The Pre-Med Podcast

Episode 11: From MCAT to licensing - Overview of the entire medical education process. MCAT, First Year of Medical School, USMLE - and beyond... ==================================================== Announcements: Happy New Year! It's now been 9 months of podcasting and we have over 21,178 downloads. I'm very encouraged by your emails and support. In that short amount of time, hundreds of your questions have been answered and organized into a mindmap. With your help we put together a comprehensive, individualized PreMed coaching program. Visit www.PremedicalUniversity.com for more information. The PreMed CD of the month club now has a link on the right of MedicalMastery. There is room for 11 more people right now. First come, first serve. That link will only be available intermittently when seats are available. Live Teleclinics now available. Sign up for the free PreMed eBook on MedicalMastery.com and you'll also get email notification of upcoming teleclinics. Submit topics in the online survey "Grill the Guru". The Ebooks is 16 chapters emailed to you weekly with other, exclusive PreMed strategies and insider advice also. In total, you'll get over 3 months of PreMed email content that you can save, store, and search in your email service for years to come! DON'T DELETE the emails. ==================================================== Podcast topic The first teleclinic we did had a nice video slide that covered all the steps in the medical education process. The new website that will host the free teleclinics. After you've mapped out when you'll be finished with college and all of the prerequisites for medical school, the next available August would be your first potential entering month and year. Plan to take the Medical College Admissions Test the year before. You can successfully back-schedule from this date all of the necessary preparations so that you have time to do everything you need. The first year of medical school is perhaps the hardest of all. You will be forced to adopt different learning styles for different types of information on the fly. The focus is on how the body works normally. FIRST YEAR CLASSES: Biochemistry Cell development and tissue biology Community health Epidemiology / biostatistics Family medicine Gross anatomy Growth and development Health care policy Hematology Histology History of medicine Immunology Interviewing Introduction to clinical skills Medical ethics Molecular biology Physiology Preclinical electives Problem-based learning The second year is when you learn what goes wrong with human physiology. SECOND YEAR CLASSES: Addiction medicine General pathology Infectious disease Introduction to clinical medicine Microbiology Psychopathology Psychiatry Nutrition Neuroscience Pathophysiology Pharmacology Preclinical electives Problem-based learning Systemic pathology At the end of the second year, you take the United States Medical Licensing Exam, Step 1. This is the weightiest of the 4 USMLE exams as it affects which residency specialty you get into. The third year starts 2 years of clinical rotations. Often one month long, you spend time doing many of the specialties. THIRD YEAR ROTATIONS: Surgery Internal medicine Pediatrics Obstetrics and gynecology Psychiatry Primary Care The USMLE Step 2 Clinical Knowledge is taken before the end of medical school, as well as Step 3 Clinical Skills. The former is a computerized exam, the latter is an in-person, all day patient care simulation. The fourth year is the most relaxed of all. By this time, you already have the letters of recommendations you need for residency application and the 4th year elective grades don't matter as much as the USMLE Step 1 and basic science years' grades. Application for residency begins this year so some people have trouble choosing a specialty at this point because there isn't much time between 3rd year and ap

Episode 10: Part 2 of the interview with the second year medical student Celeste Whisenant. She answers all your questions from the Grill The Guru survey. ==================================================== This is Part 2 of a telephone interview with Celeste Whisenant, a second year medical student. She answers all the tough questions about what each year of medical school is like (at least year 1 & 2 that she knows about) and compares them to TV shows in some surprising ways. This interview is part of the Grill the Guru series, in which I ask questions directly from the survey on medicalmastery.com. Here is the rough outline of the questions I put together for this interview: ***Tell us about your self. "What school are you attending? How did you decide to attend that school over the other schools at which you were accepted?" (we'll have to explain the rank here) ***“What is med school really like? (as an ms1, ms2 etc.)” "What is the daily workload like? How much sleep do you get?" ***Is med school similar to what is shown on TV shows? (humor, the dating, drama, characters, hours, stress, family/home life) ***What do you know about D.O. schools, if anything? Enjoy and email me if you have any questions! ==================================================== Mission Statement “Medical Mastery seeks to podcast meaning into medical education by combining faith, high-quality lectures, and charity.”

Episode 9: Major changes to the way Texas medical schools accept their students. You have to know this or you could be missed! Interview with Celeste Whisenant, a second year medical student who almost learned this lesson the hard way! ==================================================== Topics in this podcast: Announcements Introduction of Celeste Whisenant - covered in the audio only The Dreaded Interviewer - covered in the audio only Current Strategy for the Medical School Match (Sign up for the Free eBook in the upper right and you will get access to photos of the ranking system online and learn exactly how to avoid the problem Celeste had.) ==================================================== Announcements: The CD of the Month Club now off the market. Live Webinar: get all your questions answered in one place - for FREE! December 2, 2008 at 6PM Central time. Sign up for the Free PreMed eBook on www.MedicalMastery.com and you'll get an email with login instructions in the days leading up to the seminar. ==================================================== Current Strategy For The Medical School Match: In 2007, a major change occurred in the way Texas medical schools choose their students, more in line with what's been done in the rest of the country. Prior to this change, students applied to the recommended 20-30 medical schools and waited for an interview. After interviewing at hopefully several places, students ranked their favorite schools (only those they interviewed at) electronically on a secure website. Then, the student just waited for "match" day in early February. Well, the game has changed and I want to give you some strategic tips on you should approach this for your best advantage. You still apply to the 20-30 schools and need to get an interview, which I have always felt is the biggest cut-off in the process. However, now it really has become a race to get absolutely the earliest interviews possible, especially if you really have a favorite medical school you want. See, once the medical schools have met you at the interview they can send you an "Early Offer" giving you 2 weeks to go ahead and accept a position at that school. These offers are independent of any other interviews you may have scheduled. For example, if you have an interview in October (one of the very first of the season) and the rest of yours are in December, the first school could send you an Early Offer. You have 2 weeks to accept it - before you've even interviewed at the other schools! If you say no and want to interview at the other schools, then that first school will include you in the electronic match (discussed in my Free eBook -sign up in the upper right). The strategy I want you to realize is that as soon as interviews start in October, seats are filling up all over the country. Students are grabbing up the first opportunity to secure a position. You should too. Do absolutely EVERYTHING possible to go to the earliest interview date offered to you. My recommendation is that the majority of applicants should accept the first offer they are given. The electronic match is now for the leftovers, those people that didn't get any offers or refused them. The ones that refused offers are either completely stellar students that had other offers on the table or didn't listen to this podcast. Don't decline your last Early Offer. Take what you can get. You'll thank me later. ==================================================== QUICK TIP: So, what can you do about these changes? Here's a checklist for you to follow: __ Ask for letters of recommendation by February or March at the latest. __ Submit your application to medical school during the FIRST WEEK they start accepting them. __ Fill out and mail or electronically submit all secondary applications to medical schools that require them. (Check each medical school's admissions website to download or read

Episode 8: Interview with Tyler Relph, a former PreMed, covering the meat and potaoes of medical career decisions that all of us face. The interesting twist is that he chose to go to Chiropractic school. Explore your options and listen now! ==================================================== ANNOUNCEMENT: I'm almost finished with my complete, A-Z, PreMedical video tutorial course! If you're not already one of the hundreds in the exclusive email list receiving chapters of my FREE PreMed eBook, sign up in the upper right of medicalmastery.com now. Very soon, only people who have signed up will get the details on this video course! ==================================================== This episode is the first in an interview series that was suggested by you - our listeners! Use the Grill The Guru survey on medicalmastery.com to submit your questions for future medical students and doctors I will interview. Now, we'll get right to the interview with Tyler Relph - a former PreMed tells us why he changed his mind. To hear the rest of this interview, join the CD Club online today! Here is what he wrote and what we used as the outline for the interview. That is, until he turned the table at the end... “I grew up playing soccer competitively, so the sports emphasis has always drawn me. When I was considering medical school, I was planning on going into orthopedic surgery followed up with a sports medicine fellowship. I wasn't too concerned with the schooling I would go through, however the thing that made me call of my medical degree pursuit was the lengthy residency in conjunction with the 80 hour work week. 1. FAMILY - I'm married and have three children (3, 2, and a NB) If I were to go through medical school, I wouldn't be an MD for 6-7 years (one year to finish up my bachelors, one year to finish up my prerequisites/ apply for med school, and four years of medical school). At that point my children will be 9, 8 and 6...then I start into my 80 hour work week as I venture into 3-7 years of residency (surgical specialty of some sort). Therefore, I wouldn't be starting my practice until my oldest is 16. Through this possibly 13 year schooling journey, I believe I would miss out on my children's lives too much to the point that it would affect them in a negative manner. I also have to consider time to continue to build into my marriage - to achieve my educational goals at the cost of my family is no success at all! 2. PAST EXPERIENCE - I have benefited from chiropractors immensely as I previously twisted my sacrum bad enough that I could barely walk. After seeing a chiropractor for about a year, I was able to join the military (i.e. all of the physical demands put on the body through physical fitness) and have no problems with my sacrum. 3. LIFESTYLE - Once again...it all boils down to family. I want to be able to be at home every night to ask the kids how their days were without the interruption of having to be called in. I can set my own hours - providing a two hour lunch break to be able to eat lunch with my wife and continue to build up that relationship. The money has very promising rewards - you work hard, the money will follow. Being my own boss and, if in a team practice, making the decisions with my fellow practicing chiropractors is "complete" freedom. 4. DURATION - The number of years of training - this brings me back to point one. By the time I am done with chiropractic school (with no residency of 80 hours a week), I will be thirty, at which point my oldest will be 8. This allows me to be entering into my practice when the children are still young, being able to nurture those relationships as the teen years begin to approach. I will be attending Palmer West where a sports emphasis is available, in which students get to practice on professional athletes (currently the sports council is attending the Ironman competitions in Kona, HI providing chiropractic assistance to the competi