely any absolutes in scientific research (a hasty example: MedPage tells us that Aspirin is great for your heart by reducing heart attacks; a year later, the same source tells us it's bad for your heart by upping hypertension).
Back to MCAT courses: While I took the course and am glad that I did, whether or not you should take one depends on your personality type. Some people will benefit more than others. Let me explain: here are the reasons you might choose to take one.
Study motivation. Personally, I did take a Kaplan course before studying for the MCAT and felt it benefited me greatly. The general concensus of people in my class - which I agree with - is that a class is very helpful if you have trouble motivating yourself to study regularly. I do best with pressure to meet my study goals, so this aspect really helped for me. As well, if you can choose a course that starts several months before the actual MCAT, and then you'll be getting quality studying done well in advance.
Mock test experience. Second to that, the most valuable part of the course for me was the experience of writing several mock full-length MCATs in a large-group environment, in a huge classroom with a hundred or two other people, just like the real thing was going to be. Because it was full-length it got me in the groove of getting good rest the night before, packing a lunch, getting up early, and getting the timing down complete with breaks and the like. However, this might not be as big an advantage for you because the test is now going to be all online, rather than pen-and-paper like when I took it, so here I'm already dating myself. You might make fun of me for being that old, but hey, at least all my questions matched my passages (an error I've heard actually occured on a computer-based MCAT).
Resources. The question banks that these companies include with their courses are an asset in themselves. You get access to a huge amount of mock questions of varying difficulty just like you'll find on the actual test, which they write themselves based on the AAMC mock questions. In fact, you can imagine how far my jaw dropped when I opened my actual MCAT booklet and saw that the first question was on a topic that I'd seen a few times in the practice tests, with IDENTICAL diagrams (the questions were slightly different, though one or two were identical as well). A moment likes that makes you feel like all that money handed to the test prep company was worth it.
Lectures. As well, if you're someone who learns a lot from lectures, then this will help you out a lot, because they have some decent (and some not-so-decent) lecturers on the major topics. I don't fall into this category, so instead, for me lectures were a good chance to review on my own and distract the serious learners while I chit-chatted with other pre-med applicants and looked up NHL playoff game scores on my cell phone. However, for being someone who doesn't do well in lectures, there were still some outstanding lecturers that I learned a lot from, and in fact, I still refer to the notes I took in those MCAT course lectures.
People. If you're a social butterfly, and aren't sick to death yet by being surrounded by other keener pre-med types, then that in itself might be another reason for you to take a course; you'll meet lots of people with similar goals and aspirations, always good for sharing stories / advice / seeking out a potential life partner. I still keep in touch with or randomly bump into people I met in my MCAT class; two of them are in the year ahead of me in my med school, and I saw another one who was applying for admission at my school this coming year. Then again, the people might be just the reason you choose not to take an MCAT course. See my friend's quotes below.
Aside from my lengthy answer, you might be thinking, what do other med students think? Look how helpful I am: just for you, I actually asked a few people in my class who happened to be on MSN right now. They all had different answers:
So, if by now you think the course is right for you, then this inevitable question will be brewing somewhere in your cranium:
- My friend the wink.
- My friend the little med student with a big heart (and mouth). (She chose that name herself).
- Kitty, my slacker friend.
- Annie, my friend who was too unoriginal to choose a nickname. Actually, maybe I shouldn't mock people who are helping me. Sorry Annie.
Which course should I take, Kaplan or Princeton Review?
Easy. All the people I know who took Kaplan say that Kaplan is the best (myself included), as opposed to the people who took Princeton Review. They say that Princeton Review is the best. I'll leave it at that.
For you? They both cost roughly the same. If they don't, find one which suits your budget the best. But obviously, most importantly, choose the one that fits your schedule best.
Final advice: Choose a course that starts well before your MCAT date. Despite the fact that you might want to get it over with quick like ripping off a bandaid, you'll probably find that more info sticks / you get to know how the test makers think better when you've been going over it for a few months as opposed to a few weeks.
Hope that helps. This was a hefty post, but I know that pre-meds usually don't complain about too much help. I also hope you didn't get lost in my answer full of random ADHD diversions. All the best as you tackle the MCAT giant for yourself, and remember, it's not that bad. Hopefully you come out alive.
